From Home Kitchen to $45K Exit: Inside the Success of Family Food and Travel

When Kerrie Redgate startedFamily Food and Travelin 2013, she had modest aims: document family travel, share recipes straight from her kitchen, and maybe a few snaps of dinner. She didn’t imagine her little corner of the web would turn into a digital asset purchased for $45,000 after 8 years. Here’s exactly how it happened—raw, honest, no pie-in-the-sky promises—so you can see what worked, what fizzled, and how to do it for yourself.

Building on Passion—And Proof

Kerrie never built Family Food and Travel with massive sales in mind. She simply liked keeping track of recipes that actually worked (no burned casseroles, thanks) and sharing trip stories that made real memories. She found her writing voice early on and kept it personal, always talking about what she really liked cooking or where her family had fun traveling.

But she put real effort into learning SEO basics: clear titles, solid meta descriptions, and targetingkeywordspeople actually searched for. Her photos were crisp, colorful, and hungry-making—this drove Pinterest shares through the roof. Soon,Pinterest became the top traffic source, sending nearly 1,000,000 monthly impressions from 25,000 followers. That’s a crazy level of audience for a homegrown site.

Turning Traffic into Value

Monthly pageviews averaged around44,000, with roughly 32,000 unique visitors each month. That’s not a mega blog, but it’s big enough to attract advertisers, affiliate income, and—most importantly—buyers looking for proven content and reliable Google rankings.

She kept overhead low and maintenance minimal. Content aged well, with seasonal recipes and evergreen tips. Kerrie realized that most traffic didn’t care who wrote the post, but whether the instructions worked and the meals tasted great. That’s a key point most bloggers miss: you don’t have to be famous, you just need content that solves simple problems.

Making the Sale

As Kerrie’s life got busier, running the blog full-time wasn’t a realistic choice anymore. She kept the site humming, but realized it was time to sell. Listing on Flippa, the blog drew 2,812 listing views, 77 watchers, and an offer at full asking price in just 30 days. Her price: $45,000, based on a multiple of 3.2x annual profit—a high but not unheard-of ratio for this niche.

The new owner didn’t care about Kerrie’s stories—they wanted the blog’saged content, backlinks, and search rankings. They planned to pivot the site toward food subscription affiliate offers and keto diet content. That’s another lesson: buyers aren’t always looking for personality, just digital property that pulls steady attention.

What Actually Worked (and Why)

• Consistent publishing.Kerrie put out new recipes and travel blogs regularly, building up a backlog of strong content.
• Optimized for Pinterest.Her bright photography and text overlays were made for sharing, driving huge exposure to recipes.
• SEO from scratch.She never ignored core SEO—every post was aimed at questions people actually Googled.
• Evergreen and seasonal.She blended posts for holidays (high traffic spikes) with evergreen cooking basics (steady year-round traffic).
• Minimal maintenance.With a simple WordPress setup, most posts needed no updates for years. Tech headaches were rare.

The SEO Advantage That Sealed the Deal

Why did the buyer jump so fast? Aged domains with steady backlinks are digital gold mines. Search engines trust them, rankings stick, and it’s easier to bolt on new revenue like affiliates or ads. Kerrie’s site had eight years of growth, a rich link profile, and steady engagement. Her new owner could pivot content or keep it as-is—it was a plug-and-play digital asset.

Lessons for Other Solo Bloggers

• You don’t have to have a massive following; loyal, repeat readers matter more.
• Pinterest can be more than just an afterthought for food and travel blogs.
• Content that solves real everyday problems outperforms personality-driven posts.
• Plan with the end in mind: even if you don’t want to sell now, build your site so someone else could.

Conclusion: Why Most Blogs Don’t Sell (And This One Did)

Most blogs feel too personal to resell. Kerrie broke that rule by focusing on longevity, broad topics, SEO, and reproducible results (good recipes speak for themselves). She kept costs nearly zero, profit margins high, and—most of all—traffic and revenue were verifiable. The secret isn’t magic: it’s consistency, know-how, and timing your exit at the right moment.

Want the same? Your homegrown project can become an asset if you lay the groundwork now. Build good content, let traffic compound, and think about what a buyer would actually want when you’re ready to walk away.