After spending 15 years as a radio journalist, Kristin Hanes was laid off along with her entire newsroom at KGO Radio in San Francisco in 2016. With no job and limited savings, she moved onto her partner Tom’s sailboat, which lacked basic amenities like running water, a bathroom, or reliable internet. In a moment of transition and uncertainty, Kristin discovered the world of blogging and decided to build an online business focused on alternative lifestyles. That decision led to the creation of The Wayward Home, a site that has allowed her to travel fulltime while earning up to $28,000 per month at its peak and supporting herself through a mix of advertising, affiliate revenue, and digital product sales.
There are so many people out there who are craving something different: freedom and adventure over stuff, more time outside, and living life on their terms. I hope to inspire these people and help them move from a “sticks and bricks” home to a new way of being.
Kristin Hanes
From Newsroom to Nomadism
Kristin graduated from the University of Oregon in 2003 with a degree in journalism and spent the next 15 years covering news across cities including Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Her transition into blogging began after reading an article about a personal finance blogger earning six figures per month. She was inspired by the potential of blogging as a full-time income and began building The Wayward Home in early 2017 with no technical background.
Given her background in media, Kristin recognized that stories about people living in vans, buses, sailboats, and tiny homes were resonating widely with readers. Living aboard a sailboat herself, she saw an opportunity to explore a topic she was both personally invested in and professionally equipped to write about.
Launching the Blog with Minimal Resources
Kristin invested around $800 in a blogging course and purchased low cost hosting and a website theme. She designed the site herself using Divi, a drag-and-drop page builder, and launched it with minimal technical expertise. In the first year, she worked over 40 hours per week on building her blog, supplementing her income with freelance writing and VoiceOver work an with no internet on the boat, she often worked from the cafe at her local gym, using the opportunity to exercise and shower between long work sessions.
After six months of publishing content and promoting her site, Kristin made her first substantial income from a private advertiser who paid $500 for monthly banner ads. Around the same time, her content began being syndicated across the Hearst newspaper network via her former colleagues at SF Gate. This exposure helped increase her site’s domain authority and gave her early momentum that would lead to more consistent traffic.
Growing with SEO, Freelancers, and Digital Products
Initially, Kristin gained traffic through Facebook groups and Pinterest. In 2019, she enrolled in Stupid Simple SEO, a course that helped her understand search engine optimization more clearly. The knowledge she gained led to a sharp increase in organic traffic and allowed her to hire freelance writers and a virtual assistant. Her team now includes eight remote contractors, including subject matter writers, an editor, a Pinterest assistant, and a blog formatter.
Kristin focuses on hiring real writers with lived experience in topics like van life, sailing, and tiny homes. She believes that this approach produces more authentic content that stands out amid the growing flood of AI-generated material. Her goal is to create content that reflects her audience’s real interests and offers genuine insight.
In 2022, she launched her first digital product, Niche Sites Made Easy: The Nomad’s Guide to Making Money Online. Using Thrivecart and her email list of 20,000 subscribers, she ran a soft launch and made $5,000 in her first week. This showed her the power of selling to an engaged community she had built over time. She continues to expand her product offerings and is developing new courses to help others build sustainable online businesses.
Traffic Growth, Revenue Streams, and a Major Setback
During peak seasons in 2023, The Wayward Home reached as many as 400,000 monthly pageviews and generated between $20,000 and $28,000 per month in revenue. Most of that income came from Mediavine ads, with additional revenue from affiliate sales and course sales.
However, in September 2023, Kristin was heavily impacted by Google’s Helpful Content Update, which caused her traffic and revenue to drop by about 70%. At the time of this writing, her site receives around 100,000 pageviews per month and generates $8,000 to $10,000. This experience forced her to reevaluate her dependence on Google and to diversify traffic sources.
She is now rebuilding by focusing on syndication with MSN, boosting her Facebook traffic, and re-optimizing older content. She has also begun promoting her digital products more heavily and is looking into monetizing her podcast. Her long-term plans include publishing a book on van life, creating a van life course, and reaching one million monthly pageviews.
Building and Engaging Her Community
Kristin has consistently nurtured her email list, which she describes as the most valuable asset of her business. She uses lead magnets tailored to her audience, including starter kits for van life and nomad living, and regularly emails subscribers with updates, personal stories, and curated content. Her relationship with her audience has helped her retain loyal readers and launch products successfully.
While her site continues to serve readers through free informational content, Kristin also aims to help others break into blogging. She believes online business is accessible for anyone with curiosity and discipline, and encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to start small, learn continuously, and adapt quickly to a changing digital environment.
The beauty of online business is that there are so many options for growth. All it takes is creativity, discipline, and fortitude.. there are just so many options and opportunities out there if we know where to look.
Kristin Hanes
Lessons Learned Along the Way
The biggest takeaway Kristin emphasizes is the importance of flexibility and ongoing learning. Online business changes constantly, and relying on one platform or source of traffic is risky. She encourages other entrepreneurs to take setbacks in stride, view them as learning opportunities, and explore new ways to provide value.
She also reminds others that blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It requires patience, persistence, and a willingness to work hard even when results are not immediate. Her journey, from working in cafes while living on a sailboat to building a six-figure blog that supports full-time travel, hows that success is possible when passion and purpose align with execution and resilience.
