Traveling: it’s on nearly every bucket list and many peo-
ple have nickels and pennies stacked in a jar, just waiting to be spent on a luxurious trip to the Maldives or the Swiss Alps. We scroll on Instagram and Twitter, envying travel bloggers who are sponsored to live the dreams of so many. We sit back and compare ourselves to what color the water is, what kind of wine they’re having, and what smiling faces we see plastered on our feed. What would you think if you were told it was all a facade? That travel blogging is simply virtual eye-candy intended to profit off the travel insecurity of ordinary people, while these bloggers live a carefree life of luxury abroad? Travel blogging can be dwindled down to one simple trade: profitability, for both the blogger and the brand (or even a country). While the general public may want to assume that travel bloggers have the best intentions when showcasing their grandiose adventures abroad, most of the time it’s an economic deal on display. Essentially, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the annual earnings of travel bloggers. Well-established bloggers may make $10,000 a month, strictly off social media revenue, which doesn’t even include sponsorships or tourist deals. Travel bloggers can also broaden to freelance writing and
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content creation, such as vlogs. While there is no denying that there is genuine work that goes into running a travel blog, the bloggers themselves rarely acknowledge how much privilege they must have held before their blogging journey in order to sustain this lifestyle. Many travel bloggers do not blatantly disclose the beginning of their careers; they usually just expand on their passion for travel and how glad they are that they could turn it into a career. Lauren, more frequently known as @gypsea_lust on her social media, is originally from Northern NSW Australia. According to her online blog, she is selftaught in photography, which propelled her into a passion for travel photography. Alongside her blog, she runs Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. She is currently based in Bali, Indonesia. Her comments under her posts all ask how she has turned such a dream into a job. She simply states “just practice and get creative,” and seals the advice with a smiley face. Amid all the questions asked, Lauren never dives deeper into her self-taught photography journey and how her career as a jetsetter, and overall influencer, came to be. Tara Whiteman (@taramilktea) is a self-coined creative from Sydney, Australia. She studied design at the
