The 5-Step Strategy That Lets You Work From Anywhere | 070

Going back to the corporate world kind of sounded really terrible. That started me into this whole world of like making money online. It allows a lot more lifestyle flexibility.

My guest today, Matt Kepnes, also known as Nomadic Matt, wrote the book How to Travel the World on $75 a Day. In this episode, he goes beyond that to reveal the proven system for actually getting paid to travel.

We think of like making money in travel as like you're going to get a free trip, right? The brand deal. But there's a lot of like other ways to make money.

The first step that you have here is create a what?

We gotta create a website. It's a place where people can find all your social channels, your email, your articles, your products. Your whole goal should be to get people to your website and to your email list so that when you have something important coming up in your life, you can hit them directly.

You're building on a really solid foundation. That means that when an algorithm change comes, we're like redecorating a room rather than redoing the entire foundation.

Yeah. So you really build your own brand and reputation, people will start going like, wow, I want to engage in that content more. And it's more sustainable. You cannot build a successful business in travel without—

You know, we're talking about how to get paid to travel in 2025. Like, that's how you stand out. Matt, so you and I met in probably what, 2015, something like that?

Thereabouts. I think around the World Domination Summit in Portland.

Yeah, that sounds right. So you've been traveling for as long as I've known you. At that point when we met, you've been traveling for 7 years already? 8.

8 years?

A long time. And you have had a lot of crazy experiences. I think I was trying to convince you to sign up for Kit and we were on probably a Skype call and you were in South America and I'm like, hey, you should migrate over.

I think I was in Argentina and I was like, I don't know, man. Sounds like a lot of work. And then you were like, "I'll do it for you." And I was like, "Sold." Yes, those things that worked in the early days.

But you've had all kinds of crazy travel experiences. You and I both went to the same show of the Eras Tour.

First one, Glendale.

Yep, exactly. These travel experiences that you've had, you've gone on to go to a few more Eras Tour shows. How many have you been to?

I went to 15 Eras Tour shows.

So when we were talking about the kind of lifestyle that you can have as a travel content creator. It's not just like, oh, I can go to Argentina or do these other things. You're like, no, I can dedicate a whole season of my life to the Eras Tour.

I mean, it was an era, you know? And, you know, you'd make trips out of it, right? Like, oh yeah, we went to Tokyo and that was in February, so we went skiing in Japan too. We went to Paris, so we spent a week in France, you know. I went to London. And so it wasn't like I flew over and flew back, you know?

Right. So I think anyone listening at this point is like, wait a second, okay, what, like how do you create this whole environment? And you've, we've got 5 steps mapped out that I'm super curious for us to dive into. What are some other opportunities that have come up for you, you know, over, over your life that you're like, okay, that was a really special moment that I wouldn't have had, you know, if I'd pursued a standard corporate gig or something else?

Yeah, I mean, so many. I mean, I started this journey, um, back in 2008 I started my blog, and back then, you know, it was Tim Ferriss and The 4-Hour Workweek, and, you know, uh, being like a location-independent person, and that was like new and weird, and people would ask me when I get a real job. But, you know, I lived in Bangkok for the first couple of years doing this. Um, I lived in Taiwan, um, I lived in Paris. Um, you know, I've been able to work from really anywhere. Um, and that's allowed me to experience a lot of like life and culture and, you know, adventures. And, you know, from when you, when I was, you were trying to convince me, you know, I was hiking Patagonia. But what's good about having sort of an online business is that even while I'm hiking Patagonia, you know, revenue is still coming in. And so, you know, you can sort of set yourself up to just sort of you know, have that passive income. I mean, it's not passive because it takes work to get there, but it allows a lot more lifestyle flexibility.

Well, I want to talk about your book, How to Travel the World on $75 a Day. There's two aspects of thinking about this. One is, okay, I need to save up enough money so that I can, you know, if I save up however many thousands of dollars, divide by $75, that's how many days I can travel. But then you're also talking about what we'll get into is this whole angle of like, okay, what if you were able to be making money as you go? And so that $75 a day could result in an, an infinite amount of time.

For sure. You know, when I started this, I saved $20,000 for my trip. Uh, it's about 50 bucks a day, which was the first title of this book.

Yeah.

Um, and when I decided I wanted to keep traveling because going back to the corporate world kind of sounded really terrible, I was like, well, what can I do to just make enough money to, to last one more day? And so I decided to start my blog to try to freelance travel, right? And write maybe a Lonely Planet guidebook or, or something, um, just to keep going. And so that started me into this whole world of like making money online and being location independent and being, you know, flexible. And, you know, I also taught English in Asia for a while. And so there's here in the States, like, I think it's more common now because we have so much more information. But back then, you know, it was like, oh, what are you going to do if you don't have a corporate job? And traveling overseas really showed me that like, oh wait, if my goal is just make more money to keep traveling, then I don't have to really worry about a career. So like, I can teach English for a bit. I can bartend in this country. I can do this. Like, there's a lot of options.

Yeah. So then as you're planning this out, or if someone's listening, they might think, okay, that works in, you know, 2008, maybe 2015, but in 2025, isn't, you know, I can hear an objection, right? Isn't the whole travel space completely saturated? You know, is there even an opportunity there to make money?

Yeah, I think people sort of get tunnel vision. 'Cause what ends up happening is you follow a lot of creators in this, a space. And so you think, oh, it's so saturated, look how many people I follow. But there's like 5 billion people online. Sometimes I come across creators that I have millions of followers, right, that I've never even heard of. They don't follow any of my friends, nobody I know follows them, but here they have built this empire, right? Because when you're online, you don't see a lot of stuff. Like if you walk down you know, the street in your town, you notice a new store, you see all the options you have. But online, you're so just in your own little bubble that you're going to miss a lot of what's out there. And so if you start your own thing, a lot of people might— who will find you might not have found anybody else. And so I think there's a lot more opportunity online because there's such a large potential audience pool.

I mean, exactly what you're saying, I run into all the time. Like, it is my job to map the creator economy, understand who's growing big audiences, you know, and all of that stuff. And probably every single week my team is like, oh, we just got a, you know, a meeting with this creator. We're gonna get them on Kit. And I'm like, okay. I'm like Googling to see who it is. And it's someone, they've got, you know, a million followers and this giant email list and all this. And I'm like, Oh, I have never heard of them because the space is so, so big.

It's so vast. And then when you think— when I started, it was like you had a blog and then that was it. You were a blogger or you were into YouTube. Now there's blogging, YouTube, Snapchatters, TikTokers, Instagrammers, podcasters, you know, Twitch streams. Like, there are people who make full-time living just running a Twitch channel. And so there's so much more opportunity and like avenues where you can, you know, sort of do this based on what your interests are and what your skill set is.

Okay, well, you've got 5 steps mapped out. I'm super curious what they are. So let's jump up to the board and you can walk through how we do this in 2025.

All right, let's do this.

All right, so how to get paid to travel in 2025. The first step that you have here is create a what?

We gotta create a website.

Okay.

Because you always want a place where people can come and find you. That's sort of your neighborhood store. You know, we get really caught up, you know, these days with social. And I know a lot of like big influencers who don't have a website. They just have their like Instagram.

Yeah, they've got Instagram going to a link in bio, right?

Yeah. And it's basically—

And there's maybe 3 or 4 links that come off of that.

Yeah, their website is like their beacons or link in bio. And Well, that's not really good because what's going to happen is someone's going to DM you, how do I find a cheap flight? And you have to kind of reinvent the wheel all the time. But if you send them to a link on your website, then you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just say, here's my link. But that link also has affiliate links. So when people click to your preferred booking company, you're getting your commission. And then, you know, it's a place where people can find all your social channels, your email, your articles, your products. You know, it's more visual. It ranks in Google. Link in bio is not going to do that. And so you really have to have your own storefront.

So the thing that you're saying is that's, I think, a bit controversial at this point, is in 2025, as a travel creator, you need a website in order to earn a living from this.

100%. You know, especially if you're creating products or, um, hosting events or what have you, people have to go somewhere to find that information.

So the kinds of things that we're putting on this website, you know, you talked about, uh, like guides and resources. What's something else that is really important that you'd expect to see on a travel site?

Guides, resources, um, like personal stories. A list of favorite companies. I guess that could be resources. It doesn't have to be really intense. Like, you don't need a lot of information. I mean, I have thousands of articles on my website, right? But I've been doing it for 16 years, right? You know, you just kind of need the basics. Like, I would have resources of like who you used to book, some stories about you so people can get to know you as a person. And then like Basic guides to like the big pictures, how to find a cheap flight, travel insurance, all like your personal take on the travel industry. And, you know, that could be all together, you know, 50 to 100 pages. And yeah, I mean, that's a pretty—

and you would start with really simple things. Once you have the website as a framework, you can start and say, oh, here's my guide to this one thing that I got asked about a bunch. It's not like you have to wait to launch the website until you have at least 6 guides and all this built out.

Yeah, you know, as you go, you're an about page, um, some resources and, and some guides. And as you travel, if you're like, oh, I'm a real expert on Japan, you could build a whole section on your website to Japan. You know, all this stuff is really great for search too. And even though, you know, that landscape is shifting, it still exists, right? Yeah.

Well, I think the personal stories are really important because In— if the world is saturated, then people are finding more and more niche creators who are like them or whose content resonates with them. And so, you know, let's say you're doing RV travel content, right? Like, I might care about entirely different content than my dad, who's actually a full-time RVer, right? And he's going to want to follow people like him who are retired, who are you know, doing these other things. And so diving into the personal stories, I might come into someone's guide on— I'm running with this example, like maybe how to purchase, like what kind of RV to purchase, right?

Right.

That might be a guide. But then I find a personal story of someone like me, I might really follow and subscribe.

Yeah, people follow people. Yeah, right. And you want to find people that have a similar outlook and interest to you so that if you are do you know, in the travel biz, you want someone like you who's done that experience, right? Your dad's needs are different than your needs. And so the personal stories can be like, oh, okay, this person gets my thinking. They're like me. They're not just like a, you know, generic content. And they all follow that person. I mean, there's a lot of creators whose content I don't follow. Great people, friends of mine, but they travel differently than me. They have different interests. So it's like I don't go to them for information because we have different vibes.

Yeah. Yeah. It's useful in a different way. Okay. I like it. So we've got the website, we're building that out. Start with something simple and then keep adding to it over time. What's number 2?

You got to have an email list, which I know is near and dear to your heart. Yes.

You know, why is an email list important?

And so this is a thing I see with a lot of like non-blogger creators is that they get so bent out of shape over algorithm changes. YouTube, right? And it's like you're building a platform on somebody else's property. You own the email list, right? Email is still king because even if nobody responds to every email, you see every email because we look at our inbox like 8 times a day. So I might get a ton of newsletters and maybe that week I'm just like, I got too much going on and just archive them or delete them, but they— I can see them sometimes. I'll click, you know, what's an algorithm on Instagram might see like 1%, you know.

And the thing is, there, if you on, on Instagram or TikTok, if you scroll past stuff and you don't engage with it, then it will go, oh, lesson learned, I won't show you things like that again, because it's trying to figure out like what specifically does Nathan want. Yeah, you know. And so in this case, you're like, no, no, I actually just was trying to scroll through and find that DM or that reel really quick. I wasn't trying to send a signal of like, no, I don't ever wanna see Matt's content again.

Yeah. I mean, like, if I don't interact with your stories for like 2 days, it's like, oh, you don't like Nathan's stuff, out. And then like, if I'm looking through my contacts, I'd be like, oh wow, I actually haven't seen like their stuff for a while. They must not use that. And you go and like, actually they're super active. Yeah. Um, and so a lot of the creators are like, oh, I hate the algorithm. You know, and it's like, well, do you have an email list? You know, I have a friend who has 900,000 Instagram followers. She's got like a 5,000-person email list. And I'm like, why don't you get people off? Your whole goal should be to get people from these social platforms to your website so you can make money converting them and to your email list so that when you have something important coming up in your life, maybe you launched a book, you're running tours, Kit is offering all your readers a promo. You can hit them directly. An email list is so important because it's such a valuable tool to get people directly to your stuff. And I think especially among new creators, I see they always don't think of it as important because they're always so focused on Instagram or YouTube and the content in the algorithm.

Because those, those bring distribution, right? Yeah. Like it's very hard to get people to a website or to grow an email list. And so I think people say like, oh, let me just chase the thing that feels easy. Like this reel started to get traction, you know, let me double down here. But then as you do this for a while, right? Like you've seen a lot of algorithm changes over the last 16 years, whether it's Google or every single social platform. And so I don't see you that fazed by them anymore. You're like, all right, that happened. Here's another one. You know, we'll tweak business strategy based on it. But because you've got this like trusted relationship with tons of customers.

These two things are the foundation to your house. You know, this is like you cannot build a successful business in travel, especially as when we talk about monetization without these two things.

Right.

Because you'll get so enraged over like every change that you're like, I built my whole business on this one platform and then it's gone. It's like, well, you should learn from all the Vine creators out there, right? They didn't have an email list. They had nothing, right?

Or I mean, we're in the middle of TikTok right now. Like it went away, it's back, it's probably staying, you know, who knows, right?

Yeah. I mean, I remember Facebook, right? Facebook was like, hey, we really want to promote pages. And they were like, buy Facebook ads for pages. Like really people spend so much money building up these like pages with like a million followers. And one day Zuck was just like, nah, you know, we're gonna move to something else now. And then you're like, all right, well, and now we're getting reach for pages is like half a percent. And you're like, yeah, onto the next, you know? So, but if you have this, there you go.

Right. The house analogy I think is really important, right? Because you're building on a really solid foundation. That means that when an algorithm change comes, if the house is your business model and your operations, we're like redecorating a room rather than redoing the entire foundation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that.

All right. Number 3, host—

Host webinars.

Okay. Host webinars. Give me an example of what one of these webinars would be.

Let's say you're an expert in RV travel. Yep. So you host a webinar explaining to people how to go through the process of getting an RV, setting yourself up for success, planning an RV trip, you know, pitfalls you have to look for.

You know, just the 10 biggest mistakes new RVers make.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so you can charge for those events. So they're a good way to bring in revenue. And then, you know, everyone signs up, they have an email, and afterwards you send them the recording as well as like links to your favorite companies, maybe articles you wrote. And so you can kind of get people on the back end for affiliates too. And we started doing these during COVID because we needed something new to do. So we started just hosting events and they've been really, really successful, you know, You can bring in $500, you can bring in $2,000. You can get an RV company to sponsor it for a whole bunch of money. And these can be a great way to do something unique and informative to people, right? That is a monetization stream. And again, that feeds into an email list, right? Because maybe you post on Instagram, you get like 10 clicks, right? And, you know, Instagram doesn't like you that day only because they really hate getting people off the site. So they only show it to like 1,000 people, you know, and you have 200,000. So, but your email, everyone saw that, right? So you're going to get a much better click-through rate and sign up through email.

Yeah, I like it. Okay, so those webinars, they could be free or paid.

It could be free or paid.

The paid ones, what would you like? What's kind of the price point?

I found like $10 is something people feel they're willing to pay for information for.

Okay.

You know, I think if you are charging more than that for just like, here's how to plan a trip, people don't really— they think it's a lot just for something they can get online for free. Right.

Now it's packaged up, $10, you know, an hour of time. There might be Q&A at the end where I can ask my specific question about, Hey, I'm planning this Japan trip. You filled in a bunch of the blanks for me. That makes sense. But also like, is this spot worth going to? And I just want to ask an expert.

Yeah. So it's like these, I do like 30 to 40 minutes of talking and then 20 minutes Q&A. And then I definitely tell people I record them because a lot of people are like, oh, I can't make that time.

It's the most common question.

Yeah.

Any online event.

Yeah, it's recorded.

Yep.

Just sign up. You will get the recording the next day and then along with, you know, valuable links. And, you know, when we do events, especially around ones that might be around a sponsored event, every company we've ever done it with has said they've seen a spike in our affiliate revenue following that event.

Okay, so then the— so the, those two options, right? You're saying basically if you do a free webinar, then you're finding—

yeah, we'll try to find a brand to sponsor it.

Yeah. So then in that, uh, what's an example of a brand— if we're running with a, you know, traveling to Japan as an example, what's a brand that might want to sponsor that?

The JR Pass, which is the rail pass for Japan, which actually did sponsor one of our events. You know, we do a lot with travel insurance companies, VPN companies, you know, around data Sure.

Yeah. VPN companies sponsor all kinds of things.

Yeah. Okay.

That makes sense. So then you're saying I'm going to be teaching you all of this content and then you might have 5 minutes or something in there that's specific to the brand that—

Yeah.

They're coming in an actionable way.

Right. And then in the follow-up email you're like, hey, don't forget to go to such and such company and sign up for this. But that link is an affiliate link. So I can see, literally check my affiliate sales where it's just a spike. And like, what's that spike? That's the day we sent out the email after the webinar.

Okay. One other really important point, whether this webinar is free or paid, is that we're capturing email addresses.

Yes.

Because we're going from, from social or wherever we're promoting this. You could be passing out cards to friends. I don't care. But then you're getting people to sign up and they'll end up on your email list. And so it's just one more path. To keep building that from, you know, 10 to 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 people.

And I've seen a lot more travel creators host webinars either around, you know, getting paid to travel or around destinations they're experts on.

Okay.

Because they can charge money for it. They can do it anywhere in the world. And then you build the email list.

Yeah.

And I think it's not like we think of like making money and travel as like you're gonna get a free trip, right? The brand deal, like Qatar Airways is gonna fly you out. But there's a lot of like other ways to make money. They want to build community. So people start going to your webinars and like, wow, these, he's like the expert on this. I want to engage in that content more. I'll follow them more. I'll trust their judgment more. I'll click their links more. So you really build your own brand and reputation, and it's more sustainable because, you know, the guitar brand might pay more once, but you could run, right? You could twice a month, right?

Yeah, kinds of stuff.

Once a month, you know, and you get 50 people to sign up, you know, that's $500 for an hour's worth of work. You know, that's another, uh, it's $6,000 a year. Just for, you know, plus the knock-on effect of affiliate sales, the building your email list. Yeah, we find also a lot of repeat customers. People that come to one tend to come to more multiple ones, maybe not if they're destination-specific because then they might not be going to that destination. Right. But if it's like how to find a cheap flight, how to navigate travel insurance, my best budget tips for 2025, they come to multiple ones.

You know, the other thing that I'm thinking about is on the internet when so many things are free, people might be hesitant to charge, you know, even $10 for a webinar. But travel is an expensive thing, right? And so if we're thinking about, oh, someone's planning a $2,000 trip, but it's them and a partner, right? So then maybe their, you know, 2, 3-week trip is $4,000, $5,000. And you're like, look, I can help you get more out of it for $10, then it's going to be really quite cheap compared to, you know, everything else that they're spending.

Yeah. I haven't really had anyone complain about $10.

Yeah.

You know, okay, you have the odd person's like, I remember when you did these for free and you're like, okay, well, yeah, inflation, you know, it's been 5 years, but they're like, oh, we understand. You know, okay, maybe you get that one cranky old person, but then it also helps filter your list.

Like these are now people on your email list who think that your time is worth paying for. And so they'll probably be more engaged, more respectful and everything else.

Yeah, people really do pay for it, you know. I mean, the more specific, okay, you know, we might only get 30, 40 signups, but, you know, we did one a couple of months back on finding cheap flights. We had like 600 signups, you know, so you can get you get a lot from these. And people will pay. Obviously we get more people when they're free 'cause there's no friction. But this has become sort of a sneaky new revenue source that I was just like casually doing. I was like, oh wait, this is actually adding up to real money. [Speaker:NATHAN_BARRY] Right.

Yeah, I mean that's like 4 tickets to the Arrows Tour from one webinar. You know, what else could you get? That's amazing. Are there any mistakes that you see people making when they launch webinars? If they do it the first time, you really got to provide actionable tips. Okay.

Right. And people have to feel like they're getting value or they're going to be like, you didn't tell me anything that I couldn't find for free on your website.

Yeah.

So we try to make it so that we're giving you like really specific, detailed, actionable advice. And then what I've also found is really most people just want their own personal question answered. We did one for Japan. People are like, hey, you know, what's a good hotel in someplace I've never heard of? I'm like, I don't know, man. But people are really coming on. They want their specific question answered. So don't talk too long.

Really leave lots of time for Q&A.

Yeah. 30 minutes. I try to like wrap up around 30. No, never more than 40. But really, I could host a webinar where it's just like, ask me anything and fill the whole time.

And then, yeah, you might have this feeling of like, I'm answering this question only for this one person. But if you've got 25, 50 other people there, they're going to be like, I didn't even know to ask that question, but now, like, I want to know.

Yeah. And it's great because it's recorded. Yeah, I definitely want it recorded, right? Yeah.

That question comes up all the time.

Yeah.

Okay, number 4, do what?

Events and tours.

Okay, so this is something that I've seen you do a lot, is to host these in-person events. I've texted you like, hey, are you in New York this week? You're like, no, no, I'm actually, you know, leading this tour in some epic country. Talk about how that's played a role in your business.

Yeah, about like 10 years ago I started doing group tours, um, because people seem to want to travel with me. So I was like, all right, let me see how this works out. And it really worked out up until last year when I sold like the tour company to one of the tour leaders to let them do it because changed my mind. Yeah, I was just like, different season of life, different season of life, you know, because you have to go on all of them. Right. And like the events, like we do community events all the time, meetups in every city. I try to like even just a hosted event, you know, charge $10, get a free drink to cover costs, make a little bit. This is really great for community building. People want to hang out with you, right? They follow you for you. And so giving them an opportunity to meet you and hang out with you. And that's like the events and the tours. If you're working in travel and people are following you, they like your travel style, they view you as expert. So they're going to come travel with you. We've never had a problem selling out any tour I've ever been on.

Okay.

Like, you know, I keep them small, 10 to 15, otherwise they get too unmanageable.

So like early on, let's say that I, I quit my job running Kit and I embark on this whole thing and I'm, you know, getting paid to travel, small list, maybe I've got 5,000 people on my list, I built up an audience, all of that. And I'm leading a tour, what would you recommend? You know, I'm doing 10 to 15 people. What am I charging for it? Like, how does that come to be?

Yeah, I, I always charge double my costs.

Okay.

That was sort of my like— I am, I am also sort of pigeonholed because I have a book about $75 a day budget travel.

So, and then you're like, so luxury, all this. And people would be like, hold on, there's an audience.

Yeah. I mean, if you're doing a luxury safari in Africa, you can charge $15,000 and get people to pay. But so I always had an upper limit. So I always tried to do like double what the cost would be just because I personally felt that as we started to get higher up, I started to get more pushback from my audience of like, well, how are you charging so much money when you're trying to make us budget travelers? So I usually do double my cost and then I pick destinations I knew really well, right? And they were kind of easy to at least begin, right? Go to someplace that's like somewhere in Europe, easy to get around, good infrastructure, like for like tourism.

Yeah, someone's cell phone would probably just automatically work.

Yeah, you know, and the language barrier is not too great for you, like especially if you don't speak the native language and start there. But Start like the first tours I did were 10 people.

Okay.

You know, I moved up to 15 because you're doing a lot of people management and that can be a challenge, right? And it's also people are coming on tour to be with you, so they want to hang out with you a lot.

Yeah. So the more people you get, the sort of diminishing value.

And you like some people, total extroverts can do this. Yeah. I'm a bit of an introvert, so like I need a couple hours to like recharge my social battery. And if you have like 15 people being like, so where are we going? Where are we going? I'm like, I just want to go read a book for an hour. Right. You know, scurry off, go visit a museum. I'll be back.

What's an example of one of your favorite tours that you've led?

I mean, one of the first ones I did was Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.

Okay. And over the course of a week?

10, 12 days.

Okay.

One thing I learned in that tour, I had a great group. We had a lot of fun. You know, I introduced them to my friends in Copenhagen. We all got drunk. Like, my friend told stories of me. I was like, oh my God, I'm a professional, remember?

Yeah, exactly.

You don't need to share that stuff. But we did like some overnight trains and I was like, no, that's like too much. Because like we could have flown. And then I did one next time where we flew and I was like getting people through an airport, there's a whole nother thing. So I try to then group tours now where train rides are like 4 or 5 hours.

Okay. You've like simplified the travel around it.

Yeah.

Some of the logistics work.

Yeah. Because a lot of people don't want to feel like they're spending a whole part of their tour just like in transit.

Oh, got it.

Yeah.

That makes sense. On the tour, something that I was thinking about is I get to look at the creator economy all the time, all day long, like behind the scenes or from the creator's perspective where I get to see, oh, what's working in business or all of this. But sometimes I get to see it through the subscriber or the fan's perspective. And my wife Hillary has two content creators that she follows everything that they put out. And it's Shay who has the Elliott Homestead, and then Angela who has a blog called Parisian Farm Girl. And it was a couple weeks ago that Hillary goes, oh, Angela put out her tour dates. And I'm like thinking, Angela tour dates, which Angela is in concert? No. Oh no, no, I know who you're talking about. You're talking about a, like a flea market tour that Angela does every year in Paris, right? And Hillary as a fan is like planning our fall, you know, kids' school schedule and all that around can she go to this tour that Angela's leading in Paris? Because it's exactly what you're saying. People, you know, want to follow creators. And like Hillary can go to Paris anytime, but she's like, no, I wanna go with this person who I've listened to, you know, their podcast for 3 years. I've been on their email list. You know, and I want to do it with other people. You know, it's not just to spend time with Angela or the host. It's the other 10 to 15 people who love similar things. And so like watching her light up at the idea of, oh, I can go on this tour, just showed me firsthand how valuable this is.

Yeah, I mean, we've had people on tours become friends with people and they go travel together. They come back on other tours we've done because they like the group, they like our tours, they liked our guides, and it creates a community. And events, webinars, tours, they all kind of work together to create a community. When you have a community of people who will get super excited when you do something, you find a way to fight against the algorithm in a way because they don't— even if they don't see you on Instagram, they probably have your email list then. And then they're going to just be like, ah, here we are. They're going to come back and they're going to seek you out when they want something. You know, rather than just type in flea markets in Paris, they're going to type in flea market, you know, Parisian farm girl, Parisian farm girl, you know, the branded search. How to find a cheap flight, Nomadic Matt. Yeah, you know, because they want you. And so it's just a great way to foster a community.

I like it. Uh, so what— let's see, uh, we said 10 to 15 people. Uh, you said easy travel to start, you know. Yep.

I mean, since the Europe trips, I've taken people to Thailand. We've done Turkey, we've done Morocco, we've done Jordan. I've taken people around Mexico a bunch of times, you know. But wet your feet in a place with a small group as you get the hang of it.

Right. That makes sense.

In a place you know really well. Because again, people want to feel value, right? So they want to go to the bar you love in Paris. They want to go to that favorite restaurant. They want that favorite flea market. You know, they want your Paris.

Okay, so if I was doing this, the fear that I would have is I launch this and I'm going to have Well, let's say it's an easy tour. I'm going 10 people in Paris, 4 days, something like that.

I don't know. Sure.

What am I charging for that?

Double your costs.

So give me an example. Is that like a $2,000, $1,000, $3,000?

Depends on how luxury you want to be with accommodation.

Okay.

Um, you know, it depends on what you want to include. So we would We always did multi-day trips. So, you know, I would figure out, okay, like, as we did budget, so like we did dorms, right? Yep. Guys in one dorm, women in another dorm, right? So I'd be like, okay, it's $50 a day for this, the train, total cost is gonna be $1,000.

Okay.

$2,000 tour.

So in that, so it's a $2,000 tour, My fear is I'm going to lock in these dates and I'm not going to sell it out. Like, what would you say to that person who's like, what if, you know, if I sell none, that's fine because that's a bummer, but I'm not letting anybody down. But if I sell half, that feels problematic to me. What would you say to someone who's got that concern?

Definitely have a long lead time, right? You know, don't be like, I'm running this tour next month. Like, you know, you want to give people 6 to 9 months window because chances are they have a job, they have kids in school, you know, like you have to rearrange your schedule. So don't be like freaked out if people like a week, no one signed up. People are, they notice, they'll probably have questions, but I think you just need to figure out like what is the minimum you can run this with, right? So like first one I did was 10. But I knew as long as I had like 7, it would work. I would do this, right? And so you just kind of write it like minimum 7 required to go.

Oh, so you're just putting it in that way people agree and they'll understand like, oh, actually the dates didn't work and we only got 4 people to sign up and so sorry.

So like we're going to try to do this date.

Yeah.

Because a lot of people will come back to you and say, ah, this sounds amazing. I can you can get a sense of like people's travel schedules. 'Cause they'll be like, oh, I can only go this time of the year. Can you run tours this time of the year? I have to go when the kids are outta school. Or I only get time off this time for my job around this season. So then you can get a sense of like, okay. And you can also ask people in advance like, hey, I'm thinking of running tours. Here's a quick survey.

Yeah. What would you be interested in?

What would you be interested in?

What dates would you be able to do?

Like what, yeah. And so you can kind of get a sense of like how your audience would react. What destinations would you like? What travel style? If you have a minimum, you could do it. And then, you know, once we started getting those first testimonials, came back, you know, came back, you know, those first 2 or 3 tours, I gave them a sheet of paper because it was like pre-survey gizmo and it was anonymous. It was like, you know, grading the teacher. Like I had the manila envelope. I was like, Don't tell me, just stick in there.

I want real feedback.

And, you know, some of it is tough, you know, because it's like, you didn't do a good job of doing this. Like, I think, you know, I expected this from you and you're like, oh, okay, well, now I know for the next time.

Right. I like it. All right. So that's events and tours. What's number 5?

Number 5 is brand deals, which, you know, is the thing everybody knows about. You know, we all want to partner with a travel company to, like, get paid to travel, right? Work with this tour company or this hotel or this destination. This is a good source of income. You know, this is like the influencer lifestyle, right? Right. This is what everyone aspires to. And I like it. One thing I would say is that it's very time-consuming. So it's well paid, but it's not always sustainable, right? And so that you can make $25,000 one month and you'll make zero the next month, right? You know, and so that's why I like these other things. 'Cause you're creating through our house analogy, a full house, not just like one room. You have everything, a basement, a roof, first floor, second floor. You know, this should be one average revenue stream. And the other thing to think about is where, like, if you're traveling somewhere and you're like, hey, let's go there, like, you bounce over, you burn out really quickly. And so I like to do this as like limited numbers. And also remember that people trust your opinion. And so if they only ever see this, They're gonna think, well, you're just marketing to anyone who will pay you.

Right.

So how much can I really trust your opinion?

Whereas when you're paid by your audience, then you're paid for your expertise.

Yeah.

Not just for whichever brand deals happen to come through your inbox at that time.

Yeah. And so like I've turned down a lot of brand deals, ones that were tens of thousands of dollars.

What are a few examples of brand deals that were a really good fit with your audience that you did?

Yeah, so I did one with Southwest. For their Southwest card. I do a lot of points and miles. Love Southwest. They're very budget friendly. They have a really good loyalty program. So that was a good fit because I was already talking about something I've done. I've done stuff with Home Exchange, which is a brand. Do you know Home Exchange? So Home Exchange allows you to swap houses with people.

Right. You like build up points as you—

Yeah. So you get a free place to stay. So it's a really great budget travel thing. And they really made famous in that movie The Holiday. But post-COVID, they've seen a resurgence of interest. And so they're really doing a lot of promotion with that. And so travel insurance companies, tour companies, things are more on the budget end. Obviously, it's not like luxury safaris, but it's really about helping people have a more off-the-beaten-path experience, showcasing destinations. That might not be the obvious choice, maybe like Taiwan or something. So I really try to do things that promote my style of travel, off the beaten path, affordable, try to get you connected with the locals as much as possible. And, you know, I've turned down random things like Zyrtec, right? I have terrible allergies.

Oh, with allergies.

Yeah. And I take Zyrtec every day, but it's weird to be like, hey, Take allergy medicine.

Yeah.

You know, or I've seen a lot of creators promote like computers that they don't even use. Like, it's like, I know you.

I see you on the Mac laptop and you're like, but Dell XPS or whatever. And you're like, no.

And then they wonder why their engagement on this stuff is like terrible.

It's authentic.

And then they always like, I'd love it if you really commented on my new reel. It's like, well, if it was really good, people would comment it.

Right.

To begin with. And so definitely go for brand deals that align with your mission because that will convert the most. Your audience understands you need to get paid. This is your job.

Yep.

They know you're gonna do some brand deals, but they wanna make sure it's good for them. So make sure you do the brand deals that align with your mission and your values that are truly helpful to your audience. 'Cause that will get the most conversion and the brand will like it and they'll wanna work with you over and over and over again. And then you have those great metrics to sell to other brands. One thing that I would also say is don't worry if you're a small creator, right? What's more important is that you can show that you convert people. Okay. A lot of people like, I, I don't have 100,000 people.

Yep.

You don't need 100,000 people. You need the right people. That can be 5,000 of the right people, 10,000 of the right people, even 1,000 right people. As long as you can show to whatever brand these people want your product and they will convert. Yeah, of course, if you have 100,000 people, you can charge more money, but it's really about the product audience fit.

I like it. I think when creators think about brand deals in travel, what they're expecting is the free trip, right? Like, I want to go to Jordan, and so who's going to pay for me to do that for free, right? I think a lot of like hotel operators probably get annoyed because there's some influencer showing up and being like, I have 300 followers on Instagram, I should get my room for free. What would you say in that?

So many. A buddy of mine just opened a sushi restaurant in New York and he's like a food influencer. And apparently that's a trend now. They're investing in restaurants. And he's like, my man, I didn't know how bad it was on the other side. On the other side, because every like person is like, I have my 5 friends and we would— they would be totally interested. And don't do that.

Just don't.

Okay, just don't do that. Okay. Just because you have 1,000 people doesn't mean anything. People have costs. It's a free room for you, but it's— that's money they can't make.

Right.

And so, you know, it's less about like, what's the total package, right? Like, you know, try to work with the destination. They can get a hotel sponsor, you know, The hotel is like, well, what are you gonna do for me? You know, one thing you can do if you wanna go to the hotel is like you can say, hey, listen, I was on your website. I will take all these photos for you. I'll go to every room, professional photography for your entire website. I'll produce content for your social media.

So like UGC. You can be really specific about it instead of being like, you know, I'll mention you in my stories.

Yeah. Oh great, 2 people saw that, right? You can say like, I can, I'll promote you and provide for you. And then you'll get more people, like those smaller hotel operators might be like, okay, you're not going to bat 100, but you'll probably get more than just like, hey, give me a free room. I have 300 followers. They would love to know about your hotel. And, you know, one thing I would also say when it comes to brand deals, and this is something that I see too many young creators, especially if they're big on TikTok or Instagram, not to because they're so famous. They don't go to live events, they don't go to conferences, they don't network in person, they don't meet the brands. At the end of the day, life is about relationships. The people you see that are working with Delta or get that free trip to Jordan or always seem to be doing something with Hilton, Why is it? Because once you have a relationship with someone, it kind of, as long as you're working out, everything's working out, you're going to keep that going.

Right.

Most of those relationships begin when you go to a conference, any sort of industry event, and you say, hi, my name is Matt. I run this blog. Oh, cool. And you're just really informal and you're like, well, maybe we can do something together rather than just be another random email. In their inbox, another influencer being like, hi, I'm coming to Jordan. I would love it, you know, if you hosted me. Great. Get in line. There's 10,000 people now. You could do that when we met in 2015 because the pool of creators wasn't as big. Right now it's, it's not a creator's market. It's Jordan's market. Yeah. They can pick who they want to go.

Yeah, that makes sense. But earlier you were talking about how people want to follow people, right? And that's why we're having the personal stories and we're building these relationships all the way through. But I think building on that, people want to help people, right? And so the number of times that I've been at a conference and met someone and if their need or their question had come through my inbox, I would just be like, nope, sorry, can't help. But if we're having a conversation in person, then I'm like, yeah, actually, you know who you should talk to is this person. Or, you know, all of those things. It's night and day. Like, you can build— like, the relationship it would take 6 months or a year to build online, you can build in 15 minutes in person. It's wild.

And even for me, you know, I've been doing this since 2008. I have a pretty big brand. Like, I'm not like an unknown person. Sometimes I don't get emails back. And they'll see that person at a conference. They'll be like, oh, hey, you know, I sent you this email about this trip I'm thinking of. And like, oh yeah, sorry. Like, so, so much is going on. Yeah. You know, what are you thinking about? I'll pitch my idea. I'm like, oh yeah, okay. Send me another email. We'll work on it. I'm like, you know, that person probably just was just trying to blow me off. But now that we've talked to each other and she's like, has a moment to think, okay. Yeah, something happens. In-person meetups for this stuff, totally, totally undervalued.

Yeah, I love it. I mean, what you're advocating for through this entire thing is like personal relationships and attention to detail and just delivering quality in everything that you do. And I think that's, you know, talking about how to get paid to travel in 2025. Like, that's how you stand out is when people are saying, hey, what's the, cheapest, quickest way to get all my bills paid or something like that. Like, what's the hack or the shortcut? It's like, well, do quality work, meet people in person, provide a lot of value.

Yeah, the people who are looking for the quick fix end up just selling stuff to other content creators and becomes this sort of MLM or like, how to get paid by my course. I'll tell you how to get paid. Actually, I'm getting paid because you're paying me. Yeah, but this stuff builds that house over a long time. Like you said, I have seen a lot of algorithm changes. I've been doing this for 17 10 years now, I'm still here, right? And it's because I've done this that I think has allowed me to weather every storm and be able to pivot and just continue to grow.

Yeah, I love it. All right, this has been amazing. Uh, let's sit down. I want to talk about your book a little bit.

Okay, I love talking about my book.

So you've had the book out for years, but you just updated it, rewrote it. Uh, I've read the previous edition. This one is, is a little bit more substantial. You've got a lot more in it now.

Yeah, you know, uh, the first one was How to Travel the World on $50 a day.

Yep.

Um, I had 3 editions of it. Last one came out in 2017. And your travel has changed so much post-COVID. I really wanted a new edition to reflect what is going on in the travel space right now. What are the best strategies and tactics to save money, get off the beaten path, and really just experience like the local culture? And so what I thought would be a simple update, uh, you know, prices have changed. I know a few companies have gone out of business. Resource section. Now, uh, when I started rereading this, I was like, well, that doesn't work anymore. You know, there was a whole chapter on round-the-world tickets. Those things kind of exist, but like, it's not what they used to be. I don't know anyone that uses them. Even our buddy Chris Gillibout, you know, who is like a devout user of round-the-world tickets. I don't think he does them anymore. And it's cuz like you can use points. There's budget airlines. Airlines have kind of gone away from these things. The, the travel agencies like SCA Travel, uh, that used to sell these, they've gone outta business. So like that was a whole chapter gone.

Mm-hmm.

I had a whole chapter on discount cards you can get. None of those exist anymore. That's gone. Now points and miles have become so big. I, I wanted to add that in there. Um, and even then, like, little things, like in the last edition, the country of Laos didn't have any trains. Okay, now they have a high-speed train financed by China that goes across the country into China. So it's made travel there a lot easier. Um, and so a lot of countries are improving their train lines. Um, there's new train passes, new rules. Um, hostel groups have gone under, new hostel chains have come around. Couchsurfing isn't really a thing anymore because they paywalled it, but now Facebook groups are a huge thing.

So like, there's a lot that's changed all across the board.

Yeah, so I ended up writing about 80% of this book, rewriting 80% of this book. And so it's a lot thicker than the old one. A lot has changed. I'm like, I think this is like the best edition yet.

I love it. Well, it's really exciting. And, uh, I mean, we've covered a lot in this, but talking about How to Get Paid to Travel in 2025. And I think a lot of people will say, okay, I understand that. I now know how to execute on that plan. But on the other side, if you're like, okay, I actually want to just go out and travel. Now that I know what's behind it, maybe I don't want to do the whole content side. Well, it's like, all right, go buy the book, How to Travel the World on $75 a Day, and go make that happen. Because that's like, you can save up that amount of money. Yeah, that's a very doable thing.

And while this business grows, you can be traveling cheap because, you know, you got to save money until this becomes your big thing.

I love it. Where, where is the best place to find the book and follow you?

You can follow me anywhere at Nomadic Matt. NomadicMatt.com is my website. I'm Nomadic Matt on all social media channels. The book is available at Barnes Noble, independent bookstores, and Amazon. So, How to Travel the World on $75 a Day. It's available in the US and Canada and soon globally, I hope.

Sounds good. Thanks so much for coming on, Matt.

Thanks for having me, man. It's been great to talk to you and catch up.

I love it. All right. Well, until we get to go hang out together at a Taylor Swift concert in the future—

I invited you to more than one.

You did? Yeah.

I kept saying, let's go to more. I went without you, man.

Yeah. You know, I don't blame you, but we will do another one together.

All right. Next tour.

Sounds good.

All right.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.