By Vishakha Talreja

I met Vishakha on Instagram and started following her because I loved her passion for travel and unexplored places. A few months later, I met her at a bloggers meet and we got along like a house on fire. In a city with too many bloggers, Vishakha and I would often talk about the pros and cons of being a travel blogger. Here are her some of her confessions. Happy Reading and head over to her site for more. Happy Reading! x

We Love FAM Trips

Don’t believe a travel blogger when he/she says FAM trips don’t excite them. Either they are not getting too many invites or they are lying so they sound like freeloaders. FAM trips are basically familiarization trips that tourism boards or hotels organize for press and bloggers. Usually, everything is taken care of on such trips- flight tickets, transportation, stay, meals and sightseeing. In fact, most FAMs I have been on especially the foreign junkets have been luxury trips that included business class flights and five-star hotels as tourist boards want to put their best foot forward, so of course who wouldn’t love sponsored trips. I have to admit that our itineraries are quite packed and remember its work so there are early call times, an overdose of sightseeing and at times no time for shopping. So travel bloggers might bitch about how poorly organized or tiring a FAM trip was but rarely does anyone say a no to a FAM unless dates don’t suit them.

The grass is always greener

Most fashion bloggers we meet tell us how cool our job is since we get to travel so much. But for a travel blogger to earn money from a review, unless there are elaborate social media campaigns thrown in- is hard. Whereas fashion bloggers get paid for most collaborations and even for attending events. I am not here to belittle anyone but making a career out of a travel blogging gig alone is hard.  don’t know about others, but I am definitely envious of bloggers who get to flaunt designer dresses on their Instagram and get paid too!

We need to network and mingle too
The secret Facebook blogger groups I am part of typically has a post every second day where a blogger starts ranting about a particular public relations executive or agency for being unprofessional or asking for few reviews. Truth be told everyone wants to be in the good books of PR. Many times tourism boards and hotel heads are unapproachable, so we know PR can get things done for us. But yes at times things can go out of hand and then we are left with no option but to be rude to them, which spoils the relationship. We have to go out of our way to attend gigs, events and press conferences and network with PR people. I have had the good fortune of making good friends with some fabulous women in the industry too.

We are not always traveling

The first question that I get to hear from my friends when they call after few days is ‘Are you in town?.” Most times I am! Yes, we get to travel but most of us don’t travel as much as we want to. Because traveling is well just one aspect of travel blogging. At times we have to postpone or cancel travel plans because there are write-ups piling up or because we haven’t sat with our website designer or tech person for long to see if everything is smooth. There are also emails that need to be answered and yes laundry to be done when we are back after days of traveling. So we are not always traveling, like people with desk jobs, we also answer emails, write articles and well do mundane things like grocery shopping and laundry. Our social media narrates a different story, though, but so many times we are actually just posting #throwback pictures or #bucketlist destination photos on our Insta

We don’t make too much money

Well, this should have been Confession No. 1! But it’s hard to accept the fact that travel blogging is so rewarding but doesn’t pay the bills. The good news is that we are creative people and well traveled, so we end up making money by writing for magazines, collaborating for social media campaigns and some of us even organize trips. Also because travel blogging is not a well-paying vocation many bloggers have full-time jobs and do travel writing only for passion.

We snoop around a lot on Social Media

When we are traveling, we are posting on social media, doing Lives on Facebook and shooting Instagram Stories. when we are not traveling we are snooping around on social media channels maybe just for inspiration or just to check if we missed some event or press meet or FAM. Yes, we snoop more than you can imagine.

We know there is a lot of competition

If you are a travel blogger and reading this, you know what I mean. At events and even on dates, people are quick to say that, “Oh you are a travel blogger. But won’t you have to work really hard considering there are so many of them already?” Well we know we are too many and maybe too many cooks spoil the broth, but please don’t say that. Please. We already have deadlines, snooty communication professionals, forever unavailable hoteliers to deal with already.

We Love What We Do

It doesn’t pay well and our community is overpopulated but you know what we love what we do. At times we don’t want to say it and sound just so casual about it but truth be told, we love our profession urgh passion.

About the author:
Vishakha Talreja runs her online hospitality magazine The Hotel Explorer ( www.thehotelexplorer.com) where she covers not just chain hotels but boutique properties, villas, and homestays. A former business journalist, Vishakha quit her job to become an entrepreneur. She is a self-confessed spa and social media addict and you’ll find her tweet about entrepreneurship and feminism often. A new mom, she now mostly travels with her eight-month-old #LittleExplorer. She also has a personal travel and lifestyle blog The Urban Explorer (www.vishakhatalreja.com).