Turning Camping Into Cash - Pt. 1

Turning Camping into Cash?
Pt. 1

“Camping is nature’s way of promoting the motel business.” - Dave Berry.

Having returned from my first camping trip, while casually thumbing through the Yellow Pages for quick divorce lawyers, I received a call from Top Sleeping Bags, a new camping equipment website, asking “can you write an article on turning camping into cash?” I closed the phone book and here’s the first installment of my series of answers.

The camping world needs a woman’s touch and I don’t mean a female Daniel Boone. I mean a female Dave Berry. It really needs one and there’s gold in them ‘thar hills. There’s no advice for dreamers (who looked at brochure photos of laughing couples, holding hands while hiking along majestic mountain paths) only to return from their first camping trip with blisters the size of baseballs, poison ivy welts and the need for blood tests for Lyme Disease. And that’s where turning camping into cash and you come in. Just think about it, if you like to hike, canoe and camp anyway, it’s all upside. That advice giver could be you.

Camping gear reviews -- advice on what camping gear to buy and why -- is everywhere, from eBay’s Camping Buying Guide or REI’s Camp/Hike Expert Advice. In bone-numbing detail, we learn we’ll need out sleeping bags rated for -10* Fahrenheit to camp in the snow or that a car rack must clamp to the seam between the door and vehicle frame if a car lacks gutters. And, coincidentally, every tip and every piece of advice relates back to a product for sale on the site.

And the Internet also abounds with campsite reviews where information that should cause civilized people to recoil in horror is considered mighty handy information for the hardy camping crowd. These reviews allow them to discover which campsites have 30 amp electricity, which have sewage disposal for RVs, and those where you best keep an eye out for rattlesnakes and scorpions.

But real-world advice? Forget it. You can search the Internet in vain or Google until the cows come home but you won’t find advice on whether it is better to choke to death on fish bones or simply walk into the wilderness and freeze to death after your newly retired husband – who somehow convinced you to share a winter adventure ice fishing in Canada – hands you his fresh catch to clean and cook for the evening’s meal over a tiny propane flame. Nor can you find advice on the best response when -- while pitching a tent in the dark with someone who forgot to pack flashlights -- asked what’s taking so long to pound in your half of the tent stakes into the ground with the heel of your shoe because someone also forgot to pack a hammer.

You’ll search forever for camping advice that begins with “Just don’t do it, don’t go. But if you must be certain you know how far the nearest 4-Star restaurant is from your campsite and you’ve MapQuested the directions… “

So where to start, in turning good advice like that into gold? My advice – start a camping blog? Start a camping blog, gain a following with your advice and make money from affiliate marketing or selling advertising space. Starting a blog – personal publishing platforms -- can be done without money. See WordPress.

Affiliate Marketing. Sign up with an affiliate marketing company like commissionjunction.com or clickbank.com, chose the product you want to sell on your website (divorce lawyer advertising? Family counseling?), the company will provide you with the code to place on your blog and then every time some one clicks on the link or buys the product, (pay per click or pay per commission) you get paid!

Sell Advertising Space. For example, you can go to Google’s site, sign up for an Ad Sense account, and follow the instructions they provide to get it on your blog. You know those “ads by Google” sections of web pages these days, that’s what we’re talking about.

Sell Banner Ads. Offer spots for companies to place banner ads on your site. To keep it easy, you can place the banner ad code in one of your blog posts. If you want to get more technical, you can attempt to place it on other locations on your blog page.

Or …

Squidoo. This is a spot for people to make small personal web pages about things they are interested in. You could, rather easily, make several Squidoo lenses (their dubbed term for webpage) with various articles, photos, video, etc. The beauty of a Squidoo lense, is the money making technology is built in. You can, with a click of a button, add an Adsense campaign to your lenses, Amazon modules, or ebay listings. All of which you split a commission on.

HubPages. These are a similar concept to Squidoo. You make your own personal “hubpage” and use the same methods to produce an small income, AdSense, Amazon, etc. If your Hubpage has valuable content, which as we established before shouldn’t be that hard in the field of camping, its very possible to great a small but steady source of income.

This isn’t get-rich-quick advice but it is a way you could gain a national following, your traffic could explode and then the world would be your oyster. Don’t quit your day job. But do take your laptop with you camping. I believe in you. You should believe in you.

You may think the hardest part is coming up with great advice. Think again. Just go camping. Be sure and check back, Top Sleeping Bags has me booked for a whole series.