How to monetize a travel blog with 10k sessions/mo

The most lucrative way would be to come up with your own product. Ads, affiliate and other methods need bigger numbers to work.

Otherwise like @gilgildner said your other best option is to manually sell sponsored posts (but the travel niche is quite competitive - maybe you could specialize in one particular topic - ).

I suggest reading blog growth advice on Nat Eliason’s blog, Growth Machine’s blog, and Grow And Convert’s blog.

There are some excellent tips and guidance there.

For ex: https://www.nateliason.com/blog/passive-income

Even though affiliate marketing will be tough with 10k sessions, you could give high(er) ticket products (that are relevant to your target audience) a try. Flight/hotel offers or travel insurance might be options.

Have you already explored partnering with brands trying to reach your audience through branded content? I would be interested to hear if you could position your travel blog in the same way a travel-focused Instagram influencer might position themselves for monetization.

10k sessions a month is an awesome number to hit, however it's difficult to monetize at that scale. To give you some context, a few years ago I worked with a travel site that had around 200,000 visitors per month. This travel blog was monetized with Google Adsense and affiliate programs. The site made around $2500/mo if I recall correctly.

At low volumes, you will make almost nothing from ads or affiliates. Right now I have a site with almost 7500 visitors/mo (mostly US traffic) and a quick Google AdSense test made me a grand total of $21/mo :)

I would encourage you to manually sell your ad space (to travel agencies, tour providers, etc)...you'll get the most bang for your buck.

• Add flights, hotels, Airbnb and other activities in each destination.
• sell guides
• Amazon affiliates
• newsletter
• find cheap flights for your users

I would like to collaborate with. I have everything I mention, but I don't have 10k sessions/mo

Track what they are reading about and compile data that you could sell to travel agencies? Sell advertising space to travel agencies?

You might want to read this report from Google, that does a good job of explaining how people decide to purchase travel products (Flights, hotels, cars etc) online.

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-moments/micro-moments-travel-customer-journey/

Have you considered using email autoresponders, that:
(a) Are relevant to the content on the page of your blog
(b) Drip feed relevant info to the subscriber over 4 - 6 weeks
(c) Include affiliate links to the main online travel agents within those email

Use Case Scenario

1. I search "Best pubs to visit in London" and land on your blog, reading a post you've written about London.
2. On that page, a pop up appears, asking if I'd like your "Insiders guide to visiting London"
3. I opt into the pop up, and am added to an email responder, specifically for London content.
4. The email responder drip feeds me content over the next few weeks, with helpful information about visiting London... AND affiliate links to all the major online travel companies.

Most people looking at travel blog content are still in "research mode" and aren't ready to purchase their flight, hotel etc until after a significant amount of research. By using email responders to send helpful content + affiliate links, you're more likely to get the bigger commissions later on.

(At time of writing, Expedia offer affiliates 6% of hotel bookings. On a 7 night stay in central London at a 3* hotel, that would earn you something like ~$75 USD)