Travel Tramp: How I Travel The World Continuously

I’m Richard, I’m a Travel Blogger at www.travel-tramp.com and Co-Founder and Editor in Chief of Travel Continuously! I want to show you how you can travel the world continuously, and the best way to do that is to show you how I do it!

Here’s How I Travel The World Continuously!

I’d always wanted to travel, and I’d always wanted to write. My challenge, a never ending challenge, was to find a way to combine these two great passions of mine, travelling and writing, and importantly, to be able to make a viable income from these two passions. That was the goal, and that is what I am always striving for, to write and to travel the world continuously doing so.

At University I studied English Literature, and I worked relentlessly on the student newspaper. The only option I really saw then- now almost 5 years ago- was to work the traditional route. To work for the student newspaper, to work for smaller newspapers, or magazines, do internships, to work my ass off to someday, if I was lucky, get a shot at travel writing professionally for one of the big media names.

I didn’t realise just how saturated this route is

It wasn’t just hard work, but a lot of luck I would need, and I would never be working for myself. There had to be another way to travel and to write, to have a shot at the lifestyle I dreamed of on my terms and not for someone else.

That’s when I realised that I needed to get into the world of travel blogging. I could write what I wanted to, travel where I wanted to go, and ultimately, turn it into a way to fund my travels, and to live my dream of travel writing.

So I took the plunge, I saved up enough in my job as a travel agent, and learnt enough know how, to get on the road. I taught myself everything about blogging, I knew nothing about websites, or code, or wordpress or even how to really use a camera, I just knew that I could write a decent story, and that I needed someway to show the world that.

So I taught myself everything I could, much like Life Of Jord taught himself how to make videos and edit them, I learnt how to build a website, to use a camera more professionally, to write better articles and find better stories, and to keep travelling around the world, all the time.

This was it, I was going to be huge

But despite my early enthusiasm, success didn’t come over night. When I launched the blog, people didn’t flock to read my stories in their millions liked I’d dreamed. No. Blogging is a tough game. I didn’t even rank in Google for months.

And all this I had to learn.

I decided that I just needed to get on the road, and to start writing about it. Everyday was an improvement. I learnt more about creating websites- my website has gone through multiple designs over the last two years!- and about leveraging social media, about ranking in google, working Instagram, Facebook… The list goes on and on. I learnt more in the first year of travelling and blogging than I probably ever did in three years at University.

Still I wasn’t making any money

People were starting to visit the website, to follow my travels, to ask me for advice on destinations I’d been to. I realised that I needed to define my niche more, it’s a competitive world out there after all, and focus on bringing in a smaller but more interested audience, and I started travelling to more obscure locations- from Chernobyl to strange places most people have never even heard of- and it started to work. I started to build an audience and to really define what it was I was writing about, and where I was travelling to. And all of this only took a year…

It was a steep learning curve

A learning curve that seems to get steeper and steeper, but I persevered. I was lucky to enough savings to keep me travelling, so I just kept travelling and writing. Eventually, someone offered me $100 to put up an article, a sponsored post, for their company. I’d made it. At least, that’s what it felt like.

From then on, more offers came in intermittently. This could really work. Perseverance, and continual improvements, were the way forward. I realised then, a year into travel blogging, that this game would be a slow game, maybe the slowest of my life. This isn’t something that happens overnight. Like any business, you have to grow it, from the bottom up, making more and more gains, and in the end you can make money, but there’s a lot of work to put in along the way.

It wasn’t until this revelation, that I started to treat the blog like a business.

It was my business, I was my own boss, but it was down to me and me alone to make it a success

And everything began from there. I went on my first sponsored trip, a balloon ride in Cappadocia, Turkey- check that out HERE!- and at the same time was working with hotels and tour companies. I met more travellers, each working there own way, and was inspired the more I travelled and the more I wrote.

More opportunities came my way. I grew my audience, my rankings in Google, and my website. I attended my first travel conference- TBEX- in the Philippines, and got more sponsored gigs too, and more inspiration from other bloggers. I wrote articles for different newspapers, for different websites, more opportunities seemed to arriving all the time.

I realised I could do this.

But Travel Blogging can be an unpredictable enterprise

I was earning money, but still I was eating into my savings. I realised, over a year into my travels, that this really, truly was a long game that had to be played.

With my resources dwindling, I decided to go to Australia, to work and travel on the old Working Holiday Visa. It was a country I’d always wanted to explore, and the wages were good. I wasn’t going to work in an office though, no, I’d left that all behind. I was going to travel, to work here and there to supplement my income and most importantly, to keep on the road.

I was going to make a real experience of it

I would recommend the Working Holiday Visa to anyone- we’ll have more on the website here about that soon, as it really is one way to travel continuously!- but only if you use it to travel, and to really experience something new. There’s no point just working the same job you would back home.

Try something new.

So that’s what I did. I worked on farms, fish factories, roadhouses, and best of all in a National Park. I blogged along the way, road tripped, and persevered. And I saved money too. I could hit the road again, and write and blog all I wanted. The important thing is to see the world, and to take the opportunities that come my way. Travel has become my lifestyle now, I’ve been to over 60 countries, and writing about it is becoming my life too.

I’m travelling the world continuously

I still have a long way to go before my blog makes me rich. I’m getting there. I’m not shy to take other work along the way either. As long as I keep remembering what the ultimate goal is, and reminding myself that I will get there.

In a few years I will have multiple income streams. I’m diversifying. I have my own website, I’m working on the website you’re reading now with Life of Jord, I’m growing my own business, and have plans for books and more websites.

And ultimately, I’m travelling all the time.

And that’s the real fun.

Richard Collett

Remember to check out my website, www.travel-tramp.com for awesome off the beaten track destinations and adventures from the road!

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