Blogger Spotlight: Cathy Winston, Mummy Travels

Cathy Winston is the author behind Mummy Travels, a Top 10 Family Travel Blog. The blog covers everything family-travel-related from the exotic trips abroad to fun days out in the UK. Cathy spoke to us about her love of South-East Asia, what family-friendly really means and how she likes to collaborate with PRs.

How would you describe your blog?
A family travel blog that aims to inspire and inform parents who love to travel – and prove that having kids needn’t stop you doing that. Focused mainly on travel with a baby, toddler, preschooler and the first school years, there are tips and advice, reviews of products and accommodation, and tales of my travels with my daughter, from first flights to long-haul, a road trip, cruise and heading off the beaten track in South East Asia and Africa, along with days out in the UK, beach and city breaks.

Why did you start your blog?
I’ve always loved travel and have made it part of my career – but when I became pregnant, everyone told me I’d have to stop. The blog started to try to answer that question: can you keep travelling with a baby and kids? Happily, I think we’ve proved it’s a definite yes!

What makes your blog stand out against other family travel blogs?
The mix of destinations we cover is unusual; there’s content on Cambodia, Burma and Cape Verde, but also London museums, UK seaside breaks and most things in between. I do a lot of solo travel with my daughter. Although I’m not a single parent, it’s often just the two of us for all or part of the trip, including our recent two weeks in Cambodia, so I can bring that perspective to it, as well as giving us a lot of flexibility in what we can do. I have a career as a travel journalist as well, winning several awards, so there’s that professional approach and experience as well as the personal element.

What’s the best place you’ve been as a family?
We’ve visited some amazing countries so it’s really hard to pick one. Our adventures in South East Asia over the past two years have been hard to beat though, so a tie for first place between Burma and Cambodia, I think. But I never tire of a day out at the beach, whether that’s the UK coast or a tropical stretch of sand, and the luxurious Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort was fabulous.

What’s the worst place you’ve been as a family?
Touch wood, we haven’t had any disasters – perhaps the worst was a UK holiday camp. It wasn’t the place itself, which is really popular, but it’s much better for families with older kids. My toddler daughter was too young to enjoy the activities, and we ended up rushing dinner then sitting on the bed in the dark all evening while she slept. A good reminder that family-friendly means very different things depending on your individual situation.

What makes the ideal family holiday?
My daughter would say a beach or swimming pool and ice cream! I think it has to be something which keeps everyone happy. I can’t imagine spending two weeks just lying on a beach, but trying to pack too much in is a recipe for disaster with her, so somewhere which has plenty to explore but where we can enjoy some downtime as well.

Very few places don’t work at all with kids, unless it’s very active or adrenaline-fuelled when they’re little (or the Antarctic). The big difference is often the welcome for kids: plenty of places say they’re family-friendly but children are just tolerated and it’s very hard to relax, while places where kids are the centre of attention are so much more fun, even if you don’t have the facilities you might get at home.

Where haven’t you been that you’re desperate to get to?
SO many places! My bucket list gets longer with each trip, as I always want to go back and see the things we missed or spend more time there. Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia are high up though, as we’ve had some wonderful holidays in South East Asia and I haven’t visited any of them yet. But I’d also love to discover more of South America: Peru, Belize, Guatemala, the Galapagos and Costa Rica (for starters) – along with Cuba, Namibia, Oman, Montenegro. I could go on…

How do you like to work with PRs?
Collaboration is a bit of an overused word, but I think that’s the only way to work – any project has to suit both PR and blogger to be a success. For me, it’s really useful to know what the PR wants to get out of a trip, to be really upfront about what they’re hoping it will achieve but also to be flexible, whether that’s tailoring the itinerary to the demands of a small girl or working with me to include the quirky, the unusual, the offbeat things which I think will appeal to the blog’s readers.

Lastly, I pride myself on being very professional, always delivering as promised (and more) and never missing deadlines, so having the trust from a PR about that rather than being too prescriptive, and allowing me to be creative makes a huge difference. The fact that I have some great long-term relationships, working with the same people again and again is something I’m very proud of too.

What is the one thing PRs should know about you?
I get hundreds upon hundreds of emails every day and it’s easy to tell which ones have actually read the blog, or have personalised the email. Those are the ones I prioritise, unlike the ones which use my email address as salutation or put Dear Minnie (the pseudonym I use for my daughter on the blog). Oh, and I’m not a big fan of camping…

What are your favourite blogs to read (outside of your own!)?
Almost too many to mention! I love My Travel Monkey, Globalmouse Travels, Five Adventurers and Tinbox Traveller, who all have kids a similar age to my daughter, but also The Travel Hack and On The Luce, plus Suitcases and Sandcastles and One Tiny Leap for their beautiful photography.

Cathy Winston features on the Vuelio Media Database along with thousands of other bloggers, influencers and journalists.