Archive for: Press and Bloggers

Hand Luggage Only has once again been named the number one blog in the top 10 UK travel blogs. Written by Yaya Onalaja-Aliu and Lloyd Griffiths, Hand Luggage Only is known for its detailed destination write ups and beautiful imagery. Multi-award winners at the Vuelio Blog Awards, Hand Luggage have also recently contributed to the Vuelio white paper: Instagram Blackout.

Here, the guys told us about the dream of travel blogging, their favourite transport and the best collaborations they’ve worked on.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
This is a funny thing. It depends on who we’re speaking to. If we’re speaking with friends and peers, we will describe our job as travel bloggers. Most people understand what we do but less people understand the mechanics of how it is our full-time career.

Typically, we find it easiest to describe it as: in a similar way to magazines, we travel the world, experience places and write about it.

How do different social channel work with your blog?
Each social media channel is completely different, each with their differing audiences. No social media channel is the same, so we always treat them very differently but essentially, if we had to describe two main things we use our channels for, I guess one would be more prioritised towards real-time updates (eg. Instagram) and the other would be more towards expanding the reach of new articles or videos we have just created for the blog (e.g. Pinterest).

For us, we always see social media as an extension of our blog where we can give immediate updates on what we’re up to, what we’ve seen and experienced. Plus, it gives us ample opportunity to chat with fellow travel enthusiasts on places and to connect with a community of people who love to travel (like us).

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
This is a really interesting question. For us, Hand Luggage Only is our dream – we love what we do so much and we feel so passionate about what we do.

That said, the online world is constantly changing and it’s hard to know exactly where things will be in a year, let alone a decade. We’d like to think we will be still blogging or at least running Hand Luggage Only (in whatever capacity it continues in). We’re so excited about the future and what our blog could become.

Where’s the best place for street food in the world?
Oh, this is a tough one, there are so many places! For us, it’s probably somewhere like Thailand or possibly Vietnam. Singapore is also really amazing too – the influx of different culture there makes the food scene in Singapore pretty exciting.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
Another hard one! I want to say everywhere. To be honest, we’ve never met a group of people that are unfriendly. I think a large part of that really is paying attention to the local culture and being respectful. That’s not saying there are not a few bad eggs but generally, human beings are social animals and we’ve found that to be fairly consistent across the globe.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Can we include a private boat with 10 bedrooms and a swimming pool? Ha!

I think it’s got to be a plane for Lloyd. Lloyd wanted to be a pilot growing up, so he loves it!

For Yaya, it’s probably just walking. There’s just something about slowly getting to see a place on foot (we also realise this is rather impractical for cross country travel…).

Do you accept press releases?
We don’t accept press releases. In our experience, it’s generally unsolicited, generic information and we’re yet to receive one that has made us think, ‘Oh, I want to act on this!’.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
We love working with Visit England, Atout France, Germany Tourism and KLM who always understand what we do and the best ways to work together. A bit further afield, Visit Florida is also great to work with. I guess the thing they all have in common is that they let you just be yourself and have experiences that are natural to you, which is just amazing to find in a collaboration partner.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
For us, it would be to always have conversations with bloggers about what they think would be best for their audience and readers. The project needs to be collaborative, not instructive. Fully formed ideas without any blogger input typically don’t account for the nuances of different audiences and generally just seem unnatural. It’s always best for this to be a two-way discussion and for the blogger to be able to have a say in what they’re creating.

What other blogs do you read?
We read lots… it’s really hard to pinpoint just a few. For us, we love a good read of food bloggers, a fair few fashion bloggers and of course travel bloggers. It also depends on the time of year as well, I guess (like winter time we’re all about food and summer is all about travel).

Sarah and Laura Smith are the couple behind Sarah + Laura, which has once again been ranked in the top 10 LGBT blogs. Lifestyle bloggers covering family life, travel and food, Sarah + Laura have built a loyal audience with varied, in-depth content.

We spoke to the couple about the LGBT+ community, the importance of Pride and the best campaigns they’ve worked on (other brands take note!).

How do you describe what you do?
As an LGBT family, we have a unique view of the world and our experiences can be different than others’. By sharing what we find we hope to provide awareness for other LGBT families and anyone interested in travel, raising a family, food/recipes and the random goings on in our life. Our blog started as a personal diary but is now so much more now.

How do you use different social media channels with your blog?
We engage with our followers primarily on Instagram (right now) as people seem to love our Stories, especially when we’re travelling. Our Stories drive people to our blog where we can share more details about what’s happening. Twitter and Facebook are where we share our highlights and latest updates.

Is society getting better or worse for the LGBT+ community?
That really depends – in so many ways there have been changes for the better. Awareness and acceptance is greater than ever before, nowadays there is an understanding that ‘normal’ can be many things. However, with more LGBT+ people having the confidence and courage to be ‘out and proud’ it attracts attention from people in society who may have kept their homophobic views to themselves but now feel they need to stand up against the change in society. Ultimately though, from our perspective, society has got better. We can live openly as a married couple, raising a child in a society that welcomes us and we have never experienced any negativity.

Have you ever experienced online trolling?
No.

Why are Pride events important?
Any event that brings together the LGBT+ community is important. Historically the LGBT+ community has had to fight for rights, the fight will never end until there is total acceptance of the LGBT+ community in every aspect of life, in every part of the world. Prides allow representation, support and promotion of the LGBT+ community in a very public way, and celebrate everything good about being LGBT+.

What’s the best ways for brands to get involved without them just woke-washing?
To remember that LGBT+ people exist all year and not just in June. While we appreciate the appearance of rainbows in June and are happy to support brands highlighting their support of the community, there should be clear evidence that the brand supports LGBT+ people in their workplace. In our opinion a brand shouldn’t have to actively donate money to an LGBT+ cause – but that helps. For us it is about ‘walking the talk’ – if you say you support the community make sure you actually do.

What are the best campaigns/collaborations you’ve worked on?
LV= Insurance who looked at what the traditional family looks like now – this campaign felt inclusive as we were part of ‘new families’ that included LGBT+ families. Buckt (a Birmingham based experience subscription box) invited us to get to know our city in a new way. Again, we were part of a mixed review panel and our inclusion as an LGBT+ couple made us feel like the product was for everyone. We also appreciated an opportunity to visit and explore Newquay thanks to Love NQY. All the other reviewers had been ‘traditional families’ so when we were invited we were ready to show that LGBT+ families can enjoy a ‘traditional’ getaway too – in fact we are just like everyone! 

What advice would you give PRs looking to work with you?
For us if we are going to work with a company we like to be able to help share what they do with our community. It’s about the experience and any opportunity for us to show that we are just a normal family is welcomed. We want our daughter to grow up accepted, to be able to see families just to like hers and to make sure she feels represented. In order for that to happen we want to normalise our relationship. Promotion and awareness will always help that.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes.

What other blogs do you read?
We have a long list of LGBT+ blogs that we read including LesBeMums, Raff Out Loud and a few lifestyle blogs such as The Londoner, Barefoot Blonde and Travel Mad Mum but spend most of our time following other LGBT+ families on Instagram.

Monica Stott has been ranked once again with her blog The Travel Hack in the top 10 travel blogs. Originally started while camper vanning her way around Asia and New Zealand in 2009, The Travel Hack is now based in the UK but includes global adventures with Monica and her family.

Here, Monica tells us all about her use of different social media channels, the best places in the world for food, her advice for PRs – including the best example of a collaboration request – and her favourite other bloggers.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
It really depends who I’m talking to. I tell most people I’m a travel blogger and I feel like most people understand what that means. They usually assume my blog is a hobby rather than an established business and I often have an awkward couple of minutes where I try and tell them I actually make a living from blogging! I tell them I write about my travels and share advice, inspiration and guidance for anyone wanting to replicate my trip and that I work with travel and lifestyle brands to promote their products, services and destinations.

But if I’m talking to someone who is older or someone who doesn’t really use the internet then I tell them an ‘online travel writer’. This is essentially what I do, and it saves myself a lot of time and questions!

How do different social channels work with your blog?
I do use different social channels very differently.

Pinterest (if you can call it a social channel) drives a lot of traffic but I mostly have that all automated through Tailwind.

Facebook also drives a lot of traffic and has the most potential for something to go viral thanks to the ease of sharing posts, so I try to focus on creating posts people want to share.

Twitter seems to be mostly other travel bloggers so this is a great space for networking with my fellow bloggers and PRs.

Instagram is my favourite, although can be tricky with the algorithms and the need to spend a lot of time on the channel to see any major results. I see my Instagram grid like a shop window into my blog, one glance at this and you should get a feel for what The Travel Hack is all about. My grid is currently very blue and outdoorsy and this reflects a lot of the outdoor trips I’ve been taking recently.

Instagram stories is where the magic really happens. This is where I share everything and where I feel a real connection with my followers. This is where we chat and they ask questions and they get a glimpse into my whole life, not just my travels.

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
I really hope so, but I think it will be VERY different in years to come. Travel blogging has changed so much over the past five years so it’s really exciting to see how it will change and evolve over the next five years.

Travel blogging is my dream job and it’s equally amazing and terrifying to find yourself doing your dream job! I feel so lucky but I’m constantly nervous about slipping and the dream shattering. I don’t think this is a bad thing though, it keeps me on my toes and pushes me to keep learning and evolving. Blogging is all about learning new skills and adapting with the ever-changing technologies available to us.

It’s a very exciting time to be a blogger and I can’t imagine doing anything else!

Where’s the best place in the world for street food?
I think everywhere has good street food these days because it’s such a huge trend and so many people are entrepreneurial foodies who want to start small businesses as side hustles to their day jobs.

But I’m going to have to say Thailand because this is where I properly discovered street food (many, many years ago!) I’d never had such fresh, tasty, delicious and cheap food before in my life! I hadn’t eaten much Thai food before my first trip to Thailand and I was instantly hooked on those creamy, spicy curries with sticky rice.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
Every country I’ve ever visited has the usual mix of horribly rude people and wonderfully welcoming people. I think people are essentially the same all over the world, it’s just some countries have chattier locals than others. I think it’s often down to confidence too.

I really enjoyed a trip to the Maldives when my son was nine-months-old because the locals were so friendly and welcoming with babies. We hadn’t expected it to be such a baby-friendly place to visit but they loved our son and were so kind to him. Everyone on the island knew his name and the hotel staff would offer to entertain him while we ate our dinner. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they react to children and the people in the Maldives were lovely.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Electronic bike! I’ve just returned from a trip to Switzerland where I did some mountain biking on an e-bike and it was amazing. You can either choose to put very little effort in and coast along without breaking a sweat, or you can put a normal amount of effort in and ride twice as fast! It’s so much fun and I really can’t wait for e-bikes to become more affordable so they’re an everyday mode of transport.

Other than e-bikes I’d have to say planes because they open up the whole world for us. Flying is incredible and it’s relatively inexpensive too, making the world such an accessible place for us.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes!

Like most bloggers I get over a thousand emails a day so I usually read a small percentage. If something sparks my interest, I’ll definitely read it and it often leads to something on the blog. I’m much more likely to read it if it comes from a PR already in my address book or someone I’ve worked with already.

I think press releases can be an opportunity many bloggers miss out on. It’s worth noting that when a brand or a PR sends you a press release, it’s because they have something they want to promote so it’s a great opportunity to get in touch and see if there’s a way to collaborate.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
I’m currently on a press trip with Jurys Inn, the hotel chain. It’s my second time working with them and I love working with this brand. They let me know what they want to achieve, the messaging they want to get across and the purpose of our collaboration, and then they allow me to make the creative content decisions. They trust me to incorporate their messaging into my content and, because it’s a brand I genuinely love and their whole ethos aligns perfectly with The Travel Hack, it’s a message I can incorporate naturally and with wholehearted enthusiasm!

I’ve been doing this for 10 years and I understand what my audience respond to and what type of content has the biggest impact, both for immediacy and longevity. I’ve worked with countless brands to incorporate their messaging into my content so I love it when I’m given the trust and the freedom to create the content I know my audience will respond to.

What advice would you give to brands and PRs reaching out to you?
Know what you want to get out of a collaboration and tell me straight away! I often spend days going back and forth on emails with brands while I try and decipher their cryptic messages and find out what they really want!

It’s so much easier when a brand emails and says, ‘We’ve got a new product and we’d like you to feature it on your blog and Instagram feed. Attached is a description of the product and some photos. We’d like two blog posts, one to be a dedicated review and one to be an editorial style post where the product is naturally featured. We’d like two Instagram photos which we’d like to re-share on our feed and we want them to be candid and natural photos similar to the style on the mood board attached. If you’re interested, please tell us your fee and your turnaround time for this content.’

This would be the dream!

But if the brand is new to working with bloggers then I’m equally happy if they’re honest and say they don’t know what kind of content I can produce but they have a budget of X and they’d love to know what I could do with that and the kind of reach I would expect to achieve.

I get so many emails from brands saying, ‘Please send us some ideas about how we can collaborate.’ I’m definitely an ideas person and I could sit down and spend all day writing down a thousand ways we could collaborate, so it’s really nice when a brand are specific about what they want to get out of a collaboration and the size of the collaboration they have in mind. Once I know the purpose of the collaboration and the budget they have in mind, I can reply with a detailed proposal with clear examples and reports from similar campaigns I’ve worked on in the past.

What other blogs do you read?
I read so many!

I love Hand Luggage Only as they travel so much and have such a huge variety of incredible trips.

I like Twins that Travel for their honesty when it comes to travel and I love the way they encourage people who feel nervous or anxious to get out of their comfort zone and travel.

I love seeing the collaborations between Wanderlust Chloe and An Adventurous World. They have separate blogs and often travel separately but the newly engaged couple also make incredible videos when they’re together.

I like Katie Ellison for family travel and WishWishWish for stylish travel guides. I love girl tweets world for honest and funny travel posts, especially now she has an adorable baby boy. I follow Tigerlilly Quinn because she has this amazing way of making everything look so stylish! And I’ve recent discovered Emily Norris for family content and clever mum hacks!

And finally, I love The Girl Outdoors as her whole blog makes me want to put my walking boots on and go outside! So many ‘influencers’ are all about selling clothes and makeup but Sian’s blog is the opposite and is a breath of fresh air that always reminds me that happiness comes from the little things and being outdoors!

Kash is the man behind BudgetTraveller a new entry in the top 10 UK travel blogs. An experienced luxury-on-a-budget traveler, Kash is also an author and professional speaker. We caught up Kash to find out how many strings he has to bow, why South Africa has the friendliest people, his use of social and how he works with PRs.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
There are so many layers when it comes to working with a professional, experienced blogger – explaining the work we do is often my hardest challenge. I don’t thinks there is a word to describe the work I do.

I’m first and foremost a blogger, publisher and the man behind the BudgetTraveller blog. I’m also ‘the hostel guy’ and a published author; in August last year I published ‘The Grand Hostels: Luxury Hostels of the World’. I’m also a speaker and have been invited to speak at several digital tourism conferences on the topic of content and influencer marketing. In order for people to understand the value of our work I also became a content marketeer and developed a number of campaigns involving influencers some of which have won major tourism marketing awards. Examples of projects include MustLoveFestivals.com with Expedia, a project developed in partnership with 20 Destination Marketing Organisations (DMO) that included Visit Finland, Visit Austria, German National Tourism Office, BlogVille for Emilia Romagna & Blogmanay for Visit Scotland & Unique Events in partnership with iAmbassador and Film Traveller Cote d’Azur for Cote d’Azur Tourism.

How do different social channel work with your blog?
Instagram has been particularly effective in helping me building a community, especially stories which are great at keeping people posted about my recent travel adventures but also a place to ask questions, get ideas and learn more about travel trends that might be the focus of my blog in the future.

Twitter also has been great for cultivating a network – from bloggers and journalists to agencies, marketing directors of DMOs and brands. It’s a great source of contacts, work and also inspiration.

Facebook remains the best platform for seeding video content from campaigns but again requires some form of budget spend.

With all the platforms throttling organic reach increasingly, I’ve started to be invest less time in social and keeping it the bare minimum. The blog remains the key platform I focus on and I’ve also been focusing also on my newsletter, which offers a much better reach vs social.

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
I can’t see myself doing anything else to be honest! I love helping people travel better, love writing and sharing my stories and obviously love how a life of travel has brought me into contact with so many amazing people from across several hemispheres. It is a job, a gift that continues to give and help me grow.

Where’s the best place for street food in the world?
It would be a tossup between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Nothing makes me happier than a bowl of steaming noodles or a Pad Thai or simple Khao Man Gai – Thai-style chicken rice. The variety of food stalls and the quality is mind boggling. Plus the price.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
South Africa. The most beautiful, warm and passionate people I’ve met in the world. I’ve been twice and each time, the people welcome me with open arms. I can’t wait to go back.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Give me a train any day, especially in Europe. Nothing beats seeing the world from a train window. With a beer or a glass of wine in hand. I can walk around, read a book and it gets from A to B with minimum fuss, even if it takes a few hours more. Flying is so stressful nowadays.

Do you accept press releases?
I welcome press releases that are tailored to my interests. I like when someone sending a press release has invested some time into reading my blog and at least knows my name. The lack of personalisation in press releases is what drives most bloggers mad. I also welcome introductions via Twitter or Instagram – much more effective than a bland drab press release.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
I’m really proud of the work I’ve done with my friends at iAmbassador to help launch the concept of BlogVille back in 2013 for the Emilia Romagna Tourism Board-project that continues to grow and develop to this day and has spawned several similar ideas. I’ve had a fantastic relationship with the German National Tourism Office over the last few years – we’ve collaborated on a number of wonderful creative content campaigns ranging from promoting the country as a leading youth tourism destination to one that focused on the country’s amazing wealth of street art. Last Autumn I completed a month long residency in Latvia where I created a guide on how to enjoy the country on a budget. The tourism board was very supportive of my ideas and gave me complete creative freedom to create the content-still a rare thing in the world of brand collaborations.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
Be open to ideas and also send me yours – let’s start the creative process. Don’t come with a fixed brief and tie me down in umpteen deliverables; that can kill the creativity and passion within me or any decent digital storyteller. Please do take the time to read my blog and DO reach out to me on social. I’m always up for a beer or coffee so let’s meet up if possible.

What other blogs do you read?
Current blogs that I love or follow include: Messy Nessy Chic, Along Dusty Roads, Bridges and Balloons, Uncornered Market, As the Bird Flies and Time Travel Turtle.