Travel Matters

What happens when a spontaneous travel tip turns into a viral TikTok video and thousands of new followers? And more importantly, how do you turn that attention into something that lasts? In this episode of Travel Matters, TBEX CEO Rick Calvert talks with Terry Abromitis, better known as  Traveling Terry , about building a travel content business that connects social media with a blog. Terry shares...

What if your biggest opportunity as a travel creator isn't another sponsorship, but turning your audience into your customers? Chris Joondeph, the creator behind Authentic Traveling, has visited 170 countries and built an audience of millions by exploring places many travellers overlook or misunderstand. But his biggest business opportunity came when he started inviting followers to experience tho...

Google traffic is down. AI is changing how people search. Strategies that worked for travel creators just a few years ago are suddenly far less reliable. So what do you do when the rules of the game keep changing? In this episode, Palle Bo and Rick Calvert talk with Jarryd Salem, co-founder of NOMADasaurus, one of Australia's leading adventure travel and photography blogs. Jarryd has worked deeply...

What happens when the platforms you've spent years building on suddenly stop delivering? Travel creators have lived through countless social media changes, Google updates and shifting algorithms. In this episode, Palle Bo and Rick Calvert sit down with two creators who have built very different travel businesses – Chris Christensen of Amateur Traveler and Hendric Tay, co-founder of The Travel Inte...

What happens when Google and AI companies can answer a travel question using the experiences, photos and expertise of creators – without sending the reader to the creator who did the work? Travel Matters hosts Palle Bo and Rick Calvert sit down with travel creator and former attorney Nate Hake, founder of Travel Lemming, to talk about what he sees as an existential challenge for online creators. N...

What happens when the platforms that built your business suddenly stop sending you traffic – or your entire industry shuts down almost overnight? Gary Arndt knows both scenarios very well. Gary was one of the early stars of travel blogging and an award-winning travel photographer. Then the pandemic wiped out 95% of his income within weeks. Instead of waiting for travel to return, he built somethin...

What happens to "family travel" when the kids are old enough to order the cocktails? For Margarita Ibbott, it becomes a completely different kind of travel – and an interesting opportunity for destinations and content creators. Margarita started  DownshiftingPRO  in 2009, originally writing about professional organizing and simplifying life. Over time, the blog evolved with her. Today, her focus i...

What happens when one of your guitar heroes tells you he has your lessons saved on his computer? In Part 2 of our conversation with Marty Schwartz of Marty Music, we pick up exactly where we left off – with Marty casually revealing that Slash from Guns N' Roses knows who he is. The story gets even better. On the very same day Marty met Slash, he received an unexpected phone call from Howard Stern,...

What can a travel creator learn from one of the biggest guitar teachers on YouTube? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Marty Schwartz is the creator of Marty Music, a guitar education brand with close to five million YouTube subscribers and thousands of lessons produced over nearly two decades. Marty joined us at TBEX North America in Richmond, and although he works in a completely different corner of...

With AI producing more content and Google constantly changing the rules, how does a travel creator actually stand out? Josefine and Dom of Red White Adventures have a refreshingly simple answer: be more yourself. The Danish-Canadian couple has travelled together for more than eight years and turned what began as a casual travel blog into a full-time content business focused on outdoor adventures,...

Can AI save travel creators hours of work without removing the personality, experience and human perspective that make people trust them? At TBEX Eau Claire, Palle Bo and Rick Calvert sat down with content entrepreneur and author Julia McCoy, who had recently made a dramatic transition from outspoken AI sceptic to President of Content at Scale (now BrandWell). Julia explains what changed her mind....

Shelley Marmor turned travel blogging into a multiple-six-figure business within two years. In this episode of Travel Matters, she shares why mindset matters, why SEO comes before monetisation, and how travel creators can use affiliate marketing more strategically instead of simply adding links and hoping for the best. What separates a travel blog that makes a little side income from one that beco...

Should travel creators ever work for free? And is a free trip fair compensation – or simply unpaid labour with a nicer view? Travel Matters is back, and our first conversation of the new season brings together two longtime members of the TBEX community: Jen Ruiz, the travel writer, author and entrepreneur behind Jen on a Jet Plane, and Melvin Boecher, founder of Travel Dudes. Jen believes that whe...

In this electrifying episode of Travel Matters, Palle Bo and Rick Calvert sit down with Christine Lozada, famously known as the Drone Queen. Dive into the world of drone photography and videography as Christine shares her journey from a newbie to a renowned drone expert. Discover the secrets behind capturing breathtaking aerial shots, navigating legalities, and utilizing drones to land incredible...

In this episode of Travel Matters, join hosts Palle Bo and Rick Calvert as they sit down with travel blogger Mike Shubic from Mike's Road Trip at TBEX North America 2023 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. They dive into Mike's journey from early tech adoption to exploring the latest in AI tools, sharing invaluable insights for content creators. Tune in to hear about Mike's adventures, the transformative po...

In this final episode from TBEX Europe 2023 Kalamata, you can meet two guests. First, Rick talks to Elena Sergeeva . With a decade-long career in Sales & Marketing, she co-founded Travel Bloggers Greece in 2015 with the purpose to unite like-minded individuals and to educate the Greek market on how to work with bloggers. She is the founder of several travel blogs. She also works with JayWay Travel...

In this episode, you can meet travel blogger Eric Stoen from the family travel blog Travel Babbo . He used to work in healthcare but was addicted to travel. So, in 2014 he quit his job and started the travel blog to inspire more people. So far, he's been to 101 countries and seven continents. Hear how he got started and how he grew his blog. You can also hear him talk about the time he took his ki...

In this episode, we have two guests. Cazzy Magennis and Bradley Williams are the travel blogging duo behind Dream Big, Travel Far . Using captivating content and an intelligent approach to sharing their stories on mainstream media, their website reaches as many as 350,000 page views a month. In their session, they shared the step-by-step details of how they have landed a large number of high-profi...

In this episode, we have two interviews. First, we meet Brennen Bliss , a US Search Award-winning SEO consultant and principal at the US-based travel and tourism-focused SEO agency, Propellic. The agency forms successful and creative SEO campaigns for its clients. Brennen is passionate about travel; sending more people to incredible places is part of his lifelong mission. Brennan did a double sess...

In this episode, we meet Caroline Makepeace (Caz ) from yTravelBlog and This is Raleigh about Raleigh, North Carolina. Together with her husband, Craig, she's been traveling the world since 1997 and since 2007 with their two daughters. The White House invited them to attend a travel summit as one of the top digital travel influencers in the world in 2014, and in 2020 they were granted a green card...

In this episode, we have an interesting conversation with pioneer travel blogger Melvin Boecher  from Germany. Melvin is the founder and CEO of  Travel Dudes , co-founder of the Social Travel Summit, former COO of i A mbassador, and with more than 15 years of successfully running his business, he is a pioneer of professional travel blogging. His Social Media are very popular. On Twitter , he has a...

In this episode, we have an interesting conversation with Catharina Fischer about sustainable travel. Catharina is one of the leading experts in influencer marketing and a digital leader with over ten years of experience in tourism. At TBEX Europe 2023 Kalamata, Greece, she gave an interesting talk about the impact of tourism trends on travel content creators. Before she was Head of Social Media a...

In this episode we say "mojn" to Jessica Schmidt from Hamburg Marketing . By developing, communicating and coordinating the Hamburg brand, they highlight the locational attractiveness of Hamburg and the Hamburg Metropolitan Region in Germany and abroad.  Hear how they work with content creators.  

Martin Solhaugen is a f ilmmaker, y ouTuber and p hotographer from Oslo, Norway. Martin has worked on global projects for Tourism-boards, luxury hotels, and high-profile clients. Martin has been traveling the world for the past 6 years in pursuit for cultural and visual expressions. With a big heart for visual storytelling and a unique eye for detail, he has worked on global projects for Tourism-b...

Chris Lau talks about his YouTube channel, SeeLauTravel and then we get into a long conversation about selling – an important skill to have as a travel content creator. With 10+ years of experience in a professional-level sales role, being recommended by other world-class creators, and having helped almost 80 creators from around the world, Chris also has a Mentor Program where he teaches how to t...