My top 5 tips, on how to start faking it as a professional traveler.
When I back packed in my early 20’s I always had this dream that I could become a professional traveler. My vision was that I would never stop traveling and instead get paid to go on trips round the world.
Fast forward 10 years and after traveling to many countries both for work and fun. I’ve realised that in some obscure way I have made my dream come true. The only way to appear as a professional traveler is to actually start doing it. I even ended up starting a business in India, which helped facilitate my dream of combining work and travel.
Here are my top 5 tips on how to appear as a professional traveler. *Note that I am not a professional traveler, all these tips are entirely my stupid opinion ; ).
1. Capture everyday things as if you were traveling.
About 2–3 years ago I stopped posting random pictures on my Instagram feed. I wanted my photo’s to tell interesting stories of places I had seen. So I started to edit and curate the photos before posting. This helped give my Instagram it’s own identity, to focus more on my travels. You don’t need to be abroad either to travel, as you can make the most of your current surroundings.
Top tip: Try and create a style for yourself and edit your pictures using phone apps like VSCO and Afterlight
2. Hire yourself to go on travel assignments.
- Turn your holidays into your own travel assignments.
- Look for jobs that give you opportunities to work abroad.
- Apply to programs like Remote Year, as a way to travel and work.
- Read this blog post for more tips on how to travel the world for free.
Top tip: We all love unlimited holidays, but a weekend is more than enough to create good travel content.
3. Follow other travel bloggers
Since I’m on my computer or phone so often, I’m always looking for new bloggers to quench my travel thirst. I have listed my top 3 travel bloggers below, and why I follow them
- Hippie in Heels: She is the go to girl for things to do in India. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have spent lots of trips there. She also does trips out of India too and I booked my stay in morocco after reading her blog post on her 2 weeks in Morocco.
- Gypsy Lust: Seeing her photos make me yearn to be away and see the same interesting things.
- The Bucket List Family: I wish to be this family. I tell Yohan that one day when we have kids I would like to take them back packing; he thinks I’m joking!
Top Tip: It seems to help to be a pretty blonde girl, to drum up followers. I did try dying my hair blonde once, but it didn’t suit me.
4. Start populating your social media with travel.
I have 197 followers on medium, over a 1000 followers on Instagram and over 500 followers on Twitter. I know in the grand scheme of things that is a small following. But that’s still 2000 people I can share my travel experiences with for now.
Top Tip: You need to have at least 10,000 followers on Instagram, to get paid to post.
5. Fake it till you make it.
I’m going to get out there and start documenting and sharing my travel experiences. One day I’ll either get bored of it or I could become a professional traveler.
Top Tip: Offer to write articles for free on other blogs that have bigger following’s. This can help build up your experience and reader base.
Basically stop dreaming and start doing it. These days everyone now is able to create their perfect alternative life via social media, so why don’t we.
Happy Travels xx
