November 18, 2015

A Million Website Views a Year - Cornering the Uncornered Market

56 minutes

If you think traveling the globe has to be all about scraping by on meagre savings and sleeping on dirt floors – think again. There are many travel bloggers who have built very successful businesses from their adventures and today you’re going to meet one of the most successful.

US citizens Audrey Scott and Daniel Noll first hit the road in 2002 living in Prague, Czech Republic while working corporate jobs. After 5 years they decided they needed some adventure and in 2006 hit the road on a journey which, given the savings they had, was expected to last around 12 to 18 months.

They were amongst the earliest travel bloggers out there and realized after a period of time that there were people interested in their story beyond family members. With an ever growing following they worked on their website and blog to the extent that it now provides them with an income through sponsored arrangements and leads through speaking engagements including Ted Talks they have given.

If you want to learn more about their travels and how they have successfully built a thriving travel business from their journey you can check out their resources at http://uncorneredmarket.com/world-travel-resources or see them speak at the TBEX Dublin travel conference

What I learned from speaking with Audrey and Dan:

It’s possible to have a travel lifestyle on steroids. These guys now get well over 1 million website views per annum aside from their various social media and You Tube hits. They have given Ted Talks and are regularly asked to speak at some of the largest travel conferences around. There is a whole industry out there which is bigger than most people realize – it was especially interesting to hear the dynamics of the travel conferences, who goes, and what gets discussed.

It might sound like the good life but there is a point where hitting the road permanently can seem too much. Audrey and Dan hit this around the 5 year mark, as have many of their traveling friends, and hence their decision to settle in Berlin for around 6 months of each year, giving them the chance to nest again. If you decide to hit the road make sure you have a landing plan should you decide you want to set up roots somewhere, at least for part of the year.

As exciting as it is to be paid to do what you love it can be difficult finding a break between lifestyle and earning a living when you make your money from reporting how you live. Audrey and Dan have to try and segment their time and have experiences that they don’t feel obliged to blog about. It’s important to have clear distinctions between “work “travel and pleasure for the sake of your own enjoyment.

It was interesting to hear their approach to writing a travel blog. They have replaced quantity with quality, reducing their number of articles down from 10-15 per month to around 2-4. The articles are longer however and tell more of a story which was a consistent theme they spoke about during their interview. It’s not unusual to find them doing 10-15 redrafts of their posts – something that would shock most bloggers, but it’s a reflection of the quality that they want to put into their articles – not only for readers but for sponsors who they promote.

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