Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on November 3, 2025.
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Welcome to the 128th entry into our monthly income and traffic report!
In this monthly update we share our traffic, earning, and spending figures for our blogs from the previous month so you can get a glimpse inside the business of blogging. In addition to sharing these for your use, by publishing our information we are also able to stay on track with our own goals for our business.
Prior to reading, it is worth noting that we feature two blogs in this report (one global travel and one local travel) and our income is based on the combined total of the two. We break down the traffic for each in this report for additional information.
Note: In July 2023, Google switched from Universal Analytics to GA4 reporting. We use custom templates to ensure we are still reporting on page views as our traffic metric; however, it is possible this figure is different slightly from the past.
October 2025 Travel Blog Traffic Report
Our traffic on Living the Dream for the month of October was roughly 9,350 page views. This was an increase of 31% per day basis from September and an increase of 57% from October 2024.
Uhm, wait, an increase? In October? And a good one at that? Call us shocked!
Admittedly, we’re not sure what happened to see such a jump in traffic, but we’ll take it at this point. We did start adding more Schema markups to our site, particularly for breadcrumbs and select posts, but we’re not entirely sure if we’re seeing results from that one yet or not- we may need to expand into a bigger test.
Either way, we’ll take it, and let’s just hope no one notices anything from there.
On the Discover the Burgh front, our traffic in October was approximately 113,400 page views. This was an increase of 1% on a per day basis from September and an increase of 55% from October 2024.
Interestingly enough, our YOY increase in traffic was similar on our local blog as Living the Dream; however, was a nominal increase from October. We also did some Schema tests on this site, but primarily only adding breadcrumbs- so we really didn’t rock the boat much here.
To us, it means seems like web traffic may just be up across the board, and we’re okay with it as we continue into Q4.
October 2025 Travel Blog Income Report
Our booked income for October was approximately $7,000 up down 6% on a per-day basis from September and an increase of 25% from October 2024. This income was approximately 90% from our local blog and 10% from our travel blog.
The breakdown includes the approximate following:
*CPM Ads: $3,450
*Sponsored Content: $1,480
*Affiliates: $1,700
*Social Bonus: $370
October had a lot to love. From sponsored campaigns (and more inquiries we’re waiting on approval for), to switching to a new ad network (Raptive), and overall just better traffic, we’re not upset with where we are sitting.
Throw on that we’re just a few weeks away from our book launching, we’re, dare we say, excited about what is to come.
Note: We run more websites in addition to these two travel blogs. This income and expense report only includes income from these two sites. These additional sites were started well after we started this income tracking series, and we have decided not to add those income streams in to keep this one focused on our travel blogs only.
October 2025 Expenses
Our dedicated blog expenses* for the month of October were roughly $777 with the following breakdown:
*Programs: $350
*Advertising: $200
*Hosting: $105
*Instagram Certification: $16
*Book Fees: $90
*Domains: $16
Our spending is increasing this month as we move towards launching our book. Our fees were still somewhat low this month for just a few test prints and a premium membership to Canva, but we expect to see a fairly big spike in November when we place a bulk order, add on extra insurance for our business, and register trademarks.
It’s always something!
*We do not share our travel/local expenses in this report. This can be anywhere from $100-$3,000+ per month extra, but your mileage may vary as the costs to generate content can vary wildly from blog to blog. We strive to only share true blog operating expenses here.
November 2025 Goals
We have one, and only one goal for November, and we’re finally on track to make this one happen- release our book.
My 2nd test print is coming to fix a few errors we found, and if that book looks good, I’m ordering 20 more with rush shipment to see how the printer does with bulk. Then it is 3, 2, 1… let’s go!
We’re starting to tease out the book to get early opt-ins for notification, and preliminary reviews are glowing. We just need to get over the last hump and release the darn thing.
Hoping for much more positive news (and income) in our November report next month!
Looking For Past Reports?
Unlike other websites that host an article series on this topic, we only have one article for our travel blog income and traffic reports.
We do this for a number of reasons, but it is mostly because we do not want dozens upon dozens of posts on our site on this one specific topic. Over time, the monthly details become irrelevant and trends are the only thing that matters.
To compensate for this, we update this article every month based on our current data and publish a graphical summary of previous months as well. If you have any questions about data from a specific month we are happy to share more details via email if you contact us.
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On the bright side, you had an increase of 25 percent income from last year. I read your updates with the stats and different information. I have been keeping up with your reports over the last year.
Very true. It’s sometimes hard to see the positives through everything, but you’re absolutely right. Thank you so much for following along too!
Do you think sponsorships or content creation packages for local businesses could be a primary source of income? Either companies paying you to promote their events / service / products on your socials/blog, or creating photo and video content for them to use in their own marketing? I’ve been thinking about how I could do something similar in my city without depending on ad revenue.
It definitely is an option and one I’m exploring more of now that ad income is down. I know many content creators who make way more money than me on sponsored social media posts with brands. But they’re also (mostly) shilling trash and I can’t bring myself to do that. The real struggle is dealing with the fact that local businesses tend to not have a high marketing budget (if any), so the vast majority of inquiries are for coverage for food or a gift card. I’m rolling out some new options that could work, but I haven’t really found something that checks all the boxes just yet.