The Truth About Being a “Travel Influencer” in 2025.
I just binge-watched an engrossing miniseries on social media and its perverse effects on our actual lives.
The character I originally identified with in the humorous yet thought-provoking pilot was a teenage YouTuber who would contact his friends every time he posted a new video and implores them to like, share, and comment. His life’s ambition was to work with a social media celebrity who had a much larger fan base in order to increase his likes, shares, and comments.
He stated something like this in an open discussion with his older brother:
Fans used to go to great lengths for celebrities.
However, social media stars now have an obligation to go above and above for their fans!
That made me pause and reflect. He had a point, aside from the show’s mockery of influencers. Influencers are risking their lives to entertain their fans and garner likes, shares, and comments by stepping on precarious cliffs, stomping through lavender fields, and even doing tacky dances in immaculate settings, as you can see if you search through any popular travel hashtag on Instagram.
I admit that I have pushed myself to complete a climb or two in order to get some amazing sights on my Instagram. I’m ashamed to admit that, when hiking in Thailand many years ago, I once hopped over a “do not cross” sign in order to take unhindered pictures of the surrounding valley. I too brought my laptop to the beach in the early days of my digital nomad existence with the express purpose of taking pictures of an outdoor office, as I had seen on other blogs, only to ruin my camera by getting fine sand in the lens!
The death of creativity
There was a time when travel bloggers were lauded for publishing one blog post a week or month. Some only published longer contemplative stories or videos once in a few months! After all, slow exploration and crystallizing experiences into meaningful stories takes time. And creativity isn’t something you can channel on demand.
Now fast forward to the Instagram age. Creators are expected to churn out content like a factory. Posts, reels, stories, blog posts, youtube videos, youtube shorts, snapchat, X, threads, tiktok, pinterest. Then cross-promote each piece of content on every other platform! Add to that the pressure to accumulate likes-shares-comments everywhere, and the constant competition to create something better than your peers.
Influencer agencies ask you to do the strangest things
Given that brand partnerships provide a sizable portion of my revenue, I am aware that I shouldn’t be sour relations with digital and PR firms, but
Due to “brand protocol,” they urge me to deceive readers by not revealing sponsored affiliations.
Even though I’ve never heard of or used their travel insurance before, they want me to spend two minutes on camera describing why it’s the greatest available.
They make false claims, such as “this might be the best brand I’ve tried,” in an attempt to get me to endorse their goods.
Instead of revealing that the travel agency paid me to take their vacation, they advise me to act as though I paid for it.
They want me to draw attention to the environmental initiatives of the exact firms who are killing our world by creating single-use plastics and fossil fuels.
Like I control the goddamn Instagram algorithm, they want me to commit to a specific quantity of views and comments.
Even worse, they want payment from me in order to include me to one of the billions of repackaging lists of the world’s leading travel influencers that are available online!
Can you really be a traveller AND an influencer?
The phrase “travel influencer” might seem contradictory at times. A traveler’s image and an influencer’s brand are frequently at odds with one another.
I’ve always believed that traveling is something that one does in secret. However, the authenticity of travel is sometimes destroyed by the weight of an influencer tag.
My boyfriend and I recently made the luxury decision to stay in an eco-lodge rather than being hosted at one, something we haven’t done in years. In particular, we used my partner’s name to make the reservation and delegated all correspondence to him.
My entire experience was altered by the anonymity of being only another visitor. I realized the restaurant wasn’t making an exception for me when they cleverly accommodated my vegan demands. I realized that one of the lodge’s board members wasn’t sugarcoating her vision for my blog when I chance to run into her and we had a lengthy conversation about it.
The reality is that an influencer’s experience will probably differ from that of a typical traveler, despite my best efforts to maintain authenticity in my joint excursions.
Tourism boards frequently open major attractions ahead of time for blogging assignments so that people may visit and take pictures before the crowds come. For travel influencers, specific arrangements, guided tours with founders who don’t often lead trips, and customized meals are frequently not replicable for their fans. Does that render influence and travel inauthentic?
I’m tired of planning trips with tiny, ecologically and socially concerned firms these days, and they always notice my blog or Instagram account and want me to join them for free. I would prefer to pay for the trip if I could. I would want to be compensated for a professional partnership or to be really genuine and not feel under pressure to write about it.