This year has seen one of my greatest dreams come to fruition: I became a freelance travel writer. While I’ve been writing about travel for many, many years, this year was the first time I had enough work (aka money) to do it full time. The stars aligned after I returned back to the UK from my travels. Two projects came through at the exact moment in time I needed it most. I’ve actually been making more money freelancing for myself, than at my last full-time job in the UK! This has been one of my greatest goals in life, and I’m so grateful for what’s happened in this chapter.

 

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A post shared by Maja Proescholdt | Travel Blogger (@awaywithmaja)

I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I did it – while yes, I was lucky to sign off on two big projects at the same time, I put in a crazy amount of hard work to make it happen. It is not enough to simply be a good writer, and travel. You have to have serious determination and grit to hustle as a freelancer, and there is no easy shortcut to “make it.” But I did want to share what my journey has been like! This has been one of the most exciting – albeit challenging – chapters of my career. So here you go: how I became a freelance travel writer!

I’ve worked tirelessly on my blog for nearly a decade.

Probably the biggest factor in this dream coming true is that I have been running this blog, Away With Maja, for over 9 years. I have over 600 articles on the site. This is a solid portfolio that demonstrates my writing style and abilities, plus my SEO skills. It’s great to write well about travel, but if you have nowhere to put it, editors won’t see your skills. I am so proud of this blog. It has been my baby for most of my adult life. I can’t tell you how many hours of work I’ve put into it, where I’ve had very little (or zero) ROI. But the passion is there, and my portfolio of blog posts is varied and strong.

I built up my portfolio over many years of hard work.

This is not an overnight success – I didn’t just wake up and say, “I’ll be a freelance travel writer now.” This is a goal that I’ve been working towards for years and years. I’ve always been on the hunt for travel writing opportunities; I got my first paid freelance writing gig back in 2019. Over the years, I built my portfolio with articles for different companies. Some of these I wrote for free, sadly that’s just the way of the writing world. But most of my pieces since 2023 have been paid commissions. I needed to show my writing skills outside of my own blog, so this work was crucial to achieving my goal of being an actual full-time freelance travel writer!

I trained my LinkedIn algorithm.

A lot of freelance work, and networking, happens on LinkedIn. But like any media platform with a newsfeed, there’s an algorithm that determines what content you’re shown. So, I trained my LinkedIn algorithm to show me what I wanted. I connected with people in my industry, and interacted with the types of posts I wanted to see. I liked and commented, I accepted connection requests, I focused on engaging with the content I wanted. Gradually, LinkedIn started showing me more relevant posts – more travel articles, more freelance job postings. This was really encouraging and useful in finding gigs to apply for!

I made an effort to post more on LinkedIn.

Even if it wasn’t a lot or always consistent, I tried to just show up more on the site. I just actually posted! I shared articles, I shared photos, I posted asking broad travel industry questions. This improved my engagement and impressions on the site, which all (maybe, I don’t have the stats to back this up!) helped me be seen by the people I wanted to see me. And it’s something I’ve continued to do – I try to post at least twice a week! (Follow me on LinkedIn if you’re interested!)

I joined a lot of freelance email newsletters.

There are a LOT of email newsletters for freelancers that share calls for pitches, gigs/jobs, etc. About a year or so ago, I signed up for a LOT of them. It meant having to sift through a number of emails, which was tedious. But every once in a while, there’d be something good that was the right fit for me, and I could send in a pitch or an application! You need to be FAST with these – if you see something you want, apply right away! Don’t wait! Several of the newsletters I now follow have switched to a paid version, or send out a free version at a far lower frequency than they used to. But it’s still been very helpful for me in my career. I think I’m signed up to between 8-10 newsletters now.

I got serious and organized about pitching, and pitched CONSTANTLY.

My new motto? ABP: Always Be Pitching. And I pitched a LOT. Even though I was ignored, ghosted, and rejected pretty much all of the time. Of course, there were some big wins when I did get a pitch accepted – like my Business Insider article! But overall, I was rejected so, so many times. I kept going though, and continued to pitch. I made a spreadsheet to start tracking my pitches – I highly recommend doing this, as it’s easy to see what pitches you need to follow up!

I applied for ALL the gigs.

Over time, it’s easy to create a solid bank of CVs and cover letters when applying for jobs en masse. After the first few applications, I had good templates that I could use, tweaking each one for the individual role or gig. This meant the application process took less time, so I had more motivation to apply for more jobs. My thought was, “if I apply for so many gigs, eventually I’ll have to get one just based on mathematical probability.” If there was a job or gig that looked like a good fit for me, I applied!

I never gave up.

It’s as simple as that. I just kept trying, and it all fell into place. In 2024, I started working in New Zealand. I realized very quickly that I simply didn’t have the same kind of time and freedom (working 40-50 hours/week for someone else) as I did when I was traveling around Australia. My blog simply wasn’t making me money. So, I decided to prioritize what I felt was the best ROI – growing my freelance career. I stepped back from my own blog, although I loved it, and spent my limited free time doing the above steps.

And I’m so glad I did, because it did pay off in the end. I had multiple browser tabs open with full-time jobs I thought I should apply for when this happened. But when I confirmed the second (major) gig in the middle of April, I realized I had actually done it. The money was there, I could be a real freelance travel writer! It wasn’t my original plan (just a dream), but I embraced what was before me and pivoted.

What have I done since becoming a freelance travel writer?

Well, I’ve managed to travel a lot and get some savings, after a crazy adventure over the past 2 years! All my work is remote – as long as I have wifi and a plug socket to charge my laptop, I can work from anywhere. So, I decided to housesit full-time, in order to save up some money. And money was desperately needed after the last few years of full-time travel, haha. (Interested in housesitting? Sign up to Trusted Housesitters with this link and get a 25% discount off your membership!)

I spent 3 weeks in Oxford, a month in Cardiff, 3 weeks in northern Scotland, and 3.5 weeks in Switzerland! I managed to buy a car, kit it out for camping, and am back to living life on the road in-between my housesits. The car was a huge financial hit – especially as I needed to spend ~£1300 on repairs within the first 3 weeks of having it, RIP – but worth it for the freedom and independence. I’ve also managed to actually save up money to have a savings account, which I’ll (hopefully) be using for a deposit/rent when I find a place to live in York.

It has been a huge challenge. Freelance life is often feast or famine. You don’t earn money unless you’re working. There’s no paid time off, there’s no option to slack off, and managing multiple deadlines and projects is exhausting. Constantly worrying about money, and playing a dance with my bank account as one of my projects pays monthly, was rough – I was down to £24.38 in my checking account for a week, waiting for that money to hit my account!

That being said, the perks of this career are SO real. Setting my own schedule, taking time off last minute because the weather is good, being able to work from anywhere, no manager breathing down my neck, overall freedom – it’s a dream. I really struggled with finding a balance between working a lot because the work was there and I needed the money (girl’s gotta eat!), and enjoying the benefits and freedom of this lifestyle. I’m so glad I had a week to travel around Scotland and the Lake District, almost work-free – it really helped reset my mindset.

What are my long-term career goals?

I have loved this chapter of my career. Although it’s only been a few months, it has been so rewarding and totally life-changing! But I never intended my career as a freelance travel writer to continue past August, when one of my major projects was finishing. And while I’ve loved traveling, housesitting full-time, and solidifying my finances a bit, I am also tired of living out a suitcase. I’m tired of being on the road, and I really want my own place to live. After 2.5 years, I’m ready to settle down a bit. And in order for me to afford a full-time place with crazy inflation, a massive cost of living crisis, and absolutely insane rent prices in York, I need a full-time job. So, I’ll be looking for something permanent and stable in the future!

This chapter has been such a whirlwind. It’s given me freedom and opportunities I would never have dreamed of, and confidence in my skills – and myself – that I am, truly, a good writer. This career didn’t happen by a stroke of luck; I hope this post shows that this is something I have been actively working towards for years. But timing and luck are also everything, and the gigs aligning at the same time was perfect for me. I’m excited for what’s next and where the road leads me!

Thanks for reading this post, and for supporting me in my goals and dreams over the years – I couldn’t have done it without my loyal blog readers!

You might also like my posts:

How I Maximized My Time Off Work to Travel in 2022

8 Years of Away With Maja: Blogging Reflections and Business Goals

What I Learned About Life Living Out of My Car

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