Fancy a boutique hotel stay and champagne by the pool over a cheap lager and camping in the rain? These luxury travel bloggers concur completely. With their intriguing travel stories, they show you how to travel in style to some of the world’s most decadent destinations.

The UK’s most successful luxury travel bloggers have shared with us their secrets to starting a luxury travel blog – and keeping it growing. Read their inspiring stories, and who knows: one day you might follow into their footsteps!

Our expert panel will select one lucky winner in this category to be nominated for the British Travel Awards’ brand-new Blogger Award, sponsored by us at Teletext Holidays.

MEET ANGIE, FROM SILVERSPOON LONDON

“I started travel blogging about five and a half years ago as a hobby to document my personal travels and I’m very pleased to say that I’ve built a very loyal and engaged following over the years.

I interact regularly with my followers and I’m always keen to find out what they want to see. I’ve also worked very hard on my photography, which I believe is important to maintaining a popular blog. Content is key to growing a blog and I post regularly and consistently so that my followers know when to expect an update.

My blog is mostly monetised through sponsored posts onsite and on Instagram; I’m very excited to work with brands that I’ve loved for years.

I believe I’m honest and authentic and I still blog about my personal travels as well as sponsored trips. I think my photography is very high quality and I work hard on creating a community around my blog and social media.”

MEET AFTAB, FROM FRESH AND FEARLESS

“My affinity for travel started with my DNA. My parents are both extreme travel fanatics, which meant I embarked on my first travels when my mum was pregnant with me. Over the years I travelled a lot with my family, mainly long haul, as my parents felt I needed to grow up with an understanding of different cultures across the world. 

When I left the nest and moved to London, I started Fresh and Fearless. It began as an online diary for my parents to read about my adventures, with my focus being on luxury travel. Fresh and Fearless had around three social media followers and my blog posts wracked a grand total of 12 views at any one given time. I continued to travel and document, as it was my creative outlet while I studied Biochemistry at university. 

Fast forwarding six years, I now have over 20,000 social media followers and 30,000 monthly blog views. It’s crazy to think so many people followed and still are following my ramblings and journeys. I love nothing more than sharing new content and engaging with my followers, giving them their daily dose of wanderlust. 

My followers don’t see me as just another travel blogger, especially as I connected with most of them on a personal level and regularly post about my day-to-day life too. My stats and unique content allow me to work on many sponsored collaborations with tourism boards, travel brands, and companies, sometimes even hotels. If I had to pick three things that make me different from all the travel bloggers out there, I would say it's my love for detailed, vibrant photography, my unique style of writing that connects with my readers on a personal level and my love for five-star hotels with high-end bathroom amenities.”

MEET HEATHER, FROM HEATHER ON HER TRAVELS

“Over 11 years ago I started my blog after an inspiring trip that took me through the Amazon basin on the rivers of Ecuador and left me wanting to share my travels with others. Back then it was just for fun and no-one thought that there could be a professional career in creating travel articles, photos and videos to share your passion and influence others to recreate these trips. 

Gradually I honed my skills and my followers grew to what my blog is today with 50K monthly page views and 40K social media followers. Over the years I've realised the key is to focus on your own interests and provide real value for your readers, something I try to do for my niche of the 50+ affluent traveller looking for an authentic travel experience but with a little luxury thrown in. 

I've now created a full-time job around my blog through advertising, brand collaborations and providing digital marketing services to other tourism businesses. I try to make my travel content inspiring for the 50+ traveller, with advice that understands their needs and a blend of colourful images, personal insights and useful information. If a reader tells me that my blog articles and social media posts made them long to go to a destination, or even book the same trip, then I know I've done my job.”

MEET PAUL, FROM A LUXURY TRAVEL BLOG

“I ran a company that specialises in web design and marketing for tourism businesses. When blogging came along, I used to dabble with my passion for luxury travel by starting a blog. It was just a hobby back in 2005 and there were no other luxury travel blogs around in those early days, so it soon took off and became the large resource that it is today. We recently celebrated our 10,000th post on the blog!

In the very early days, some social networks such as Twitter and Instagram hadn't even launched yet.  Today we have over one million followers - 700,000 on Twitter, 300,000 on Facebook and over 100,000 combined across the likes of Instagram, LinkedIn, TripAdvisor, Pinterest and other smaller networks.

The key to growing and engaging with our followers has been our focus on good quality content that is regularly updated. We often post new content several times a day, whilst always striving to focus on quality, both in terms of the editorial and the photographic content that we produce.

Our blog is monetised in multiple different ways - through sponsored posts, guest blogging, graphical ads, affiliate advertising and sponsored campaigns. We have worked with many different luxury travel brands as well as a variety of brands that are perhaps more peripheral to the travel industry but still keen to achieve coverage in the travel and lifestyle media. 

Our unique selling points?

• We have been pioneers when it comes to luxury travel blogging

• A Luxury Travel Blog is a multi-author platform that combines the expertise of many people in the luxury travel industry

• We are multi-award winning”

MEET JAILLAN, FROM SAVOIR THERE

“I have been blogging about luxury travel since, well, long before anybody paid me to blog about luxury travel. I didn’t do it to be cool. I didn’t do it to make a statement. I just liked writing about travel.

And despite being driven by a nerdy determination to share my travel philosophy, the Lincoln car analogy ends there. 

Working in publishing, I spent every spare minute planning, booking or dreaming about my next trip, and blogging in my lunch hour (ok, maybe during working hours too). I started Savoir There when blogging was barely a word - not the aspirational and lucrative career it’s seen as now. Almost a decade later and my follower numbers, social media presence and blogging style have blossomed, but I never did shake off my journalistic training.

I still produce in-depth, print-style pieces and believe in the power of a good pun - SEO be damned. I write about the world going on around me – more than about me going around the world - and like a true travel detective I try to uncover boutique hotels, quirky destinations and unusual high-end international experiences.

I believe luxury travel isn’t about gilded excess, but that the truest luxury of travel is in finding people, cultures and customs across the planet to drive our ongoing journey forward.”

MEET ABIGAIL, FROM INSIDE THE TRAVEL LAB

“Ten years ago, I left one dream to follow another: from senior doctor in intensive care to writer exploring the planet. I've travelled far and wide, on my own, in groups and more recently with my family, showing my little girl our beautiful world. 

From interviewing survivors of the Nagasaki atom bomb to learning dance moves in the savannah, Inside the Travel Lab connects people and places with an audience that cares.

The passion project I began at 2am has reached more than one million people, with a regular audience of over 80,000. It’s received accolades from National Geographic Traveller, Lonely Planet, the BBC and more. Growth and engagement come from authentic stories, well told, and a respect for the intelligence of readers. Today, the site is fully multimedia, sharing insightful, thorough destination guides and tested tips to help readers live their own travel dreams.

I earn money in a variety of ways, mainly through sharing my knowledge, be that writing for other publications and speaking at events or through affiliate links and projects with destinations and brands. My blog is thought-provoking, meaningful and a trusted site for inspirational trips.”

MEET JAYNE, FROM GIRL TWEETS WORLD

“I started blogging in 2010 when I was travelling a lot with my job as an events manager and wanted a way to keep family and friends up to date with my movements. Back then, I remember being excited if 70 people read one of my posts. Now, my blog is read by 70k people on a monthly basis. Although my posts are read far more widely than my close circle of friends now, I still write as if it’s just them I am talking to. 

My main income streams are advertising and affiliate revenue. I recently became a mum, so I spent my maternity leave working on building more passive income streams now that I have less hours available to work on new campaigns.

I think what makes my blog stand out is that I’m happy to admit when I get things wrong and don’t mind readers laughing at my expense. I also have a lot to thank my blog for as it introduced me to my husband - he asked me out via a DM on Twitter before Tinder was even invented! Since then we’ve travelled to 20+ countries, lived in Sydney, Melbourne, London and New York, and have a globe-trotting 4-month-old baby.

I’ve partnered with 100+ brands over the years and think part of that success is down to the fact that I worked in-house as a content and social media manager for a leading travel company. I’ve seen from both sides what makes an effective blogger/brand collaboration.”

MEET SUZE AND PAUL, FROM THE LUXURY COLUMNIST

“We got into travel blogging as we were travelling a lot for work and wanted to share those amazing experiences with others. We're also both passionate about photography and we're learning a lot about videography as we document our travels. 

When we started 5 years ago, we just had a few thousand followers on Instagram and other social platforms. We've grown this to over 185K on Instagram and over 400K followers overall. 

Having the two of us certainly helps! Paul is a dab hand at the technical side of running a blog, while I love the creative element. We try to create different content for each platform – certain photos like night shots do better on the blog than they would on Instagram. We also try to engage as often as we can - for example, I set aside time to interact on every car journey! 

We monetise our travel blog via ads, destination campaigns, affiliates, sponsored posts and creating content for brands' own channels and websites. What makes us stand out from the crowd is our passion for perfection and long-term results, so our features are all optimized for SEO. We're older than the average content creator, which works in our favour as we understand what luxury consumers really want. We also take a broad view of luxury - for us it's not just about five-star resorts but also about boutique hotels and meeting local artisans and food producers. Our followers and readers seem to like that approach.”