Traveling the world and capturing the moments can be fulfilling. This does not always translate to money in many cases though. In some cases, it may even cost a lot of money. If you genuinely love traveling and travel photography, here are several ways to make money from your travel photography.

Ways to Make Money from Traveling: Become a Personal Travel Photographer!

There are several ways to make money from your travel photography. I will focus on the key money-making areas that are most effective and have the most potential for future passive income. The importance of increasing your income is paramount. One hobby of mine is traveling and photography is a great way to pair increasing my income together. There are several ways to increase your income without working more and to me, travel photography feels like one of them.

My favorite forms of passive income are credit card churning and travel photography. Pairing those two together, it makes me feel like I’m getting paid to travel. Not only that these are both hobbies of mine. Travel photography could be classified as hobby income, which will help for tax purposes.

I love to make more money online without investment. With travel photography, you can get started without investment by using your iPhone to take photos. Once you have built up a strong portfolio of travel photography, you can invest in a professional camera and start earning more money online! This is why travel photography is one of my favorite passive income ideas.

Once you purchase a professional camera, it is all about growing your brand and reputation.

How to Become a Professional Travel Photographer

Becoming a professional travel photographer takes some time. Just like anything else, you need to build a reputation and a following for your craft. Photography is pretty competitive and sadly, your photos alone won’t sell themselves. The quality definitely does help, but it won’t be the entire thing that will separate you from the pack. At first, you need to market yourself.

If you want to become a professional travel photographer, you must be devoted to the long haul and invest some money upfront to build a portfolio.

Here is how to become a professional photographer over time:

1. Start small with a basic camera and website
2. Market your website and build a following on social media
3. Take e-courses or courses in person about how to become a better photographer
4. Market yourself to various travel blogs or travel websites about your services
5. Upgrade your camera to be more sophisticated and better technology
6. Land your first client!

Becoming a personal travel photographer is another great option. With sites like Airbnb now, you can literally market yourself to sell ‘experiences’ which would include attending other peoples travel experiences and take photos of them.

Favorite Ways to Make Money from Your Travel Photography

If you genuinely love traveling and travel photography (like me), here are some of my favorite ways to make money from your travel photography.

1. Set up a photography website
2. Take advantage of social media
3. Blog about your travel and photography
4. Create interesting prints on t-shirts and other items from your photographs
5. Teach photography
6. Post on websites such as 500px, Getty Images
7. Direct sale to clients
8. Become a personal travel photographer

Let’s get into ways to make money as a travel photographer.

Set Up a Travel Photography Website

It goes without saying that the first thing you will want to do as a travel photographer is to set up a website. On your website, you may upload photos that capture the essence of your travel and caption them captivatingly. To make your travel photography website successful, you need to define a niche. If your travel involves capturing cultures and food from different areas, then making this the most prominent feature on your website would be valuable.

When capturing the cultures and the daily lives of people, it is important to capture important moment in their lives. Moments that show their creativity or resilience. Most travel photographers sometimes fall for the ‘poverty porn’ trap.

In my opinion, this kind of photography devalues the lives of the people photographed and reduces them to their struggles. Avoiding this can mean more traffic to your website because the photos will be unique, exciting and full of life.

Take Advantage of Social Media

A combination of the website and social media can be good way to boost your income from travel photography. Instagram is the most recommended social media site for people who enjoy photography. Instagram is easy to use and if your photographs are captivating, then gaining followers from the site will be easy. To make sure that the right audience follows you on Instagram, you need to use the proper hashtags for Instagram.

Different hashtags trend at different times. Always be sure to include a hashtag of the place the photo is from and the item in the photo. Adding your location to photographs can also make it easier for people to locate them.

On social media, my advice would be that you post only samples of your photographs and then redirect people to your website where the main photographs are.

Blog about Your Travel Photography and Travel Experiences

If you are good at writing, then blogging about your photography may also be a good way to increase your income. Blogs usually earn income in a number of ways. One of the ways is the use of subscription services.

You may set up your blog in a way such that some of the content is premium and people have to pay a certain amount a month or a year so that they view the content.

While this is not likely to kick off immediately, it would be a good way to make money from your photography once it kicks off. Another main way that people use to make money from blogs is the use of advertisements.

Here, you would need to encourage engagement from your readers and also make sure to engage with them. Advertisers impressed with the activity on your blog or website may then contact you desiring to pay you to advertise their products on your blog or website. You may also make videos and post them on channels such as YouTube in addition to blogging.

They should be about your travel and photography. It increases the chances of engaging with different people and consequently earning more from your photography. This is one of the more time-consuming ways to make money from your travel photography.

Create Interesting Prints on T-shirts and Other Items from Your Travel Photography

This would require a bit of creativity and decision making on your part. You may also have to invest and make sure you learn how to do some of the printing on your own. Based on your travel photographs, you can choose the ones that would make good impressions. You may create collectibles from these photographs. You may also print t-shirts and set up a place to sell them online.

Other ideas here include making mugs, creating tinier photographs for jewelry. This is one of the most creative ways to earn money from your travel photography.

Teaching People About Travel Photography

Teaching people can take a number of forms. For example, you could set up courses on sites like Udemy and take people through them. On these courses, you can cover the basics of photography. Additionally, you can also advise people on the best ways to capture the moments as they travel along. Teaching may also be done offline in your local area, if you have the time.

One thing to note about teaching is that teaching may be a different set of skills from the photography itself. If you are not particularly talented in teaching, you may have to get some training on how to teach effectively. If you are good at it and have taught something before, then this will be an easy way to increase your income from travel photography.

Post Your Travel Photographs on Websites such as 500px, Getty Images 

There are several sites out there that act as a solid platform to post your travel photography. People will purchase your travel photography and the site will earn a commission. These platforms already have a built-up audience for you and allow for you to generate some stable income. Additionally, your photos do not need to be stock photos. They can be just your ordinary travel photos.

Some of the best travel photography websites include:

• 500px
• Getty Images
• Shutterstock 

Direct Travel Photography Sales to Clients

The final method I would recommend to earn from travel photography is selling photos from your adventures to people who may then use them for their brands. Using all the other means listed above, you may find decent clients willing to invest their money into the photographs. Making them choose the best photographs from a group means that they will be satisfied with their choices. Some clients have regular needs and will keep coming back for photographs. This would mean regular income throughout the year.

Become a Personal Travel Photographer

By becoming a personal travel photographer, you open the doors to in-person opportunities for clients in your hometown or even on the road. With the rise of social media and people wanting higher quality photos to share to their friends, personal travel photographers have made some great money doing in-person photoshoots. Use a site like Airbnb to create an experience that includes being someone’s personal travel photographer for the day.

You can market yourself using a number of different sites:

1. Fiverr
2. Airbnb
3. Craigslist
4. Thumbtack
5. TaskRabbit

There are a ton of other sites to use. Once you build a foundation of clients and a reputation, leverage that into other opportunities for your travel photography goals. If you are a freelancer or digital nomad, you can leverage being a personal travel photographer for extended stays in cities.

Make money as a personal travel photographer.

For example, you are living in Barcelona for a few months! Why not photo shoot with a few clients during the day? Then, you can get a few shots of the city along the way.

Becoming a Travel Photographer Conclusion

It is clear that travel photography may be a good way to earn extra income. Still, you would need to be creative about it since it is not very easy. Depending on your location, you may even think of other creative ways to make use of your photographs and photography skills and make money while doing it.

• Earning from travels is always a good thing since traveling tends to take up much of the income that people have. Any additional travel photography sales are usually reinvested into my dividend income portfolio. My dividend income portfolio has been a great way to increase my income without working more.

What are your favorite ways to make money from your travel photography? Have you made money online without investment? What are you ways to make money from your travel photography? Let us know in the comments.

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