226. Is Travel Blogging Dead? How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger with Michelle Jensen

I love that you're so transparent, especially around your numbers as a travel blogger.

I follow you very closely on Threads, and it's always really interesting to see the numbers, what happened at the end of the month, and you give us a behind-the-scenes look, which I really appreciate.

So before we even get to all of that, take us back to the beginning.

Share with us the first time that you earned $100 from Travel Her Story, and, like, how long did it actually take you to get to that $100 point?

Yeah, so the $100 kind of snuck up on me, so I don't actually have, like, a specific date because to throw us back to 2013, I started a travel blog when I was working in TV, and I had a job basically, like if something didn't break, I didn't have a whole lot to do.

And somebody I had known in high school was like, "I'm gonna try this blogging thing," and I was like, "I don't know what this is." And anybody who wasn't around in that year, blogging back then was like lifestyle.

You could put up, like, your sangria recipe, your outfit of the day, or your vacation.

Like, it was just everything.

So I just kinda started throwing up everything without knowing anything about [laughs] blogging.

I think back on some of those posts, and they're like, "Day four road trip." Like, who's googling that? Nobody.

So I didn't make money for like years, and then COVID hit, and I kinda had started back up again for like after COVID, and then I kind of completely dropped it because obviously none of us were going anywhere.

And then it was, I left my tech job after being in TV for 14 years.

I was in a tech job for a little while, and I left the tech job, and I met somebody who encouraged me to get back into it, and he was like...

I was like, "I never really made money on this thing.

I have it, but I don't..." And he was like, "Well, at least try to, like, make what you're spending on it 'cause you have to pay hosting fees, and if you're paying for a theme and, and certain amount of money you are spending just having a website." So he's like, "At least try to get that.

You know, like, don't go in the negative." And I was like, "Yeah, okay." So I had nothing else to do 'cause I was unemployed.

So I started back on it, and I was like, "Oh, I'm making money." And I, I realized I was making money in drips and drabs, but when it's across different platforms, you don't kinda like add it up totally until, uh, to bring it back to Threads, I saw so many posts, like the exact layout I basically, I do for my like how much I make every month, and I was like, "Oh, that'll be fun." Like, you know, it was more for me to be like, "Okay, like, let's keep some record of what's happening, and like maybe it will encourage somebody else." And then I was like, "Oh, I actually made a few hundred dollars.

[laughs] Like, this is great." So I don't know the exact moment.

It was more kind of just like sporadically like-Learning enough to, like, actually get people in the door because I had, like, obviously not negative traffic, but, like, I had nothing before I was actually taking it seriously.

I love that because if you asked me the same question, I'd be like, "I don't know, 2019 sometime.

Who knows? I don't remember." But I do remember, like, moments and pockets of stress when I was stressed out about the money and finances, so that, I think that is more clear for me.

But I really love that.

I love in your story that it's not an overnight success, right? It takes time to build, to grow, but when, I feel like when the engine gets turned on and we're strategic, things happen a lot faster.

So what changed for you when you actually started making money with your travel blog? Is it the mindset? Is it the systems? Is it how you spent your time or how much time you were spending on your blog? Like, what changed as a result of making money?