If you’ve read our previous blog posts or follow us on social media, you are aware of our passion for blogging. Although I never thought I would say this, I genuinely can’t think of a finer job than the one I currently hold. Nevertheless, we frequently receive the following query in the comments area and in our inbox:
“What made you decide to pursue travel blogging over other remote work opportunities?”
In actuality, there are multiple responses to this query.
We decided to blog for a living for a variety of reasons. I’ll outline some of the primary factors that influenced our decision to become bloggers in this post.
These are the explanations for our decision to keep blogging and the likelihood that we won’t be stopping anytime soon.
The Liberty
Since we left Canada in 2008 after quitting our employment, freedom has been our ultimate desire in life. The essence of this lifestyle is flexibility in our schedules, which is, to be honest, the primary reason we chose travel blogging over all other options.
The Ability To Select Our Own Hours
Dariece and I have been working on the blog for roughly 15 to 20 hours every week as of this writing. Darice gets up an hour later than I do, so I usually get up about 7:30. We relax on our patio and have a cup of coffee.
The Freedom To Travel
No other job could possibly offer us the freedom to travel as much as we do as travel bloggers. Our job is to travel and, when we’re hired by tourism boards, hotels and brands, we’re literally paid to travel.
We’re either working and travelling simultaneously, or, we actually take time off of our computers and enjoy digital detoxes. We’ve been offline for 3 – 4 months in some years. Compared to our 10 days holiday time per year in Canada, this is the way to live.
The Freedom To Travel
No other job could possibly offer us the freedom to travel as much as we do as travel bloggers. Our job is to travel and, when we’re hired by tourism boards, hotels and brands, we’re literally paid to travel.
We’re either working and travelling simultaneously, or, we actually take time off of our computers and enjoy digital detoxes. We’ve been offline for 3 – 4 months in some years. Compared to our 10 days holiday time per year in Canada, this is the way to live.
Propping your computer on your lap while swinging in a hammock or while lounging in a beach chair is a major perk of this job. While I don’t think it’s always as glamorous as Instagram makes it look (you can’t see your screen in direct sunlight!), remote offices can be peaceful, blissful and beautiful.
Building Something That’s Ours
One of the things I love about this job is that every hour we put into our blog is an hour spent building something that we own. The more we tend to and nurture our website, the more it evolves and will provide for us.
Instead of simply working overtime for somebody else’s gain (and in Dariece’s case on a monthly salary, working overtime for no extra pay), we feel that every minute we spend on our blog is time that will be paid back to us — whether in the form of money, brand recognition, partnerships, or building up our community.
Appreciating Returns
We sold our house in 2008, so we no longer own any property. But our blog is like a real estate investment.
There’s a reason they call a domain (www.__.com) a “web property”. Like a physical real estate property, their equity grows over time and just like a house you have to maintain it, but if you do, then your return on investment can be massive.
There are a few ways that blogs manage to become more and more valuable over time.
Domain Age
Google loves sites that have been around for a long time and actually gives them preference in search results. This means that the longer you have your blog, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to get traffic to it and monetize that traffic to make money.
Even if you don’t consistently work on your blog, the domain age will be a ranking factor in Google and you can grow your traffic quicker when you’ve had your domain for a long time.
More Posts = More Traffic = More Revenue
This is a very vague formula, but basically if you’re writing a post or more per week on your blog, then over the years you’ll end up having a lot of blog posts.
The more blog posts you have, the more chance you’ll have of showing up in Google search results. If you show up in Google, you’ll get more traffic and that traffic can then be translated into revenue through on-page advertising, affiliate marketing and other methods.
Selling Your Blog
If you run a blog for a long time and consistently create content (blog posts) for it, then most likely a lot of other websites will have linked to you over the years. This will boost your Domain Authority (DA), which basically means that your website is worth more for perspective buyers.
There are groups and communities online dedicated to buying and selling domains, and it’s not hard to sell a blog that has been around for a long time and has a decent DA.
It’s a Job We Can Do in Retirement
My family (and some of our readers) always ask what we’re going to do about retirement. This question always baffles because it’s kind of a two-pronged inquiry. On one hand, it’s implying that I can’t blog when I’m 65+, and on the other hand it’s implying that we’re not putting anything away for retirement.
I actually think that blogging is the perfect job for retirement. It’s creating content around something you already love, perfect for filling time in the day and expanding on your retirement hobbies. We have SO MANY retirees in our Beginner Blogger Course and I think that’s because they realize how perfect the job is for retirement.