Chiropractor Becomes “Smart Luxury” Travel Blogger

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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If you come from a different generation or background than most people in a particular field, there might be a way to use that as an advantage. So instead of thinking about what you need to overcome or compensate for, for example, a lack of technical knowledge, consider what you can offer. Today on the program, we'll look at a chiropractor who becomes exhausted with the same daily routine after over 20 years in the field. She then steps off that treadmill and into a new life as a travel blogger, and now earns an average of $6,000 to $8,000 a month while seeing the world. It just goes to show that not every travel blogger is in their 20s or 30s.

In fact, many of them aren't. And for brands on the lookout for ambassadors, influencers, reviews, standing out can be a strength. The woman in this story describes herself as 50 plus, and she's now earning a very good living doing what she calls smart luxury travel. I think a lot of people can take something from this story, so pay attention. Here's a shout out to our sponsor, and then on with the show.

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For Dr. Kacinda Maloney, 22 years had gone by in a blur. She had been working as a chiropractor. When she wasn't at work, she was driving her kids to school, then back from school, and then to all of their sporting events. While she loved those kids, the grind was wearing her down.

In fact, the only thing that kept her sane was a habit she'd followed religiously. Every six weeks, she would take a trip. When Kacinda first started her chiropractic practice, she hired a business manager. He could see how hard she worked, so to help her avoid burnout, he suggested that she implement this habit. He said it would be a carrot that dangled in front of her to keep her marching forward.

So Kacinda spent those years traveling all over the world, once every six weeks. Sometimes her husband and her kids would join her, another time she would go solo. Over time, she began to accumulate a lot of frequent flyer miles and loyalty program points. She began to read every blog she could find on travel hacking, and quickly learn the best ways to redeem her points for high value trips. But even though she was learning to travel more effectively, it wasn't increasing the amount of travel she could do.

She was still dealing with the drudgery of her daily routine. Kacinda needed to find something fun to do during the work week. After thinking about it for a while, she realized that she could start blogging about all of the knowledge she had accumulated. So pointsandtravel.com launched in August 2012. Kacinda committed to write every day.

For the first six months, she enjoyed it, but realized that something was still missing. She wanted to write about travel itself, not just the technical aspects of points and miles. In fact, she found that side of things to be boring. She didn't care about the points in the end, she cared about the travel and the culture she experienced because of it. So Kacinda began to shift and write about those things instead.

She also took another step in her blogging career and began going to conferences for travel bloggers to network. As a self-described introvert with a shy demeanor, Kacinda didn't always have the easiest time with face-to-face networking. When she tried doing speed dating with PR professionals, she felt intimidated. She found value in the events in an unexpected way, however. Kacinda made a lot of new friends who shared her passions and interests.

And through those connections, gigs and opportunities for press trips began to crop up. Inadvertently, she was doing some of her best networking. The majority of her first few jobs were unpaid. At this point, it was 2014 and Kacinda wanted to make travel blogging a full-time career. Even though she wasn't sure what her money situation would look like, she just couldn't take the nine to five anymore.

So she began to plan a transition. Leaning on the experience that the unpaid work gave her, she started to create her own media kit and send letters to companies that she wanted to work with. Before long, she was picked up by Travelocity as a travel ambassador. She had a contract to write two stories a month for a year. Kacinda also made money from sponsored posts, freelancing for local tourism boards and from social media promotions.

She rounded off her first year by making roughly $15,000. Not bad for a new blog. Since then, pointsandtravel.com has continued to grow. Her initial startup costs were minimal. She just had to pay for website hosting, a WordPress theme, logo design, and some business cards.

But as her blog got bigger, so did her costs. She ended up needing to pay writers, hire virtual assistants, and attend more conferences. Unfortunately, it wasn't just her costs that were growing, her profits were up too. Kacinda now earns an average of six to $8,000 a month from it. Most of her income is from doing paid campaigns or press trips.

She's attractive to companies behind those trips because of her unique experience in the industry. Kacinda is over 50 years old, has a family, and is okay with spending a chunk of money on vacations. Many other travel bloggers are young, 20-somethings, who are just looking to be able to travel in the first place, whether that means staying in a tent or a hostel or on the floor of the airport, like I used to do many years ago. Whereas Kacinda believes in what she calls smart luxury travel. She wants to stay in nice hotels, but she also wants to get the best bang for her buck.

For higher-end travel companies, she is the perfect person to represent their brand. Now, almost eight years after she started her blog, Kacinda has continued to travel even further around the world and has no plans to stop. What's changed is that now she gets paid well for it. So if you want to get into this kind of industry, travel blocking, or anything that's even remotely related, it really helps to have a good, memorable fact about you to help you stand out. For example, for me, for a long time, my memorable fact was, hey, I'm going to every country in the world.

And I didn't actually plan to be a travel blogger. I didn't actually do much work with brands. That wasn't really my thing. But I did notice, as I pursued that quest, everywhere I went, people would be like, oh, this is Chris. He's going to every country in the world.

And then even after I completed that quest, which is now five years later, people would still say, oh, this is Chris. He went to every country in the world. So Kacinda's memorable fact, which we talked about in the episode, but also if I go to her about page, it is just right there, front and center, which I think is so smart. She says, I have traveled every six weeks of my life for over 25 plus years. That is interesting, notable, and unusual.

And she goes on to tell the rest of her story, you know, a doctor by profession. I gave up my career seven years ago to travel even more. I hope to inspire you to visit a few new sites around the world and dive into a new culture. So like I said at the top of the episode, Kacinda is 50 plus. She did feel like, you know, when she was getting into this, she had to learn a whole new technical world.

It was a little bit intimidating, but through online classes, YouTube videos, and that networking she did, she became more comfortable with it, and she realized that it actually wasn't an insurmountable obstacle. And as I said, having some fact about you that's different, memorable, otherwise helping you stand out from everyone else can actually be an advantage, not a disadvantage. So think about that for yourself. Maybe you don't wanna be a travel blogger, but whatever limitation you feel has been holding you back from doing whatever it is that you want to do, could there be some way that it's actually a strength? Doesn't mean you don't have to compensate for something.

It doesn't mean you don't have to learn something. It doesn't mean that, you know, you have strengths and weaknesses, that's normal. But just think about whether that thing could work in your favor. Oh, and also remember, you have to do something about it, because inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. That's the whole purpose of this show, to shine the spotlight on all the interesting things people are doing to create freedom for themselves, economic empowerment to allow them to do what's important to them.

Today's show notes, including links to Kacinda's blog, anything else I talked about, will be at sidehustleschool.com/930. Episode 930. All right, much more is coming up. Do be sure you're subscribed. It's completely free.

My name is Chris Guillebeau "This is Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.