What It's About
A French travel blogger zigzags around Europe documenting her travels and selling guidebooks for passive income.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Claire tried to give a lot of information about fewer locations, as opposed to most travel guides that try to give information about hundreds of locations. And she gave very clear directions about how to find the best shot of a particular waterfall, landmark, or landscape.
Her overall objective was to simplify the information being offered on a particular destination so people didn’t have to sift through a lot of extra information to get to the good stuff. She wanted to help with the trip planning overwhelm and lay out the really good options instead of every single option, and this is really good advice for anyone looking to do something similar. Everyone writes general guidebooks—stand out by simplifying your selection and getting specific with your info.
Fun Fact
One of Claire’s customers not only loved her guidebooks but said that it saved her marriage. The customer is also a travel planning addict and generally spends hours trying to find the information for their next trip, which annoys her husband. Thanks to Claire’s guidebook, the customer found all the information she needed, saved a ton of time and didn’t annoy her husband.
Notes from Chris
Episode 293
There are a lot of travel bloggers out there, but the vast majority of them aren't making any money—at least, not anything to write home about. Today's story is a bit different though—it's about a travel enthusiast in France who spends her time road tripping around Europe. The best part? She documents her travels and turns them into guides that earn her an additional $10,000 a year. What a journey! Today’s side hustle comes from Claire Robinson who is based in France, but travels a lot… so who knows where she is right now. Back in 2013, Claire was a Quality Manager for a medical device company and was lucky enough to travel around the world for her job. Since she was visiting and at times, living, abroad she started blogging about her excursions. She set up a simple Wordpress website and started sharing specific tips and itineraries from the places she would visit. She named her website ZigZag on Earth: because she zigzags around when she has time before zigzagging back home. By early 2016, Claire decided to put some sort of strategy in place for her guidebooks. She picked Pinterest as her social media and for her efforts made $4500 in 2016. She continued with her free Pinterest marketing and so far in 2017, her revenue has exceeded $10k. She now has over 4,000 followers on Pinterest and over 46k unique monthly visitors to her website.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- ZigZag on Earth: Zigzag your way across Europe with some help from Claire. Check out her website!
- Selz: The ecommerce platform that Claire used to take care of payments and the delivery of the guide book to the buyer
- Wordpress: Claire used Wordpress to create ZigZag on Earth, and here you can learn how to install your own Wordpress site in 5 minutes!
- Canva: The free design platform that Claire used to create images for social media
- Tour Guide Sells Astronomy Books to Tourists: How a British software engineer moved to the Canary Islands, started working as a tour guide, and wrote her own guidebook to accompany her tours
- Harvard Med School Program Manager Gets Paid to Travel to Italy: After yearning to spend more time back in her homeland, a med school program manager creates a side hustle centered around Italian food and culture
- London Chocolate Tours Lead to Sweet Success: Banking on a universal love of chocolate, a former temp worker creates a unique side hustle leading guided tours that allow tourists to eat their way through London’s chocolate shops
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