Travel Trends with Dan Christian
#1 B2B Travel Podcast. If you are looking to stay ahead in the travel industry, this new podcast hits all the highlights! The Travel Trends Podcast is where industry leaders converge to share & shape the future. Whether you're an emerging entrepreneur, a seasoned industry executive, or a dedicated travel professional, you’ll be able to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Uncover valuable insights, innovative strategies, and meaningful connections that will elevate your travel business or career to new heights.
Travel Trends with Dan Christian
Why We Travel: Exploring the Role of Travel Writers with Ash Bhardwaj
Discover how travel writers are shaping the way we explore the world with award-winning journalist and filmmaker Ash Bhardwaj. Having reported from over 50 countries, Ash shares valuable insights on the intersection of travel, culture, and current global affairs.
This episode explores the deeper meaning on "why we travel" and gets behind our travel experiences, offering thoughtful reflections on cultural engagement and the impact of personal storytelling. Ash also highlights the ethical challenges facing travel journalism and influencers, while exploring the growing trend of adventure travel as a path to emotional connection.
Key Takeaways Include:
- The 12 core motivations driving our travel choices
- How personal stories shape travel narratives
- Travel as a tool for healing
- The ethical responsibilities of travel influencers and writers
- The rise of adventure travel and its emotional resonance
Join us for this engaging discussion that will challenge your perspective on travel and inspire more meaningful journeys!
👉 Listen to Why We Travel: Exploring the Role of Travel Writers Now
🔥 Season 5 Title Sponsors: TravelAI, Stay22, Propellic, Flight Centre, Collette, Flywire, Traveltek and Protect Group.
Season 5 Launched Jan 15th. New Episodes Every Weds! Check out our first 4 Seasons.
https://www.traveltrendspodcast.com/
I discovered 12 motivations curiosity, inspiration, happiness, mentorship, hardship, service, serendipity, empathy, healing wonder, eroticism and hope, and none of these are superior to any other.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to Travel Trends Season 5, episode 4. This is your host, dan Christian, and I'm excited to continue our deep dive into the role of influencers in travel. We started with TikTok and the massive impact that that platform has had on traveler inspiration and now booking and how they work with travel creators. And then we went back to look at the OG influencers, the photographers, and last week's episode got some terrific response. We had, of course, Paul, katrina and Jeffrey, and actually we have created a special highlight from each of them that we've put on our YouTube channel to showcase one of their most impactful photos they've ever taken. So they give you the backstory and we share that image with you. So be sure to check those out on our YouTube channel at Travel Trends Podcast, and we'll also be posting it on Instagram reels as well. Aaron Cutajar kindly commented on LinkedIn that I love the episode. I got a lot from it. I think of myself very much as an amateur photographer when I travel at best, but this episode was full of hidden gems and tips and tricks for everyone. No-transcript. It certainly means the world to us, so definitely, if you are holding back, by all means, we'd love to hear from you, and the one thing I guess I would ask for this episode is that please go ahead and share it with one person that may not be familiar. I was in Quebec City last week and I had an incredible opportunity to connect with many leaders in Quebec tourism around sustainability and innovation, and I was brought in by MT Lab, which is Montreal Lab, and Frederick and the team there kindly invited me to participate, but actually they found out about Travel Trends from Andrew Lockhead it's day 22. And they became avid listeners to the show and I met quite a few people there last week who have been listening to the show and it's so wonderful to meet each of you in person. So thank you again for that opportunity and I will be sharing a special episode from that trip coming up shortly. We, of course, have lots of events planned for 2025. I'm going to be off to Monaco shortly for the Forbes Travel Conference. We'll be in ITB. We're actually doing a podcast with ITB that'll be released shortly, and I also wanted to acknowledge the Tourpreneur team for inviting me to be on their podcast recently. It was just published last week and we talked about the five tips for scaling large global tour operators and I've seen so much wonderful feedback on that and a number of reach out. So thank you again to Mitch, to Pete and Chris for that opportunity and I look forward to sharing the Tourpreneur story with our listeners in the very near future. Now for this episode, we're actually going to have another really special guest, but before I introduce him, I just wanted to also say thanks again to the team at Flytographer for sponsoring this influencer series, and if you've been listening, you would know that they are giving away a photo shoot for our listeners, as well as offering a 10% discount by using the code TRAVELTRENDS. To find out more information, all you have to do is go to flytographercom slash travel dash trends. That's, flytographercom slash travel dash trends. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 2:We're going to focus on travel writers, and I have the pleasure now to introduce you to Ash Bhardwaj, who is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. He's based in the UK and he recently published a very acclaimed book called why we Travel. And, as you'll hear in our conversation, ash really sits at the intersection of travel, culture and current affairs all things that I'm fascinated about. He's reported for more than 50 countries and worked with BBC, the Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian, condé Nast, huffington Post, and he's also been a presenter on BBC Radio 4 docuseries. He did one about how Ukraine made us and NATO's newest member. But this guy has also traveled and he is a intrepid traveler, and I'm not saying the brand, I mean the style of travel. So he's journeyed a thousand kilometer trek through Uganda and Sudan. He has traveled all along the India-Pakistan border and did a four-part TV series for Discovery Channel.
Speaker 2:He is a really fascinating individual and I can't wait to introduce him to you. As I discovered in my conversation with him, he's actually was a captain in the British Army Reserves, which connects some of his passion for history, and he has his master's degree from King's College in London. He's been a lecturer in journalism at City University. He's even a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers. So who better to sit down and talk to, especially as he's just launched his debut book, why we Travel, a Journey Into Human Motivation, which is a really smart thinking blend of kind of a memoir, travel log, his research and his various interviews and it really explores our motivations for why we travel, which couldn't be more connected to this show. So definitely, afterwards, check out his best travel book of 2024, according to the Independent, and, on that note, I hope you really enjoyed this conversation. So welcome, ash. It's so great to have you on Travel Trends.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me mate.
Speaker 2:For sure, and so I was so keen for you to be a part of this discussion as we look at the role of influencers and content creators, and you're all of those things and more, and so I wanted to start by getting your background, because it's quite fascinating and anyone who has gone to your website and I just want to make sure that everyone has that so it's Ash, and then Bardwaj, which is B-H-A-R-D-W-A-Jcom. So follow along, because you'll see not only Ash's amazing story, but I think everyone needs to see some of your extraordinary travel photos. But the amazing thing to me was you were actually, briefly, a school teacher, so tell us about your journey becoming a filmmaker and getting into the travel industry.
Speaker 1:I started off by being quite curious about travel from the age of 17. So I grew up in social housing. We didn't have much money so we didn't travel much when I was young and then my school was doing a rugby tour to Australia, new Zealand and the Cook Islands and it was subsidized by sponsorship from, I think, a local estate agency firm. And if I could get a place on the tour then I'd be able to get on this journey around the world. So my mum said I'll pay for your subsidized part of your ticket if you can get onto the rugby team.
Speaker 1:And to do that she would have had to get a second job as a cleaner and I would have had to learn how to play rugby. So I learned how to play rugby, which at the age of 16 is pretty tough court because you have a sense of self-preservation by the time you're 16. And rugby basically requires throwing your self-preservation out of the window. And I headed off to Australia, new Zealand and the Cook Islands and it changed my life, particularly seeing how interesting New Zealand was.
Speaker 2:Amazing. So that's where it began, 17 years old, but you still went ahead and became a teacher for a few years before you went on these incredible treks around the world. And I have so many questions for you, just given the types of trips that you've taken. But when did you kind of decide to commit yourself to this life of adventure and travel?
Speaker 1:So I, after school, I backpacked around India for a bit and after university I moved to New Zealand and Australia to live in both countries. I spent nine best part of a year in New Zealand and a couple of months in Australia, and it's whilst I was out there that I was sending emails back to friends at home documenting my journeys, kind of like an early blog, and then I got positive feedback from them and that kind of took me in that direction. And then when I came home, my mum was going through her first cancer and my sister and I basically took it in turns to be at home. And whilst it was doing that, I got a job at my old school teaching chemistry and physics.
Speaker 2:Amazing At your old school, like actually literally at your old high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the school that I went to Australia, new Zealand and the Cook Islands with. I mean it's the local state comprehensive school in my town. Like I knew everybody, I went to school with half the people who were now teachers there, so it was a very familiar place. To be Working with my old classmates and my old teachers was a very weird experience, but loved it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no kidding. Well, and what did you study in school?
Speaker 1:I did chemistry, physics, maths and further maths at A-level. I started off doing chemistry and molecular physics at university, changed that to philosophy, so my bachelor's degree was in philosophy and then I just did a master's two years ago in strategic communications, which is understanding how influence and persuasion and propaganda works fascinating and so clearly.
Speaker 2:You've got a background in science and you've got a world adventure experience in the social sciences and clearly you combine the two left brain, right brain.
Speaker 2:Obviously you're um you're well read and you clearly, um are well traveled. But, uh, what came first? And so, obviously you're teaching this, uh, you're back on and, uh, you know, taking care of your mom, which obviously I think you know the genesis of this podcast and how it came about, with myself taking care of my dad when he wasn't well. So I, I greatly, uh, respect that decision and, um, but, yeah, you, obviously you're taking care of your mom, you're back at the um the high school teaching, but, but you only did that for a year, because then you were embarking on travel. So, tell us, what came first? Was it the filmmaking? It was the photography. Clearly, you were already a passionate traveler from 17 onwards, um, but how did you decide this was going to?
Speaker 1:how you know, you're going to make a career so the first thing that came was, uh, writing emails. You know that wasn't any sort of income and I was training as a ski instructor when I was in new zealand and working as a doorman whilst playing rugby. So I I took a very safe time whilst I was in new zealand, obviously, and I then came back to europe and was working as a ski instructor in Switzerland and still continuing to do bits of writing, but by that point it had become a blog. I didn't really know what to do with it as a career at that point, and during my summers in between ski seasons I basically used the money that I'd saved whilst working in the ski season to pay for journalism training in the UK. But I didn't do a master's, this was just short courses in how to film and how to edit. So that was when I started to do the visual stuff, but I think I'm a better conceptualist and a better writer than I am a filmmaker.
Speaker 1:A friend of mine did go and walk the entire length of the River Nile and I walked about a thousand kilometers with him, so about 650 miles, something like that and I filmed that for a TV program, a documentary series called Walking the Nile, and I was good enough to do that. But I realized that I wasn't a film maker in the way of people who just full-on filmmakers, who just love that craft. I realized I really enjoyed being a broadcaster, so telling story via tv and radio, but also I just really loved writing and so those are the things I was probably strongest at I can make, but I'm not the best person to have operating the camera. I'm a good producer and writer of films, but I'm not a camera operator, if that makes sense of the post from 2013, 14, 15, and obviously it goes up to 2019.
Speaker 2:And there's some fascinating stories in there and I think this is where you kind of to me, anyway, you seem like a renaissance man by the fact that you're actively involved in a number of different things and I guess, just to tie it together, I mean, one of the things that I had seen in your background even before you started the blog around the same time, is you traveled in 2012 to Everest to document the journey of wounded British soldiers, and I think one of the things that stood out to me in your travels is there seems to be a connection, even on your most recent journey, from essentially the Russian border all the way up to Norway 11 countries, 8,500 kilometers to kind of understand what's happening in our world today but there seems to be. You know, you've retraced World War II secret missions. I guess the one thing I wanted to ask you is that, you know, was there always a fascination with military history, that sort of draw you in, or what was the connection? Because obviously I've seen some of the images too, with your jacket for wounded soldiers.
Speaker 1:Is there a personal or family connection there? Uh, I mean, I am a captain in the british army reserve, so I'm, you know, I'm a part-time soldier, but certainly not from family. I mean, if you're, if you're totally associated with western europe, one of your relatives or all of your relatives were probably involved in World War II.
Speaker 1:On my Indian side, going all the way back. I've even got relatives that fought against the British at various phases. But you know, my mum's dad was in the RAF during World War II, but there's nothing particularly remarkable about that in the UK, and I grew up in Windsor, which is a town that has that has, you know, a couple of different barracks in it, so the military were always around. I used to see them marching up and down for her majesty queen elizabeth ii and I then nearly joined the regular army in 2005, but then had far too much fun traveling and becoming a ski instructor and being a very bad cowboy in Australia. So that's why I didn't join the regular army full-time back then and as a journalist, what I've started to really understand is that exploring and understanding recent and contemporary history gives us a real insight into the shape of the world today, and following or digging into stories of conflict can lead you to dig into history, which can lead you to better understand current affairs. And, being British, we have obviously invaded most of the world, so there's usually a British link to these places and I used to find these things that really stood out and surprised me.
Speaker 1:And going to New Zealand that first time, when I was 17, I was becoming incredibly aware immediately of how prominent the indigenous Maori culture was and what a stark contrast that is to Australia where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture is almost absent from mainstream Australian culture.
Speaker 1:I can't really speak much about what you find in Canada, but in the United States Indigenous American culture is basically absent from American culture. So why is it that in New Zealand it's part of their society that there's a biculturalism there. It's not just tokenistic, it's very much ingrained for all the problems and challenges that they still have in New Zealand. And realizing that that there's a historical reason for this. It was the way it was settled, it was the declaration of how the indigenous people were treated at the beginning, it was the particular conflicts that occurred at certain stages, it was particular treaties, it was particular betrayals by uh of the treaty and so on and so on and so on. There's this understanding and actually military history is just an interesting lens through which to explore the world, because it it's usually where dramatic things have occurred. And that's not to say that you can't learn something about the world without having to look. Of my favorite I mean, he's obviously Scottish, but one of my favorite authors.
Speaker 2:And he wrote a book about empire the rise and demise of the British Empire, and it's a fascinating read. And it's interesting because a lot of travelers like yourself that are passionate global travelers based out of the UK passionate global travelers based out of the UK. So I'm interested to get your perspective on your global travels from that vantage point, given the history of the empire, as you just mentioned, and the conflict. The other one that I'm sure you're familiar with is Tim Marshall, who was a journalist and then wrote a series of books, starting with Prisoners of Geography, because he noticed exactly to your point that it was remarkable when you look at landmasses and traditional borders, there are very clear reasons why those borders have shaped these countries over, or these cultures over, thousands of years. And so it's. Anyway, I highly recommend any of our listeners to read Prisoners of Geography, because there's like three other books that came out and they're all fascinating. I'm still gutted he's never written a chapter on Canada, though, but we'll come back to that another time. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 1:Um, so tell us a little bit how that one came to be so just touching what you were just talking about, I actually know tim and and was caught up with him for a coffee a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about this and we were talking about one of the challenges he faces. People say that he's reductionist and determinist, that geography is everything. He says. Well, no, it's not everything, but it is more likely to lead to certain outcomes as a product of stuff, and it was really really interesting talking to him about this and another two great books.
Speaker 1:If you're going to be interested in Empire, they probably sit slightly differently to Neil Ferguson's position, but William Dalrymple's the Anarchy is brilliant and Satnam Sanghera's Empire Land, land which is really about the, the legacy of imperialism and colonialism and particularly its impact in the uk. He's got another book called empire world which takes that idea and stretches it a bit further, but saturn and sangera very much looks at everything that we encounter now as a product of what we did as an empire decades ago you know, empire worked out pretty good for me.
Speaker 1:I'm, I exist, and had it not been for me, for that, I wouldn't be alive.
Speaker 2:But I really understand that for many people, particularly indigenous peoples, and places.
Speaker 1:Empire was not a good thing. Um, so there's a whole. What I find interesting is it's not a case of it's a good or a bad, it's a case of this occurred. How is it still affecting us today? You know, I I try not to get engaged too much about that deterministic debate, because you know you should have both pride and shame of your history, or none. You should either have no opinion of it or you have to have pride and shame.
Speaker 1:So, um, the stories I then went on to do started by looking actually at those borders between india and pakistan that were a product of british empire and which would, of course, clearly shape the world today. I mean, they were literally designed during the british withdrawal from what was then british imperial ind, and the story that you're talking about, this long journey along Russia's European border, came about as a product of being deployed, with the British Army Reserve, to Estonia in 2017. So, when Russia first invaded Ukraine in well, it's not Russia's first invasion of Ukraine Russia first invaded Ukraine about, I don't know, about 900 years ago or about 700 years ago, but on this phase in modern history, russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, invaded Crimea and invaded Donbass, although they didn't mark their troops in Donbass and didn't annex it in 2014. In 2014. But the countries along NATO's eastern flank worried that Russia might try and reclaim some of its imperial territory from the past, which is what they were doing in Ukraine, and so more European allies asked their NATO allies to come and spend time on their territory to deter a Russian invasion.
Speaker 1:So we were in Estonia and whilst I was there, I just became really aware that I knew nothing about this period of history, that I knew nothing about what happened here in 1991, what happened here in 1945, what happened here in 1939.
Speaker 1:And Timothy Snyder, the academic, basically says World War II, despite us thinking about it being the Western Front and what happened in France, really was a war all about Central and Eastern Europe and the battle for these places in between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, particularly for Ukraine, and become being aware that Russia had basically created an alliance with the, with Nazi Germany, to divide up Europe and then ethnically cleanse places like Estonia was just not part of what I knew from my history and I became quite interested in learning more, because if we misunderstood this, then we would have ended up with greater conflict in europe and me possibly being deployed not to just practice shooting but to actually do it if we ended up at war with russia. So it was um of direct personal interest to me. So I spent six months traveling from the top of norway down to russian occupied crimea to gain an insight into what was going on in these places.
Speaker 1:And you know not to make an opinion about it, but just to report on it and tell the story of what I encountered there. And tell these stories that are rarely known in Britain, because our World War II narrative here in the UK is all about the Battle of Britain, spitfires, ej, and that's basically our war narrative. That's, that's what happened, according to the british, in world war ii. Uh, a sort of pop culture, and what happened in eastern europe is really forgotten, but we're seeing the resolutions of that being played out in these in ukraine today for sure we definitely are.
Speaker 2:no, I think that's where I mean even the, you know, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles and the way that the Middle East was divided up, all things that obviously you know I mean.
Speaker 2:So much of the history that we experience today is directly related to the way borders have been drawn and the way that cultures have been forced together or separated, but yeah, but in terms of your background, because obviously. Or separated, but yeah, but in terms of your background, because obviously I'm a keen student of history as well. So I'm very keen to get your perspective and, by all means, any other book suggestions, because not only will I read them, but I'll make sure they're in the show note for our guests as well. But tell us a bit about some of your recent extraordinary adventures, and I guess that's where I think I would love for our audience to understand some of the, the journeys you've been on, like you mentioned about uh, walking, uh, you know, 800 kilometers, walking the himalayas, um, um and meeting the delhi lama, and so I would love for you to share just at this point. And then I've got so many other questions for you, but if you wouldn't mind sharing one or two of your uh, I guess, most compelling travel stories with us listeners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that first trip to New Zealand and seeing the prominence of the Maori culture that changed my life. That really mattered. Going to Ukraine in 2018 and seeing what kind of a country that was and seeing how much Ukraine was striving to become European and throwing off this legacy of the Russian interfering state. As Ukrainians, they're trying to get there. Finally getting their independence from the Soviet Union was how many people saw the legacy of 2014 and the Euromidan, so understanding that there.
Speaker 1:I recently went to Ecuador and the galapagos islands doing some stories about what. What does sustainability look like in in travel today? Is it something that we can really say with a straight face? You know you speak to many people in the travel and tourism industry and they talk about sustainability and yet they're still marketing business class flights and first class flights. And what can sustainability look like at the front end, where places are actually redeveloping regions and regrowing in a sustainable way, forest and actually getting local people engaged in work and opportunities and employment in places like Galapagos and Ecuador, rather than just having a business that plonks itself down in a region, extracts and none of the revenue goes back into the local area? So I've been really interested in that as a topic.
Speaker 1:Recently Now, walking in the River Nile and walking the Himalayas. My mate Lev did the whole of those things and I did, yeah, a thousand kilometers in Africa and 800 kilometers in the Himalayas the first time we went to the Himalayas. My mate Lev did the whole of those things and I did, yeah, a thousand kilometers in Africa and 800 kilometers in the Himalayas the first time we went to the Himalayas together. That was amazing, just because it gave me these opportunities to encounter things that I never would have done otherwise, because when you're walking places, you don't really have much else to do, so you might as well observe the world around you.
Speaker 1:And there's this real temptation with travel and because most of us are traveling as a vacation or a holiday, with the limited time and resources that we have, there's a temptation to try and make the most out of it and pack our time really fully and see every site, visit every museum, go to every bar, visit the top 10 restaurants that someone has told you to go to on instagram and um. That leaves no room for what I think is the best of travel, which is discovery and serendipity, and the only way you can do that is, to have loads and loads of spare space in your itinerary so that you can say yes to an opportunity, and it can be completely accidental. When I look back on the things that I remember over my travels, it's very rarely the things I was looking forward to. It's very rarely the things that I'd planned. It's usually a conversation I've had with somebody that takes me in a direction I didn't know about.
Speaker 1:When I lived in New Zealand, my favourite walk I ever did was one called the Rob Roy Glacier walk, from a place called Raspberry Flat near Wanaka, and that came about because somebody told me about it in the cafe that I worked in, and had I never known about that, I wouldn't have had this remarkable walk that lasts about five hours. And then when we went back with my daughter Lyra, when she was four months old, I took her on that walk, carrying her on it, and so these things that you can't plan are really the greatest fruits of travel.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Key to get your take on traveling with the kids as well. That's certainly a topic I'm very passionate about, but just I want to draw the connection between the journey you've been on and what we're seeing today, in 2025, with the role of influencers, content creators, because you obviously kind of predate those terms in many ways. But clearly, obviously, you are a blogger and you have a number of different media that you work in. But I guess what I'd like to ask you, given your background and experience, is that the industry has evolved significantly in the last, say, 10 years and the role of influencers has continued to play a more and more important role in travel marketing and storytelling and you clearly are a remarkable storyteller for a number of reasons, obviously, given your public speaking as well. So I guess what I'd like to understand is like from your perspective, what role do you see yourself and others playing in inspiring travel or influencing booking decisions? And I guess the specific thing I'm keen to get your take on, ash, is that you know I've worked with influencers who have an audience that clearly wants to travel and follow them.
Speaker 2:I've also worked with content creators and adventure travelers who do remarkable things and people just want to read about them. They don't necessarily actually want to go on these adventures, and I always find that there's kind of. There are two different types of travelers. There's the ones that you know. There's the armchair ones that just want to be able to read about these adventures in a book, and that's okay. And then there's the other ones that actually want to get off the couch and jump into the world and go and see it for themselves.
Speaker 2:How would you say, on your journey, the impact that you've seen on other travelers, what has been some of the feedback you've received and what are some of the indications to you? And I would say maybe it's a combination of both, because clearly not everyone can travel like you, um, so I'm sure they'd love to just follow along on your journeys or listen to some of your, your tales from the field, but I'm sure that other people are also equally inspired by your story and want to get out and see the world. So, yeah, how do you, how do you see your role with the content you're creating and, uh, and the position you have within the industry?
Speaker 1:So I do a couple of things that really look at this quite a lot at the moment. First, I teach on the MA or Masters in Journalism at City University London and I produced a couple of courses for Bright Trip and a few others about how to get into travel journalism. And I was just up at the Kendall Mountain Festival this weekend delivering a course on how to get into travel journalism. And then, you know, writing the book why we Travel. I was thinking very much about the motivations for travel, how to do it better and how to live a more fulfilling life. So the book's about motivation, right, if you understand your motivation, you can then think about the mechanism of how to travel. So what's the role of journalists and content creators and influencers in that space? Well, as a travel journalist, I think your responsibility is always to the audience. That is who you serve. It's mitigated via the editor in the newspaper, but you're there to deliver stuff to the audience, and I think you should be doing two things Inspiration, which is letting people know about things they had not known about before, and information, which is telling them how to do it. So, through the, you know, it was inspiration that put me into doing travel in the first place, watching the documentaries by michael palin or watching Star Trek and developing notions of discovery and engaging with other cultures, those sorts of quite random influences on my life. That's inspiration. Then information is the mechanisms of how to do it, like where do you go? What do you book? Do you use a train, do you use a plane? That kind thing. And in travel journalism, the lifestyle journalism you serve the audience. You write for the editor to get your stuff in the newspaper, but often, when you're doing it as a travel journalist, actually your costs are covered by the destination or brand that want to get you there, because they'll they'll think, yeah, this is worth us spending some money on this person's travel, because it's likely that, um, our destination or our brand will be written about. Therefore, there's the inspiration that means people are more likely to travel there.
Speaker 1:But the the challenge is and what some journalists most, actually most travel journalists I've only seen a couple of issues every now and again is you serve the audience. That's who you really work for. The question I was asking myself is would my mum, who raised my sister and I on her own on income support, feel that I've been honest or duped her with the information I include in a travel article. So that's where my ethical standard lies. For content creators, most of the ones that I know as mates have the same ethical standard. Right, they're like am I looking after my audience? The difficulty they have is that income comes directly from brands and sponsors. Now, if they're separate to what they're writing about, then you, then that's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1:The challenge can be and you see this with you know influencers like uh, what's the name? The kardashians. You know, if they're being paid a million pounds by somebody to tell you that something is great, you know, do you trust them? I mean, people obviously do trust the kardashians.
Speaker 1:So I think, even though the travel influencers and content creators I know don't do that same thing themselves that that that doubt about integrity can creep in. And the thing I always say is you have to remember that our journalists actually do they actually have any more integrity, because you look at political journalism, at least in the uk, what journalists write about is based on the information that they have, and the information they have is based on people giving them that information. But they don't want to use up all of their good stories because they want to retain their contacts. So do journalists have any better a standpoint than an influencer and a content creator? I'm not really sure. So there's that. There's that trust and integrity thing.
Speaker 1:That, I think, is one part of it, and then the other is one of the challenges I do see occurring on travel Instagram and travel TikTok and again not by the people that I know, but by some of the followers that get massive numbers is that it becomes very narrow. They're basically doing versions of exactly the same content and the travel experience becomes entirely consumerist. The travel experience is what are the 10 places to get your photo in? What are the 10 best bars to visit? What are the 10 best bars to visit? What are the 10 best restaurants to visit?
Speaker 1:And this goes back to the underlying issue that I try and address and why we travel, which is that it's if you make your travel all about mechanisms where you stay, what you see, what you do, the type of trip you have then you can get a real misalignment and it becomes hollow and the really important thing to do is understand your motivations, and I think some of the best content creators I see and I know are talking about, um, their engagement with the place and the people that they meet. And yes, there's ways to do that, whether that's through doing a hobby or or going on a hike or visiting a particular place, but it's very much about that human engagement in human connection that matters more. So what's the so? What of that?
Speaker 1:I think the challenge is is that the way the algorithms work is you're driven towards short, fast, visual, orientated content, whereas the most fulfilling travel requires a bit of thought. But this isn't new you, if you look at the most damaging and problematic and most popular forms of travel over the last 34 years 30, 40, 50 years it's been cheap, it's been short, uh, short, uh journeys. It's damaging to the local environment, long-term damaging to the local economy, but you can get cheap beer and you can get nice weather, and it's not really about the full experience for that kind of doughnuts economy of tourism. Um, so I I fear we'll probably end up with just more of the same, really well.
Speaker 2:it's interesting to get your perspective on this, given that you teach on the subject, and a follow-up question I'd like to ask you is that you know, clearly, you've been successful, but what do you think sets successful, whether you say, journalists, but also travel influencers, obviously just to distinguish between those two, because, clearly, we've certainly seen a blending, like people like Barry Weiss in the US he used to write for the New York Times, created the Free Breast, matt Tabe as well, who was a journalist, and now he's a podcaster, and so there seems to be people like yourself that have, even with a master's degree and a strong academic background and working within academia or even within journalism, are also extending themselves, obviously writing, filmmaking, podcasts, all these other venues to reach an audience. So I guess what I want to ask you, though, is what do you think sets apart the ones that are successful? Is it the content, is it the style of engagement, or is it something else?
Speaker 1:I think luck plays a part of it. In terms of the reason why journalists have to do it, it's because there's very few good jobs in journalism anymore, and certainly not in travel. It's very hard to find a staff job in in journalism now, certainly staff job in travel journalism, where you've got a guaranteed income. I think, therefore, you have to find other sources of income and for me, travel writing and travel journalism probably ends up being about 20 of my income. The rest is, you know, I doratcom's consultancy for brands about their messaging. I do video production and explaining videos for the NHS and explaining different types of research and so on. So that's inevitable, right? And I think the other thing with the journalists, with the journalists that I see, you know, not just in lifestyle but in current affairs and news they have to develop their own brand and themselves as a product, otherwise they can't guarantee their survivability if a particular publication or channel closes down or they lose their job. So that's kind of happening. So it's all starting to blur into one.
Speaker 1:I think the ones that are most successful are the ones that um are ethically credible. And I think, if I look at some of the best content creators, some of them do have a background in journalism. First, because they know what good storytelling is. They understand ethics and truth better than everybody, um, and they understand the importance of serving your audience in an ethical way. So I I think that's.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that those are necessarily the most successful, but the ones that I find resonate most with me tend to come from that background. Then it's about telling honest, ethical stories. Are you really are you, when you go to a place, are you telling the story of the place and its people, or are you talking about how that place and those people can make you have a better time? And if you see the difference between those two, one is very much about the place and its people and the other one's extractive and sort of colonial in its approach. That's what I view as ethical and that's what I view as good. Whether or not that means that is going to be the ones that make the most money, become the most popular and become the most successful, that's a different question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair enough. No, very good point. And then one other question I just wanted to ask you on the role of influencers in travel, and then I want to talk about your book, specifically because I also want to dive into the types of media that you're active in and why you're choosing different forms of media to be able to showcase and share your story and connect with a wider audience. And specifically on the why we Travel book. I mean, I love the name, I love the concept, and, although I haven't read it yet, I did my research in advance. I got a number of questions for you, and my commitment to you is for sure I'm going to read it afterwards. My commitment to you is for sure I'm going to read it afterwards.
Speaker 2:But the question I wanted to ask you about influencers, though, is that, as we look at 2025 and beyond and we think of platforms, you mentioned, of course, the role of social media, and especially if you're promoting certain brands, clearly we've seen a massive rise in the use of short form video platforms like TikTok, instagram Reels, youtube Shorts, and even my dad, especially towards the end he was totally obsessed with watching travel bloggers, and it was a great escape for him in the hospital or when he did come home, and so he was always making travel plans and he was always watching these and it was wonderful because he was always a dreamer, so he was always making further plans and watching these, and so for him, youtube was an incredible escape, and so I saw some of these influencers I didn't necessarily gravitate to, but they find their own audiences, and so I guess what I wanted to ask you is that, when you kind of look ahead in the next three to five years, how do you see the role of influencers evolving as the travel industry also adapts to, you know, new technologies and different challenges of being able to market themselves?
Speaker 2:I mean, what are you seeing from your space and what are you teaching your students to, I guess, to be prepared as the travel industry evolves?
Speaker 1:So I mean, I think there's always just like quite a lot of bollocks talked about, you know, the future and social media and that kind of thing, because you know, advertisers and others come up with terms like Gen Z or Gen Z, as I said, called in North America, but there's no such thing as Gen Z or Gen Z. There's people of a certain age but there is absolutely no uniformity in their views. There's no commonality about what their interests are really. I mean, they might drink a bit less alcohol than my generation, for example, but you know, as we saw from the election in the United States, you cannot predict what their political views will be based on their age. So you know there's a lot of rubbish that's said about that, first of all. The second is, you know the focus on Gen Z is, you know they don't have money. The people who have wealth are the boomer generation and the people who have money to spend on travel are that generation. Are those people making all of their decisions by Instagram and TikTok. I mean, in the UK, if you think about the newspaper demographics, probably the Telegraph or maybe the Times have the two best spending demographics because they've got older, wealthier readers. So you really need to be engaging with those people.
Speaker 1:Now the question is what's the best way to engage with those people, given that their attention is being pulled by other media? I mean, I know that the Times has started to use lots of short form video one minute reels on as a way to promote their articles. So what they're doing is they're doing really, really good journalism first, but then they're using the skills of social media and short form content to promote that article so people become aware of it, maybe sign up to the Times or sign up to the Telegraph to then read the article. So they're using it more as a reach thing, because often, when I look at some of the things that many influencers or content creators do, it's quite hollow. It's like, oh, that looks nice, but I don't know anything more about it. And because of the kind of person I am, I want to. I want, then, the equivalent of an article.
Speaker 1:Now, some of the best bloggers a guy I know called Travel Dave. He does this Really great videos, really good YouTube, but then he's got um, a blog that you can go to. So really, a guy like dave is no different from a journalist. You know, he happens to just keep all of his own revenue and he's really he writes really good stuff and he's fun. Nomadic. Matt is another one you know they use they use these things really well and then draw you back to their book and basically it's.
Speaker 1:They're starting to become pretty similar newspapers and and blogs. The differences with a blog or or a social media, you know, social media I view really just the marketing for the blog in this instance, um, is you know exactly what you're getting you. You sort of you know you're getting somebody who maybe has a very specific niche or expertise and a tone and a voice, whereas with the times it's a bit more broad, as an example. So in terms of where it's going, I don't really see. I know there's not really any point in predicting it. I could have predicted a whole host of things five years ago, but I I see things ending up just looking much more similar than you'd expect them to. You know, netflix and amazon now are really not that distinguishable from tv anymore. They've even got adverts in the middle of them. So I think you'll probably see a consolidation of things starting to look more similar, whether they're in the traditional media space or the new media space.
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Speaker 1:well, certainly I'm sure you're a fan of uval noah harari as well. Sapiens and um yeah, and so I referenced in your book yeah, perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, when I was reading an excerpt from your book and I wanted to share this with our listeners, because, to your point about the fact that you know we are still, after all, uh, homo sapiens and we have desires and interests and travel simply in many ways, given our nomadic nature, um, that has kind of given way to this, um, the fact we've always been travelers. So I just to take your point that, um, people are people and certain technology will change and different mediums will be introduced, and, um, different approaches. People embrace them, but at the same time, it's about, um, an individual trying to connect with an audience and build a community around that. And so I guess I really want to dive into your book and the reason you wrote why we Travel.
Speaker 2:What I was going to share with our listeners is that, as you were reflecting yourself on your journey, one of the things that I guess that stood out was that you were keen on traveling, but you were curious to understand why other people were traveling, and so you were asking friends and colleagues.
Speaker 2:You interviewed scientists, philosophers, djs to athletes. You read everything from historical poetry to religious texts and you became acquainted with niche scientific research. And it was this incredible journey to the minds of others that brought out some of their motivations to understand the journeys of your own, and that was obviously the result of the mission of why you wrote why we Travel, which I love the concept of that. So tell us a little bit more, I guess, about the book itself, your motivations for writing it and sort of what were some of the big observations. And I guess the specific thing I would love to hear you share about that journey of bringing this book to life, is this question about you know the travel gene, and is it really written on our dna that certain people are predisposed to, uh, to travel and to take risk and adventure?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'll, uh, I'll answer that up front. No, um, that's a lovely bit of pop science that came about about 20 years ago. It sounds very interesting because everyone likes to think that they've got, uh, that particular gene. It's actually an allele of a gene called drd47a, which works on the dopamine receptors, and the idea is that if you have this gene, you're more likely to take risk, have wild sex. Um, yeah, I mean, what it actually means is you have a 20% stronger response to dopamine. Therefore, you're more likely to respond and build those kind of dopamine pathways, to become more repetitive on certain behaviors and pursue those kind of pursuits.
Speaker 1:But in terms of whether it makes you travel more, not really, because I tend to think of our genes and our experiences as like a recipe. You could have all of the ingredients for a chicken tikka masala, but unless you prepare it in the right way and add all the ingredients at the right time, you'll end up with chicken soup. So it's very much the same with us and our behavior and our psychology, and there's very few things in our in our, there's very few things about humans that are completely determined by our genes. They might nudge us one way or another, and whether or not you have the explorer's gene. Curiosity is far more determined by your experience than anything else, and it's practice and some societies make give their kids more opportunities to develop and be curious and that carries on through society, and others are much more rulesy and their kids are less curious and less innovative and creative.
Speaker 1:And for me, the whole idea of this book came about when COVID happened. My mum went into, got her second cancer and then went into hospice and then, a year after she died, my daughter, lyra, was born. So I'd had a couple of years of really constrained travel and then, you know, by COVID and then by choice, by being around for mum and then having a daughter, realising I was going to be travelling less frequently and for shorter periods of time than I did. So it was about thinking how do I make sure the travel that I do do is as fulfilling as possible? How do I make it rewarding? And also part of me thinking I'd like to change the way I travel so that I have less individual impact. Even though the notion of the carbon footprint was a Stratcom's campaign by BP in the early 2000s to reduce responsibility from them as a corporation and put it on the individual. I still think we can all make our individual choices to reduce our individual impact.
Speaker 1:And I looked at the three most rewarding trips I'd ever done. One was going raving in Ibiza, one was serving with the British Army in Estonia, with the British army in Estonia, and the other one was being a journalist in Uganda and Oman, and thinking there's very little commonality in these three different trips in terms of their mechanism and outcome and what they look like and actually they're all fulfilling. And then the thing that was different was the motivations and because it's easy to sell travel based on the mechanisms, the destination, the accommodation, the experiences. That's what we focus on, because that's what we've been sold for the last 60 years. But when mum died, my wife said oh, let's go and take a break.
Speaker 1:We went to go and visit some friends in Sri Lanka who were there on holiday and I hated it. I had the most miserable time, even though I was in this beautiful place that, on the surface, should have been a 10 out of 10 holiday experience. That's because my motivation, what I needed and what I experienced were completely misaligned and I then went home and sort of planned and constructed a journey that was all about remembering mum, commemorating mum, uh, giving myself time to grieve, full of physical activity, full of learning and allowing myself time for intuition, and constructed this trip that had that motivation in its heart, looked very different but was incredibly fulfilling. Um, but isn't what everyone would call as a 10 out of 10 holiday. So it's about aligning to motivations, and I discovered 12 motivations curiosity, inspiration, happiness, mentorship, hardship, service, serendipity, empathy, healing, wonder, eroticism and hope. And none of these are superior to any other right.
Speaker 1:Hedonism is just as valid a reason to travel as service, but we all travel for different reasons at different times, and it's about asking yourself the questions, to understand it, to then construct the mechanism and journey around it. You know the the challenge for tour operators and the travel industry is they're not used to doing that. They're used to just selling stuff to people. But what we've talked about earlier on, about you know what role do influencers and content creators have? It's a very different form of engagement with their audience. They amend and adjust what they're doing based on what is successful, what responds, rather than just shouting at them like what is successful, what responds, rather than just shouting at them like this is the thing you need to care about or understand.
Speaker 1:So, as we look into the future, I think the way the travel sector needs to go is do a better job of understanding what it client, what its consumers want to do, rather than telling its consumers this is what we sell. So you end up with a more bespoke and individualized form of travel, but within that, it's recognizing there's a whole host of extremely rewarding travel experiences that are nothing to do with the way our travel industry is normally being set up. Like I don't like sitting on a beach. I you know I'm reasonably interested in food, but I'm much more interested in learning, going, hiking and understanding. Why is that place built there, why is the Kumano Kodo Trail of the key peninsula in Japan here and not over here, and why are these places linked? So those are the things that really interest and compel me, and if they interest and compel me, they probably interest and compel other people who haven't been introduced to those concepts yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Well, and that was in that way for sure you and I are similar. I mean, I've never been on a cruise and never done a sun destination vacation. I've always done adventure holidays, even though it's more soft adventure, but it's still the idea of connecting with cultures and new communities and seeing the world from a different perspective and coming back change. Those are the things that motivate me, and I guess that's what I'd like to ask you is you know adventure travel specifically has grown in popularity in the last, say, 20 years, but you know it's always been around in some fashion.
Speaker 2:But certainly there's more people seeking these types of experiences and I would love to know from your vantage point why that's the case. And then also any advice you might have for travelers that are looking to explore, you know, off the beaten path destinations. Having worked at Lonely Planet for a number of years, that was always the terminology that people loved, even though the reality is most people were just taking the same itinerary, staying at the same hotels, and really it was a guided tour by another name and so. But still, people are out exploring the world. So I'm not trying to be critical of that, I'm just trying to highlight the fact that, even though that may be someone's perception, the reality is actually that they're not totally off the path. So tell us why you think adventure travel has grown in popularity and what advice you'd have for people who are trying to look for those more original opportunities to be able to still go out and explore the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I only figured this out this weekend. Why is adventure travel so rewarding? And it's because you get so many of the different motivations engaged with when you do adventure travel. So there's 12 motivations in my concept. I I think the 12 motivations I cover in what we travel hit most of our motivations and the book explores them in greater detail and how to make the most of them. But adventure travel hits a lot of them.
Speaker 1:Curiosity, because you're out there learning something about the world. Big questions and small questions. Inspiration it's usually been a story from somebody else and a film or a book that is setting off on it. In the first place you can get your experience. Of hedonism, because you can eat good food when you're in a place. Um. Mentorship you're usually learning something when you're there. Serendipity if you're on an adventure like you don't have an itinerary where every moment is planned for consumerism, so you're more likely to have serendipitous encounters.
Speaker 1:Hardship you know the benefit of hardship is either you reflect on it, say that was good, or you get into a flow state. I mean I walked 50 odd kilometers a day through a desert. That was definitely hardship but it was awesome in retrospect. Empathy, because you're engaging closely with the place, you learn something about it, you learn about the people. You're more likely to overcome those barriers with you, with them. Healing, you know, know activities very good for psychological healing. Wonder, I mean you're out in nature, so you're bound to experience all, so you're in a mindset of of wonder. Um eroticism, which is actually about the opportunity for self-discovery and surprise. I mean there's so much self-discovery and surprise with yourself and with others when you go on an adventure and hope. I mean it's using it as a transmutation from hard thing, from grief, to hope. So that's why I think adventure is so good, like a beach holiday only hits happiness and hedonism really.
Speaker 1:And maybe not eating, Whereas an adventure you're more likely to hit. All of the different motivations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe a little bit of eroticism, depending on which resort you're more likely to hit all of the different motivations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe a little bit of eroticism, depending on which resort you're going to um, but yeah, hedonism nonetheless, um, yeah, that's a really good point because you can certainly see personality types that would be more drawn to those types of trips. Um, so, but yeah, that's a really interesting lens to look at this through the way you had described sort of the 12 different aspects in your book, and that adventure hits on many of them. If someone's trying to get into this space, what would be your recommendations for them from your experience, so that they can actually think about how they're going to create impactful and meaningful work, which is what really stands out to me on your journey meaningful work, which is what really stands out to me on your journey.
Speaker 1:I would say that the whole point of my book, and I think the whole point of travel, is to be able to appreciate life on a daily basis better. When you start off with travel, there's a temptation to think that the further and faster you go, and or the more you spend, the more fulfilling a travel experience you will have. In my experience, what I haven't discovered is that travel just reminds you of the shortness of life, one, but also the novelty that's all around you, but, in particular, this notion of wonder, which is that you take or develop a particular mindset when you go to certain places and expect to encounter awesome things, whereas actually you can have all of that at home. And so I think the first lesson is that travel eventually teaches you to just be more content at home or not have to go as far right in terms of getting into the travel industry. What I would like to see people doing, what what I hope people will do, is, first of all, understand that there is more than just hedonism as a form of travel. Second, that in order to create really compelling travel experiences, use the other 11 motivations to create deep connections for people, that sustainability is integral to it, and that can involve not just reducing your carbon footprint but making sure the travel that you're doing is not damaging to the places that you're visiting, either physically, environmentally or socially.
Speaker 1:And then it's about when you're doing good travel and engaging people in good travel, whether that's as an operator or whether it's as a content creator or a journalist. It's about finding and telling stories that do really matter, and stories that really matter are the stories of people and making sure that you're centering the stories of the people in the places you're going to and I think you know resonate. Turning back onto the question you asked about content creation earlier, the best content creators are ones that tell the stories of the place. The worst are the ones that tell you I went here and I felt like this and I saw this and this was great and I liked it. I don't care what you think because I'm different to you. So what is it about that place that might interest me and who are the people you're encountering?
Speaker 2:I think those are that's the important part of storytelling. Yeah, that's fascinating, ash, I'm really enjoying this conversation with you. We're going to have to make this a part two because there's so much more. I do want to cover the last thing I wanted to ask you, because I mentioned about family travel and.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to get a sense of your commitment to traveling with your kids and how important that is to you, given how meaningful travel has been to your life. So how are you guys? You're setting up life now with young children to be able to continue to maintain, doing something you clearly love and enjoy. So, yeah, how do you view travel now? Then I want to make sure that we leave our listeners with all the ways that they can follow up and get in touch with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So Lyra, my daughter's, traveled with me plenty. We, uh, we go for walks around wimbledon common quite a lot, which is a place in southwest london. I go cycling on the bike around london. We go around the uk whenever I'm doing a piece about a walking tour.
Speaker 1:Um, she has, she has, you know, speaking of carbon footprint lucky girl, she's been to the Galapagos and Ecuador and actually she came with me on that pilgrimage journey that I did with my mum's ashes when she was four months old. So Lara has been to a lot of good places and I want to make sure that wherever I can, I can take her traveling with me. And people say, but you know, what's the point in taking to these places? I won't remember it.
Speaker 1:Well, whether or not she remembers it, I'm talking to her now like three months after she was in Ecuador, in the Galapagos, to notice things. So it's not just what they remember, it's how they develop as people and, seeing the way she was excited about the animals, remembers them and points them out. You don't have to. It so happened that on that trip I did get to go to Galapagos and Ecuador. But my experience with her, I think, is indicative of what the insight should be about travel, that actually it doesn't matter how far you go. It's about the lens that you take and how you look at the world, because she has just as much fun on Wimbledon Common as she did on the Galapagos Islands.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, and long may that continue. I'm a huge advocate for traveling with kids. I think it's actually probably the most important stage in your life to continue to embrace travel, for the exact reason you just described, um, because it's going to shape them and their perspective and and their views on the world. And so, um, don't hide at home and, uh, try and figure out the perfect nap time. This is the time to uh to get on planes and and uh, to show them the world.
Speaker 2:As Tony, a Marine Wheeler from the lonely Planet, had said to me, a child, unlike a backpack, which kind of is a shield from you and the locals, your kids playing in the park with other kids, all of a sudden, like it's a totally different style of travel, and they told me that, and I was committed to doing as much traveling with our kids, and they're 17. My son wants to be a pilot and they've traveled to 50 plus countries and it's the most meaningful memories of us as a family, and the galapagos was a meaningful one. After we both lost my father and my mother-in-law, we went to the galapagos, which was an incredible pilgrimage for us as a family and that, as you experience and know, it's all about renewal. It's and death is part of that uh, on the journey of going to the galapagos and understanding how our species evolve, adapt and change, um, so, anyway, we found quite a bit of solace in that journey after having going through that, uh, personal hardship.
Speaker 2:So travel for us has always been a reset or an opportunity to expand our mind and open our perspective and, um, obviously, I, uh, I think very highly of you, ash. We've just got a chance to meet each other. I'm going to read your book and I look forward to keeping in touch with you and hopefully seeing you next time in London. But I want to finish off just to make sure that everyone else, like me, can read more of your works, watch more of your films. So clearly, I think I've mentioned the website at the beginning and people will probably check that out on our call, but where else would you direct people to to follow up and engage with you after this, ash?
Speaker 1:The best, the easiest place at the moment is Instagram at AshBardWodge on Instagram. Just got onto Blue Sky. Haven't used it yet, so we'll see what that turns into. But yeah, Instagram is where I basically share any of the work that I do, and my mate Pip and I are going to come out with a second season of our podcast, the First Mile, at some point. We might rebrand that as why we Travel, but Instagram at AshBardWodge and then get the book why we Travel. Those are two things I'd ask you to do.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that's great, ash, thank you so much. Great to meet you. Thanks for making the time for this and certainly wish you every success in 2025 and beyond.
Speaker 1:Cheers mate. Thank you very much, Lovely to meet you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining our latest episode of Travel Trends. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Ash Bhardwaj. I'm sure many of you are keen to check out his book why we Travel. I would definitely encourage you to. I started reading it after our conversation and it is really, really enjoyable. So thank you again, ash, for joining us, congratulations on your young child and wishing you continued success this year and stay traveling, because we need people like you out there to continue to inspire others and to write about it and showcase it.
Speaker 2:Now, as we continue our influencer series, our next episode we're going to feature the CEO and founder of Navi Savvy. Her name is Sally Bunnell and she started her career in TV working with the Late Night with David Letterman, which was literally one of my favorite shows and my inspiration growing up, and maybe even the reason I have this podcast. But she's American, but based in the UK, and she's had incredible 2024 going into 2025. She's won a ton of awards for her startup. They've now got their investment and they're scaling rapidly, and I couldn't be more happier for her and the team, because their startup is all focused on creators and influencers, enabling them to monetize their roles. So this is a really terrific conversation to finish off our influencer series. So be sure to tune in for that next week and make sure that you are subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice to be alerted as soon as those new episodes go live, which we always try and get them out every Wednesday and then we do a summary at the end of every month and send out a newsletter to summarize all the latest episodes. You can sign up for that at TravelTrendsPodcastcom. And then we highlight our upcoming travels. As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, we have a ton of traveling coming up this year. We just renewed our relationship with the Adventurous Travel Trade Association, so I'll be in Denver in May, I'll be in Chile in October, and we also deepened and strengthened our relationship with the team at Focusrite as well, so I will be in Barcelona in June and then San Diego in November. All details can be found on our website at TravelTrendsPodcastcom slash events.
Speaker 2:I'm mentioning that because I want to meet you there and I want to be able to interview many of the amazing people that listen to our show and to be able to showcase your story. So reach out to me and find out where we're going to be, and I'd look forward to meeting many of you there and, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the one thing I would love for each of you to do is to comment and share. So comment on any of the on our social channels on LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube and then share this with one person that may not be familiar with travel trends and I experienced that last week and the number of people that have reached out to say I found so much interesting information about your show and I've been listening to. I've listened to five episodes and that's wonderful for me to hear, and I just want to make sure that more people have that same opportunity.
Speaker 2:And, of course, I wanted to thank our friends at Flytographer for sponsoring this series and, as you know, they're giving away a photo shoot and they're also giving away a discount to all of our listeners by using TRAVELTRENDS as the code when you're booking one of your potentially 350 different destinations, they offer to have a professional photographer shoot you, your family, on your next trip. So find out more information at flytographercom slash travel dash trends. That's flytographercom slash travel dash trends. I hope you guys have a great week and I look forward to speaking to you next time. Until then, safe travels.
