The blogger behind Wandering Earl has been exploring the globe since his first post-grad trip to Southeast Asia in 1999. He fell in love with exploring and has since seen over one-hundred countries. To be able to afford to do that, he needed to get creative.
He began working on cruise ships and saving for additional trips. Eventually, a friend gave him a book about working online. He followed the steps in the book precisely and spent several months writing an eBook on how to save money as a passenger on a cruise ship, a topic he knew about from working in the industry.
He published in 2008. The first copy sold within twenty minutes of being online.
Launching a business
By 2009, he was ready for more. The now-published author officially launched Wandering Earl. His first name is Derek and his middle name is Earl. However, Wandering Derek didn’t have quite the same ring to it. Now, everyone knows him as Earl and he is completely location independent.
He started writing blog posts on any travel topic he could think of. He built his audience and then published another eBook. This time it was on what his readers were asking about – how to get a job on a cruise ship.
It didn’t stop there.
People started asking if they could come with him on his travels. That’s when he realized he could offer tours all over the globe and a complete business formed from what had started as his sharing information about what he loved to do and knew well – travel.
His advice
In our interview, Derek/Earl discusses the process behind how he has done it all. He also talks about how he gets his posts to the front page of Google every time with his own method of finding topics to write about without using the traditional SEO keyword research.
Check out Wandering Earl’s blog or visit him on YouTube.
