What It’s Actually Like Being a Travel Writer

People assume travel writers spend their days lounging by infinity pools, getting paid to publish photos. The reality is significantly less glamorous.

I've been writing about travel professionally for 12 years. Here's what the job actually looks like.

You are mostly writing, not traveling

The math: for every week I spend traveling, I spend three weeks at a desk writing about it.

A 10-day trip to Italy might produce a 7-day itinerary article, two destination guides, four restaurant reviews, a hotel piece, two photo galleries, and a "what to pack" article. That's 4-6 weeks of writing.

So if you imagine my year, it's: 10-12 weeks traveling, 30+ weeks writing at home, the rest doing admin, pitches, edits, and trying to convince clients to pay invoices.

The money is worse than you think

I've earned $4,000 to $9,000 per month over the last 5 years. That sounds good until you remember I'm paying for my own travel insurance, healthcare, retirement, and that I get paid 30-90 days after each invoice.

Some months I make $9,500. Other months I make $2,800. Travel writing is feast-or-famine. The good months feel great. The bad months keep you up at night.

Travel bloggers who claim to make $20k/month are either (a) selling courses about how to be a travel blogger, which is where the money actually is, (b) sponsored content publishers (basically advertising in disguise), or (c) exaggerating.

The 10 travel writers I personally know best earn between $30,000 and $90,000 USD per year. The average is closer to the lower end. Most of us would earn more if we did almost any other writing.

"Press trips" are work, not vacation

The press trip is a tourism board or hotel chain bringing journalists to their destination, all expenses paid, in exchange for coverage.

Sounds great. The reality: you're on a tight schedule (8-12 hours per day of scheduled activities), you don't choose what you see, you eat at restaurants chosen for press appeal not authenticity, you're constantly on with a group of other journalists, and you have to deliver coverage afterward.

I've done about 40 press trips. I've enjoyed maybe 8 of them. The rest were exhausting work disguised as vacation.

The trade-offs are real

Pros of being a travel writer:

• You see places most people don't (some)
• You meet incredible people
• You build a portfolio of stories and experiences
• You learn that travel can be transformative
• You have an interesting answer to "what do you do?"
• You can sometimes write off your travel as a business expense

Cons of being a travel writer:

• Your income is unstable
• Your healthcare is uncertain
• Your relationships with people back home are constantly tested by your absence
• You can't really put down roots anywhere
• Romantic relationships are extremely difficult
• Your friends back home eventually grow distant
• You're always on deadline
• The job has gotten harder as the industry contracts (newsroom layoffs, AI competition)

The AI question

Yes, AI is changing this industry. I've watched four travel publications lay off their staff writers in the last 18 months. The articles they used to commission from me at $300-500 are now being generated by ChatGPT for $0.

What still works for human writers: actual reporting (going somewhere, talking to people, having opinions), distinctive voice, breaking news, specialized knowledge (niche destinations, complex travel topics).

What's dying: generic destination guides ("Top 10 Things to Do in Paris"), basic itineraries, listicle content. AI generates these adequately for free. Nobody is paying humans to write them anymore.

If you want to be a travel writer in 2026, you need to either have something specific (deep expertise in one region, an unusual angle, a strong voice) or run your own publication. Working for legacy travel media is becoming untenable.

How I actually make money now

This breakdown shifted dramatically in the last 3 years:

• 2018-2022: 80% from publications, 20% from my own blog
• 2023: 50% publications, 50% own blog (with affiliates)
• 2024-2025: 30% publications, 60% own publication (Packzup), 10% consulting

The shift was driven by both publication contractions and AI. Travel writers who haven't built their own audience are struggling. Those of us with our own platforms are doing okay.

The advice I'd give someone considering this

Don't quit your stable job to become a travel writer. The market is too competitive and the income too unpredictable for that to work for most people.

Instead: start writing now, with your stable job intact. Build a portfolio. Get a few small bylines. Build an audience around a specific niche. After 2-3 years of part-time travel writing, you'll know if it's something you can scale up. Most people will learn it's not for them. The 5-10% who can scale it will do so without the income shock.

If you do quit and go full-time: have 12 months of expenses saved. Plan for income to be 60% of your previous salary the first year. Build your own publication or audience alongside writing for others.

Would I do it again?

Mostly yes. I've been to 64 countries. I've written about places I never would have otherwise visited. I've built skills that have value beyond travel writing.

But I'd tell a younger version of me to start the personal publication 5 years earlier and not rely on legacy media income. The publishing world I broke into in 2013 doesn't exist anymore. Those of us who built our own platforms early have been buffered by that decision.

The next 5 years of travel writing will reward independents. Centralized publications are continuing to shrink. Newsletter and blog operations are growing. The job hasn't gone away — it's just consolidating to people who own their distribution.