The Reality of Getting Paid to Travel

What It's Really Like to Turn Travel Into a Full-Time Job

The women behind some of your favorite Instagram accounts explain the reality—the side hustles, the travel burnout, the empty bank accounts—of being a full-time travel influencer.

On the surface, everything looked perfect. In March, travel blogger Carolyn Stritch posted a picture on Instagram of a young woman standing in the middle of an empty Disneyland, with the caption “celebrating a 22nd birthday trip.” But a day later, Stritch, also known as @theslowtraveler, revealed her own birthday surprise in a blog post: She had never been to Disneyland, she was turning 32, and her Instagram fake-out had all been a test. A “perfection project” to put the dream version of herself online.

“Everything that you see isn't exactly real. It's supposed to make you feel inspired to travel, but it comes with so much work,” says Alyssia Bossio, 25, whose 1.6 million followers keep up with her travels on @effortlyss. “Behind the scenes, it's not as glamorous as it seems.” While Stritch, Bossio, and many other Instagrammers like them, have used the app to create a career or a brand, travel can still be exhausting, rather than exhilarating—and it still costs just as much for them as it does for everyone else. It may not be a nine to five, but don’t you dare call it a vacation.

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/what-its-really-like-to-turn-travel-into-a-full-time-job