1 Year Later: How We All Met & Got Started in Travel Writing

how we all met- 1 year

Do you dream about your next trip? You're in the right place. On the Time to Talk Travel Podcast, we come to you weekly to share places to go and what to do when you get there. Let's dive into this week's adventure.

[00:00:16] Nasreen: Hi, and welcome back to another episode of Time to Talk Travel. It's been almost a year that we've been doing this, which means we're closing in on episode number 52. That's incredible. We thought it might be fun to talk about how we all got into travel and travel writing because that's where a lot of us met and maybe tell a couple fun stories and sprinkle in some other people we might know and see if they really listen to our show.

How did you get into writing about travel ?

[00:00:47]Maureen: I had a magazine for new moms across Canada that shared where you were welcome called We Welcome. It was all about getting out and having a baby and a life. At that point I had, I think, Two kids, maybe three. And it was great.

I loved it. And so I became sort of a mom influencer, one of those OG mom bloggers who the media really didn't know what to do with, but did try to include us in news stories, or if they needed A group of moms to talk about a study. I started doing a lot more media that way.

The first press trip I got invited on, I thought was a scam. My husband's like, why would they want to give you a free trip to California? And why do they want you to bring your six year old? That's weird. But we went and it was with, oh gosh, I'm trying to think. There were probably Four or five of us that went to different places in California.

Then we all met up at Disney. That was a pretty epic first go at doing a press trip and doing travel and PR. This is before press trips for influencers even existed. While you guys answer, I'll try and remember who else was on that trip, but it was amazing.

It was the first time where my son and I actually traveled together. That became a pretty regular thing. And then the other ladies that were on that trip you know, you bond over it. Especially when you're doing a Disney thing for the first time and you're not traditional media.

That was my first go at doing travel for media.

[00:02:20] Nasreen: It's always fun to hear how everyone got into it because I know that it was totally different. So, Ciaran, I'm curious because I first heard or knew of you because of a company that you were involved with that bloggers used, but I don't know how it happened for you.

[00:02:38] Ciaran: I am a woman with many, many hats, Nas. I mean, honestly, I would say that my travel writing career began in college because I wrote articles for my school newspaper. I was doing reviews of local restaurants and things to do in Baltimore and just covering that scene. And I got away from it.

I became a mom. I worked in advertising for many years and I really kind of missed the creative stuff. So I started a clothing company. So I had this children's clothing company. This is something that you guys, I don't know if you know this about me. A lot of people don't know this about me, but I had this line.

I designed children's clothing and it was in like 500 stores internationally. I had my stuff at a lot of celebrity events and this was right at the dawn where mom blogging was taking off. So I was going to all these baby events, which actually I think is my, maybe how I met Des. I think I met you through the baby and kids world. So I was going to all these events and showing off my children's clothing line. And I started meeting up with some of the early mom bloggers. And they were getting so much press because of the influencer stuff they were doing. So I was like, I can do that. I'll do some writing too. I was writing for Celebrity Baby Blog. I wanted to help other bloggers talk about their products too. And it just evolved into this whole mom blogging world.

It really took off. So I was writing for other people's blogs. I started my own blog. And I started getting invited, like Mo said, to all these events. And it almost seemed unbelievable. I mean, I can't believe they're inviting me and they want me to bring my kids and this is good for my clothing line, which is getting exposure. It all sort of ballooned very quickly. I grew a big Twitter following and before I knew it, I was just doing all this travel stuff and I was so, so, so happy about it. The tech stuff that kind of came in on the side, it was more related to my marketing background, but my passion has always really been more like the community and the travel stuff.

[00:04:43] Nasreen: Okay. I think I heard in passing about the clothing brand, but I didn't know all the details.

[00:04:48] Ciaran: I miss that. there's times when I really miss designing. it actually went along with travel a lot because I would design these clothing lines around places my family and I had traveled. I sort of like to create clothing for travel. It was kind of all, all nestled together.

[00:05:04] Nasreen: Okay. Des, your turn. You're up.

[00:05:06] Desiree: Mine, I feel like it's the same old story of what I'm living now. I was working for a TV company. I was producing television news segments and the company was about to go belly up, cutting our salaries in half. And I said, okay, I need to create a company on my own so that I have a little more control on my fate.

And so I had created this baby business, baby planner. It was something I had done a TV segment on. And I thought, well, that's something that requires no startup, no certification. No, you just need to know what you're doing as a mom. Have had a couple of kids, figured it out. What do you really have to have when you go home from the hospital?

What do you really need? I launched this baby planning company and I launched a blog with it. A couple of friends had launched a website for women. And they asked me to invest in it. And I kind of laughed because I said, 'you get I just got laid off?' There's no money, but I'll write because at the time I didn't know how to create a website. And so I worked for them learning how to do it. In the meantime, I was growing my own website. Doing the baby website for the baby business evolved to a baby expo that I hosted for years. And Ciaran, we didn't meet there. We met through travel. We crossed paths.

It became like, okay, hey, we can help each other with this too. But someone I had interviewed for a TV segment heard I was launching a website, said, oh, I helped this one woman. I gave her classes on public speaking.

I'll connect you to her. She just happened to have a travel website and she had kind of a conglomerate of writers that Wrote for her.

So I fell into the whole travel niche. I will say I had made friends with people who were doing beauty blogs.

I'm not a beauty girl. I'm as basic as they come if I have lipstick on it's good, you know, fashion, I'm in a yoga top right now. I'm just, you know, I just,

but travel was my jam.

I was thrilled because when companies really started acknowledging the power of a blogger and reaching out to the community. My friends who were writing about fashion were getting free tubes of lipstick while I was getting free trips to Mexico.

Like it was just like, didn't even compare.

I've loved it ever since. I love writing about places that my friends need to see. And now to be able to plan trips for them, the way it's all evolved again is just, it's pretty cool. I love to share the world with people.

[00:07:17] Ciaran: We shouldn't say free trips because,

[00:07:19] Desiree: oh no,

[00:07:19] Ciaran: they were never free.

[00:07:21] Desiree: We were working around the

[00:07:23] Ciaran: our tails off. I think that's a huge misnomer about this stuff that we were doing back in those early days

[00:07:28] Desiree: A hundred

percent.

[00:07:29]Maureen: Provided huge value. There's a reason why, right? We were reaching markets that they didn't know how else to reach and we were doing it effectively.

[00:07:37] Ciaran: Kudos and props to us and to all those other mom bloggers out there and those early pioneers in that space.

We should take some credit. We were not only working our tails off, but we were doing things that we weren't familiar with. We were photographers. Some of us had been writers previously, but we were writing, we were photographing, we were doing PR, we were doing styling, we were doing editing. We were doing video. We were doing so many things that most of us were not trained to do and doing it more effectively than a lot of marketing companies.

[00:08:06] Nasreen: I have said this because I work with a lot of corporate clients and in a B2B space. And I have repeatedly said this, particularly in the last two years when I'm more involved with go to market and strategy and things like that. That if you have a resume cross your desk that has someone who ran their own website blog on it, that you can assume that they know how to do a lot more skills than are on their resume and that they have the ability to go figure out how to do it if they need to. Because the people who ran sites, they were creating business strategies for these sites and ways to reach and advertising potential and how to partner. Before the partnerships and the influencer stuff all crept over into the corporate world, they literally trailblazed how that worked and figured it out. And so you will never hear me not tell someone that They would be stupid not to hire a former blogger.

[00:09:10] Desiree: I met Naz through that conglomerate group and to this day, she's, the community we built on these trips and working together that is one of the points. It was really about helping each other. I had no idea how to do the tech stuff, so I bartered. I made a best friend who was really good at tech, but hated writing. So we swapped out services. I'm like, if you can launch a new page. I don't know code, I don't need to know it. I will write for you for an hour while you work for me for an hour. And we did that on so many projects and I miss her to this day.

Cause she went and took a job in Texas, but you made friends with people who knew how to do things and to this day, those people are still, we're helping each other out. We came together to do this. And, we're still in touch with people all the time.

[00:09:58] Nasreen: To that point, it forces you to figure out what you're good at and what's worth your time and what you should find someone else to do, even if it hurts to pay someone else or you have to sacrifice something in return. And so there isn't a lot of wasted effort because as usually a one woman show, people understood that wasted effort was time and money and it was the ability to make more. you learned so much. Coming into this my site came later.

I went to public relations and marketing after my aunt, who was a first grade teacher, talked me out of education during the summer between my senior year and my freshman year of college. Those were the classes that were available. And I was like, I like to write. It'll be fine. I'll go and do journalism. I just started writing more and more and then I went into sales and was traveling all the time. And when you start traveling all the time, you start having a lot of observations about traveling all the time. My perspective from a business traveler slash previewing places I could bring my family was different. I started travel writing and was working on a site that had a whole group of writers and eventually realized that a lot of these influencer opportunities really required you to have your own site. I put some stuff on it occasionally, but I wasn't big on

putting my life out there too much. If this podcast has taught me anything, it's that I'm more cautious than I thought I was

I've always been told I'm a spontaneous person, but I'm very cautious about certain things. And one of them was like the tax implications of blogging and what happened when you were going on these trips and things like that.

And people don't see that side of it. I see it happening on Tik TOK now and with corporate influencers where they're getting free stuff. They're just like, yeah, I got a PR box. And I'm all you don't understand how badly we all got beat up over those. Like it was drama.

[00:11:49]Maureen: The programs I did. Oh yeah, for sure. I did a McDonald's program that I

never got so much hate.

We did it when nobody knew what social media was. We're older than Facebook. That's

kind of crazy and sad.

It wasn't like now where everybody knows how to manage social media, people didn't know.

We would have amazing Twitter parties. We connected in conversations that you can't even really find on social media anymore.

We were lucky to have that time that we did. There were no apps to edit stuff. There was no apps to, there was no apps.

I don't even

It's so easy to be a creator now.

[00:12:27] Nasreen: You had to have these mad old fashioned skills that I was so scared of developing. And now I'm doing stuff constantly. And I'm like, Oh, why didn't I at least lean into this a little earlier? It's hot. It's easier now. But man, why didn't I lean in? Because Des and I, we were talking about the connection and how we started this podcast in general to bring everyone back together. We met at Disney in person for the first time for a retreat and that I guess was my first real press trip. My next one would have been Jamaica where I met Candice who we were just talking about the other day. Ciaran, I met you. Or not in person. I might've run into you at Mom 2.0 or something, but not really known who you were, but you had the hashtracking thing tool that I used all the time. And so I knew of you from that. Maureen, I'm sorry. I didn't know you until we

[00:13:17]Maureen: I didn’t really know you either.

[00:13:18] Nasreen: Before the podcast, I vaguely knew of you, but I had never met you or reached out to you for a campaign or anything.

So you were new

to

[00:13:26] Desiree: I should start a three degrees of Desiree. My purpose in life is connecting, I feel like I knew Mo and Nas, you two are brilliant and you know what I mean? I figured Mo knew Ciaran.

Yeah,

[00:13:38]Maureen: I don't remember how.

Between BlogHer and mom 2. 0s and whatever else we went to.

[00:13:48] Desiree: We had a mutual friend, Nadia, who put together Costa Rica, Nadia and Andrea.

A bunch of travelers went down to Costa Rica. They put it together a conference, where they capped it at like,

two dozen, three dozen. There were Not a lot of us. , we paid our own way. We weren't paid to be there. It wasn't about sponsorships or swags. It was literally about coming together for three, four days and just sharing each other's brain power.

How can I help you? What can you do? This is how I do this.

And it was so good. So good.

[00:14:19] Ciaran: miss those days. I miss it.

[00:14:21] Desiree: We talked about it, actually, Andrea and Nadia and I were talking the other day about trying to align another. Everybody just has so much else going on. It's really hard. I do think there's a swing back around. I know there was somebody who was going through doing them in each city. I don't want the city one.

I want the national one. I almost feel like you have to just say, I'm going to plan it, please come. These are the days, everybody pays their own way. I do think there are companies that would happily sponsor that kind of get together again, because they remember our power.

To this day, Kate with Britax gives me credit.

Because I introduced her to a couple in Atlanta and I'm like, well, if you like them, you really need to know them. And then to this day she says, I'm responsible for her career. And I disagree. It's who she is as a person. But I do love connecting people.

And so, yeah, connecting you two made sense. There are so many of us. A lot of people have gone on to other jobs and you know, the kids are out of the house. They were home raising kids. That was kind of the whole point. We wanted to be able to raise the kids from home.

Now the kids are kind of gone for the most part and so we have the ability to actually go in office if that's what we need to

[00:15:27]Maureen: I was gonna say, it's ironic that now is actually when it'd be so much easier to do it, right?

[00:15:33] Desiree: 100%.

[00:15:33] Nasreen: That's part of the reason why the UGC content that we did worked so well at the time was because it was so authentic. So I was writing about business travel from the perspective of having multiple children under two at home, or trying to bring people with me, or going on a family trip and understanding what it was like to be a working mom and trying to plan a trip on the side. That resonated with people. But the connections that came out of this. Everyone made fantastic friends and have these stories of how people have come through for them, This is my fun favorite example. This is Britax related and Des already brought it up, but I had my youngest who is going to be eight this month. We already had three older and he was a little bit of a surprise. We had moved across the country. We didn't have any baby stuff anymore.

And I was like, Holy crap. Now we need to get baby stuff again. Des is like, I have a stroller if you can get it from Atlanta. I'm trying to figure out how much shipping would be. And then Rebecca, who is Are We There Yet? mom and now has a shop in Austin, frozen yogurt shop. She was going to Atlanta and she's like, I can probably bring it back. So she was with her son who I think is a senior in high school now, but he was maybe five or six at the time. And she gate checked the stroller for me. She's like, it's for him. He gets tired. And she gate checked the stroller for me, the nice jogging stroller. We met up in Austin and she gave it to me. My husband took my son on seven mile walks for five years with that thing. It was amazing.

[00:17:04] Desiree: it wasn't a used stroller. This was new from the Baby Expos. Kate was great about giving me products to give away at the Baby Expos. A lot of times someone would win and my deal was I wouldn't pay to ship because shipping a stroller is like 150 bucks. It was not cheap. They were seven or 800 strollers, so it was worth something.

Getting it to Naz, I remember when Rebecca was coming up, I'm like, if you can take it on the plane, just put it underneath and she was willing. I even told Kate that I said, you don't know Naz, but you know, Naz, you helped Naz.

[00:17:33] Nasreen: Oh my goodness. That thing lasted forever. It was amazing. Especially on the dirt back roads in Texas because it had big bike wheels. But I remember Rebecca being like, I looked like a fool at the gate. Because I couldn't figure out how to fold, because she was years removed from having a baby. And so, but those are the kinds of things that people went through for each other.

You'd see these calls for help. Even to this day, people's kids get sick and everyone's stepping in to support them. And it's a community. And I think that's why when Des mentioned to me I really want to bring that feeling back with a podcast.

And I'm like, that would be amazing.

Can

[00:18:08] Ciaran: Can I take a minute to talk about the first day that Des and I met

Literally showing up for people. We had known each other through that travel group and that website you were working with in Atlanta. We knew each other peripherally, but I got a message from Des.

Hey, I'm in your neck of the woods. What are you doing today? Oh, well, I'm stuck at home. I'm having a garage sale. Des showed up on my doorstep, the first time we ever met in person, and helped me work my garage sale.

So she literally showed up for

[00:18:39] Desiree: They were holding a baby expo in LA, the pregnancy awareness month folks. I flew out to help them with their event. I was staying with a girlfriend and she was at work that day. her hubby , when I said, Hey, how far is this from here? He goes, it's 15 minutes. I said, can we stop by? He was game. . And I think you were like, why are you here? That's how I just wanted to

[00:19:00] Ciaran: It was good.

[00:19:01] Desiree: That's the beauty of being in this travel space is I do feel like there are people around the globe. If I am in Finland, I know I can call Katja. If I'm in Barcelona, I will call Andrea.

Anywhere on the globe. Even now I'm going to Stuttgart for the Christmas market and there was a gal in one of my Facebook groups.

She said, you've got to go to this castle. They decorate it to the nines. I booked it for this group of women and I booked a special dinner there. Then I looked and just to get from Stuttgart to this remote castle. It's like $800 if I hired a limo. She goes, I'll drive you. That is the beauty of the community.

She said, I have an SUV. My friend has an SUV. If you buy my dinner at the castle, I will take you all down there. That is the beauty of this online community.

I think people are probably wondering how to get into it. Anybody that asked me, I would say, Start writing about your own travels. Put up your own blog, and I don't know if a blog is the way to do it anymore. I think you can do videos on TikTok and really build a following. Facebook less so, Instagram, you can be putting up photos, but There are a million travel bloggers, so I will say find your niche. Do that.

Don't just write about the norm. I just did the hike to Utah and Arizona. We're old people. My stories are going to have a slant on the empty nesters doing the hiking trip and making sure you're in shape and don't die. But yeah, find that niche. That would be my thing. Write about your own travels.

[00:20:29] Ciaran: You can still grow a niche. We all know Tammilee and she just started the Gulf Shores niche and she's literally posting every day sunrise on the beach there and growing a following. People really enjoy specific and clear content. There are so many general travel writers and family travel writers, but if you can get really, really specific, the more specific, the better

it is possible to grow an audience.

[00:20:53] Nasreen: It's about being authentic and engaged and true to yourself because if you're trying to write about something that you don't care as much about, it comes through. So, like, I'm thinking we saw Howard in New York City last week and he writes about religious travel and historical stuff because he loves that.

We were nerding out together about historical markers and taking pictures of churches. And I write a lot about business travel and having people tag along.

The ins and outs of business travel can be really tricky. I'm not going to write about going on extravagant large family trips because we don't do that very often.

And Tammilee moving to Alabama, being so excited about where she is and exploring it and letting people learn with her. She didn't go into it saying, I'm an expert on Alabama.

She went into it being this is so amazing for my life. I love this. Let me share it with you.

Whereas, we've got Sarah Gilliland who is an expert on Alabama and put out a book on Alabama and everything to do there. Tonya Prater has visited things across Ohio for how long and Karyn Locke with Pittsburgh. People are really kind of narrowing in on what they love. It makes it very authentic and you get those nuggets of really good information that you wouldn't get from someone who went there one time.

[00:22:07] Ciaran: I think my niche may be sunsets. I'm so obsessed with sunsets in my new house. I worry that I'm making everybody crazy with all the sunsets that I'm posting.

[00:22:16] Nasreen: It's a good one. You can do a coffee table book someday off that and just chase them all over the world.

[00:22:20] Ciaran: I was going to say we're coming up on our one year anniversary and I have to say this is one of the first times in my life as a businesswoman and also just in friend groups where I've done something with three other women and none of us have gotten into any fights or gotten super annoyed with each other.

We still like each other, which has to be mentioned. It's truly remarkable.

[00:22:44] Nasreen: It honestly is.

If you want to start something, people are very competitive. Everyone is always looking at other people as their competition or someone who's up against them for something.

And I think that was both common and uncommon back then.

I think everyone had a little bit of both.

Finding a group of people that you can feel comfortable learning with and talking through things will make the travel writing last longer because you'll have a support system.

[00:23:13] Desiree: This tribe is mine. I got to tell you, I mean, I have a bazillion friends. Don't get me wrong, but I love coming together and doing this and laughing our way through 30 minutes and sharing what little we can, hopefully helping make travel easier for somebody. I have friends who tell me, Oh, that was a helpful tip.

I love it. And I hope we can keep it coming

[00:23:31] Nasreen: I think sometimes through the conversations you get to pieces that wouldn't have come out necessarily. I mean, I can think of things that I've learned off of the different podcasts when you guys have said it and I've been like, Oh, I never even thought of that.

[00:23:44] Desiree: a hundred percent.

[00:23:46]Maureen: I never knew how different people could be traveling. So there you go.

[00:23:51] Nasreen: I'm sorry, you didn't know anyone was scared of their crocs melting during a fire?

[00:23:55]Maureen: That is hilarious. It's exactly what I was thinking. So many rules to what Ciaran will wear on a plane. Oh, and I have very sad news. My favorite travel dress strap got ripped in the dryer. I'm hoping she can be resurrected because I think she had a few trips left in her, but

[00:24:14] Nasreen: Otherwise you gotta audition a

[00:24:15]Maureen: I've got to audition a few new replacements. .

[00:24:17] Desiree: Send it to Ciaran. She sews.

[00:24:19] Ciaran: I can fix it.

[00:24:20]Maureen: The strap is gone. Like, gone entirely.

[00:24:22] Ciaran: I can make you a new one, but you have to promise me you won't wear crocs on planes anymore.

[00:24:27]Maureen: Dude,

I would never wear Crocs. Ever.

[00:24:31] Nasreen: They're her biggest shoes! I learned this! The platform sandals, espadrilles, whatever,

[00:24:36]Maureen: The wedges.

[00:24:37] Desiree: Wedges.

[00:24:38] Nasreen: Wedges.

[00:24:38]Maureen: You gotta wear your biggest shoes on the plane. It saves you room in your suitcase. Of course.

[00:24:43] Nasreen: Okay. Well, I think that wraps how we all met slash got into travel writing slash started out. But now I have an idea for another episode. More travel writing, more information, more behind the scenes, more juicy details.

[00:24:59] Desiree: A peek into Naz's brain. Man, she is brilliant.

Ahhgahh.

[00:25:04] Nasreen: Oh God. It gets me in a lot of trouble sometimes.

[00:25:06]Maureen: Love it.

[00:25:07] Nasreen: If you would like to help us celebrate ONE year of getting along and not hating each other and bringing you fabulously hilarious travel content and the tips that we have discovered the hard way, please share this podcast with somebody else so we can keep doing it for another year.

That would make us very happy. Thank you.

[00:25:25] Desiree: I say three other friends because

[00:25:27] Nasreen: other friends. Des says

[00:25:28] Desiree: specific three other friends, and there we have it.

[00:25:32] Nasreen: If you don't have three other friends, share it with people you don't know.

Until next time.

[00:25:37] Desiree: Happy travels!

[00:25:38] Narrator: This has been another episode of Time to Talk Travel, brought to you by HashtagTravels. com. You can keep in touch with us between episodes by checking out our site, joining our newsletter, or connecting with us on social. We've always got the information you need in our episode notes. Until next time, happy travels, and thanks for being a part of our trip.