Starting a Travel Vlog for Fun and Money

Even a couple of years ago, it was practically impossible to make money while traveling. Thanks to travel vlogging, a tribe of travelers today are able to do both at the same time — work and travel the world by visiting new places.

What is a Travel Vlog?

A travel vlog is a short video chronicling travels. Travel vloggers share their videos on social media to provide a glimpse into their travels.

In the last few years, travel vlogs have gained immense popularity. YouTube has played a key role in giving travel vloggers a platform to share their adventures and amass millions of followers.

Types of Travel Vlog Videos

From food videos to bungee jumping vlog, there are many types of travel business ideas for vlog videos. Many influencers around the world specialize in creating specific types of travel vlogs to entice their audience.

Travel Vlogs

Travel vlogs are blogs in video format. They don’t need to be perfect or professionally edited because they are meant to capture travels as realistically as possible.

Travel Guides

Travel guides provide helpful tips to interested travelers. In these videos, vloggers share guidance on things to do, how to plan trips and what to avoid when visiting new places.

Channel Marketing Videos

Behind every travel vlog is a vlogger sharing interesting content with the world. Channel marketing videos are about the people sharing their travel videos. These include an about me video to showcase the content creators.

Specialist Travel Videos

Many vloggers specialize in niche categories within the travel vlogging world. For example, some popular travel vloggers focus on food while some provide hotel reviews.

How do I Make Money Travel Vlogging?

Vlogging is a great way to make money while travelling. And if you do it properly, you can pursue it as a full-time job. Here’s how you can turn it into a career:

• Affiliate marketing: There are various affiliate marketing opportunities through hotel recommendations, books and Amazon products.
• Freelance writing projects: Once you start building your profile as a travel vlogger, you have an opportunity to share tips your viewers feel are valuable. You can use your reach to land freelance writing projects that pay quite well.
• YouTube videos: Most successful travel vloggers leverage YouTube to earn through advertising. To increase your income through YouTube, it is a good idea to post regularly and share your videos widely.
• eBooks: Another good idea worth exploring is travel guides and eBooks. You can cover a wide range of topics and as long as the information is useful, you will be able to find another source of income.

What do I Need to Start a Travel Vlog?

The best thing about travel vlogging is you need very little to get started. You can have complete control over what you want to share and you don’t have to follow a set process. As long as you’re passionate about traveling, you can find the story you want to tell.

• Find your story: This is the most important element of travel vlogging. There are many different directions to explore with travel vlogging. So, it’s important you find a story that you want to share with the world.
• Buy equipment: While you don’t have to make a big investment to buy equipment for vlogging, you should still have the right tools to get started. The first thing you need is a decent camera. LUMIX GX85 is a good option because it’s both sturdy and light. You should also consider buying a good microphone. The Rode VideoMic Pro is a good option.
• Start filming: Once you zero in on the story, don’t hold yourself back. Start filming and have fun. The first few attempts may not live up to the standards you are aiming for, but you will learn along the way.
• Learn editing: Since you want more people watching your vlog, you must make your videos user-friendly. This is where video editing becomes an important tool.
• Host your site: If you’re new to blogging, a simple WordPress interface is the best option for you to host your site.

Travel Vlog Platforms

Starting a travel vlog may seem like a lot of work, but it’s not as complicated as you might think. Vlogging platforms like YouTube have excellent features to help you get started.

• YouTube: YouTube is the world’s biggest video platform. It’s also the second largest search engine. Not surprisingly, YouTube is the most popular platform for travel vloggers all over the world. So, getting the right answers to how do YouTubers make money vlogging will get you on the right path.
• Tripoto: Tripoto is a global community for travelers. On this platform, you’ll be able to connect with fellow travel enthusiasts and grow your network over time.
• Tumblr: If you are new to vlogging and want to take small steps before diving in, you can start with Tumblr. It has a simple enough interface, but lacks customization and plugins.
• WordPress: WordPress is most preferred for building websites. It comes with host of plugins and additional features to customize your site. You can optimize it improve your ranking and drive traffic.
• Wix: Wix is another option for you to host your vlogging website. It’s a user-friendly platform but lacks the customization features of WordPress.

Starting a Travel Vlog with YouTube Videos

Thanks to its reach and popularity, YouTube is the best platform to launch your travel vlog. Before you start thinking of growing your subscriber base, there are some things you must keep in mind.

Here are 11 hugely effective steps that will help you get the most out of your video clips.

1. Decide on Your Niche

Travel vlogging has become an increasingly competitive space, with a large number of vloggers creating content regularly. To be successful, you need to ensure your vlog stands out. To be able to do that, you need to figure out what makes you passionate about traveling. Do you enjoy traveling because you get to try different cuisines? Or do you like to explore new arts and culture when you visit a different place?

Popular travel vloggers like Mark Wiens and GrrrlTraveler have amassed a large number of subscribers because they specialize in their niche. Mark specializes in showcasing different cuisines while he’s traveling while GrrrlTraveler provides great tips on solo travel for women.

2. Look at the Competition

Because it’s a competitive space, you need to keep an eye out on other vloggers with a similar focus. This is important because you’ll be able to find a unique theme for your vlog. Checking other travel vlogs can also help you stay on top of new trends and get inspiration for making videos.

3. Acquire Travel Vlogger Equipment

As mentioned before, you don’t need a lot to get started. But you must consider investing in some equipment that can help you create new videos. In addition to a light and sturdy camera, you should have a good microphone and some lens that can elevate the quality of your videos.

4. Choose a Topic For Your First Video

Your first video sets the scene for your travel channel and gives audience an insight into what to expect. As such it’s evergreen content that can help you connect with your future subscribers. Here are some tips on topics you may consider:

5. Start Filming

It can feel a bit odd and adrenaline rushing to begin filming your first vlog. The trick is to not to aim for perfection. Let the focus be on the great story you want to tell in the video when you start vlogging. You can always edit the video afterwards.

6. Edit Your YouTube Videos

Video editing is like putting different pieces of a puzzle together. Luckily, there are many editing software tools available to help you create great videos. Adobe Premiere and Final Cut are some of the most popular video editing software programs. You can also try Lightworks, which is free to use.

One way you can improve the quality of your travel video is by adding music. You can buy royalty-free music from Josh Woodward and Kevin MacLeod.

7. Optimize Your Videos for SEO

To start making money from vlogging, you need to ensure your videos reach your audience. This is where search engine optimization becomes crucial.

Title: The first thing you must optimize with the right keywords is the title of your video. Make sure the title makes sense when you add the keywords.

Description: The description bar in YouTube is designed to help content creators add relevant keywords and improve their SEO. Adding links to you blogs and other social media channels can come in handy here.

Keyword tags: Add your primary keyword and as many similar keywords as possible here.

Thumbnail image: Great video thumbnails can help you draw your audience to your vlog.

Advanced settings: Including additional details in the advanced settings is also useful to optimize your videos.

Subtitles and closed captions: While it may take more time to add subtitles and captions, YouTube recommends this to boost SEO.

8. Upload Videos to Your YouTube Channel

Once you are done editing your videos, you can start uploading them onto your YouTube channel. Before publishing your content, you may want to keep the videos private. That way, you will be able to make edits and add keywords.

Keeping videos private before publishing can also help you schedule them.

9. Share Your Videos on Other Social Networking Platforms

A simple yet highly effective way to amplify the reach of your vlogs is to share them on social media platforms. This is also important because some of our audience may not even be aware of your vlog unless you promote them on your social media accounts.

Some effective social media channels to use for vlog promotion are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

10. Build Your Travel Vlog Following

With unique content and search engine optimization, you’ll be able to start building your followers. There are also some other simple ways to attract more followers to your vlog.

• Create content consistently: Be serious about creating content, even if you don’t get too many followers early on.
• Encourage viewers to subscribe: Always ask your viewers to subscribe to your channel and give them enough reasons to do so.
• Create interesting thumbnails: An attractive thumbnail can make it easier for you to draw more people to your channel.
• Collaborate with other vloggers: By partnering with fellow travelers, you can amplify your reach and leverage their popularity.
• Engage with your audience: Successful vloggers excel at showing viewers who they are and why they are passionate about vlogging.
• Share teasers: Tell your audience what you’re going to share in your next video to ensure they keep coming back for more.

11. Be a Successful Travel Vlog Owner

To achieve success as a travel vlog owner requires you to spend time understanding what your subscribers are looking for in content. How much time are they spending on your videos? Are they leaving comments to share how they feel? These are just some of the questions you need to ask from time to time to create content that resonates with the audience.

But it’s not enough to just pay attention to the audience behavior. You must focus on using the insights to develop new content. For example, if you find a couple of similar videos fetch you higher views and likes, then you should try to create new content based on the same format.

Top Tips for Travel Vlogging Success

Although it’s a cluttered space, you can decode travel vlogging to achieve success. Here’s how:

• Brand yourself: Who are you and what’s your story? This is important for your audience to understand why they should pay attention to you and your vlog.
• Be Original: While you must keep a close eye on competition, you cannot stand out if you produce the same content. Find a unique hook to draw your audience.
• Don’t lose hope: It’s totally fine to not get millions of views when you’re starting out. Keep realistic goals and don’t let initial setbacks faze you.
• Create both long and short content: Short videos are quite useful for first time viewers to understand what your vlog is all about. Once they find your channel interesting, they won’t mind watching longer videos. That’s why, it’s important to create both long and short videos.
• Share regularly: Unless you post content regularly, you won’t have viewers who would want to come back for more.
• Understand social media and SEO: Spend some time to understand how social media and SEO can help you build your audience.
• Experiment: Whether it’s the video format or the way you engage with your subscribers, you should always experiment to see what’s working best for your channel.

What is the best camera for travel vlogging?

Sony ZV-1 is a great camera for travel vlogging. It is a compact camera with topnotch autofocus, making it the ideal option for travel vlogging.

How do I start a free travel vlog?

Here are some steps to create a free travel vlog:

• Create a free WordPress website
• Buy royalty-free music from Pixabay
• Edit your videos with Lightworks

Here are some free platforms to host your travel vlog:

• Facebook Live
• Insta Live
• Flickr
• Vimeo
• DailyMotion

Image: Depositphotos