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How to Become a Digital Nomad: 6 of the Best Online Courses

Online courses. Digital Nomad. Remote worker. Fulltime freelancer. These expressions are very common in the online world. If the idea of working 9-5 in an office scares the hell out of you, life as a digital nomad will have surely crossed your mind at some point. It has mine. I spent the best part of a year and a half working freelance when I ran my own travel blogging/content creation company, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. As well as the flexibility of being able to work where I wanted, when I wanted, I loved the freedom that being a digital nomad gave me. I didn’t have to worry about limited annual leave, or about taking time off for a doctors appointment, I simply just worked whenever I was able to, and chose not to work when I fancied some time off.

 

 

The digital nomad life is not for everyone though, and it was incredibly tough at times. If I’m honest, although it was amazing at the start, I really struggled for the last six months of my 18 month freelance life and made the decision to go back to full time work shortly after. I found I was constantly hustling, constantly pitching. I had visions that being a full time travel blogger meant I went on back to back press trips, writing hotel reviews and destination guides left, right and centre. But in reality, hardly any of my income came from press trips/sponsored blog content, and the majority of what I earnt was through social media management from clients that weren’t in the travel industry. I woke up late and went to bed late because I had no routine. I needed structure in my life, and a 9-5 job gave me that, so I started working in luxury travel in September 2017 and have been grateful to enjoy a fulfilling career until Covid-19 ruined the travel industry!

But lets go back to the digital nomad life for a second. If I had more determination, more consistency and perhaps a little more time to make it work, I have no doubt in my mind that I would largely still enjoy being a freelancer. I just wish I’d had more of a niche, and perhaps more transferable skills or multiple income streams, that would have made it work better for me. Having worked for both myself and for others, there are so many benefits to freelance life that you just don’t get when you’re an employee for a company. However, in order for your career as a digital nomad to be as successful as possible, I think it is absolutely KEY to invest in yourself, and your future.  By constantly learning new skills you can apply new experience to every role you take. As well as networking and attending events, I found that online courses were also a fantastic way to learn new skills and build my confidence. So, without further ado, here are 6 of the best online courses to help you on your way to being able to work from anywhere in the world…

 

An English teaching course with The TEFL Academy

 

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☺️ Meet alumna @eslroxy! Roxy is from Australia 🇦🇺, currently teaching online in Scotland with Palfish. ⠀ ⠀ "I've been teaching online for a few months now and I love it! I have been inundated with job offers from different companies thanks to my level 5 TEFL Certificate and the help from The TEFL Academy with re-writing my resume. I teach kids from all over the world and have already formed a solid base of regular students. I can work part time and maintain a full time salary which gives me the ability to do more of the things I love!" 👏⠀ ⠀ #teach #teacher #teachenglishonline #teachenglish #teaching #teacherlife #teachers #onlineenglishteachers #remotework #remoteteaching #remoteteacher #tefl #teflteacher #efl #eflteacher #teachersofig #remoteworker #teflteacher

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During lockdown I promised myself I would finally enrol on my first ever TEFL course after putting it off for months! Back in April I finally took the plunge and enrolled on my level 5 168 hour TEFL online course with The TEFL Academy to teach English as a foreign language. Whilst I was on furlough for three months I dedicated a lot of my time to doing my course, and I have very nearly finished it with just one unit and one assignment to go before I’m qualified! I cannot wait to get my certificate and would really recommend doing a TEFL course to anyone looking for another way of diversifying their income and taking a step towards digital nomad life. Once qualified, there are plenty of online teaching platforms you can choose from so you can teach adults or children from the comfort of your living room and start earning money whilst teaching from your laptop.

 

An SEO blogging course with Make Traffic Happen

 

 

Run my two full time bloggers and SEO consultants, Make Traffic Happen is allllll about keywords, optimisation and Google rankings. After attending a couple of Gemma and Laura’s SEO talks at various Traverse conferences over the past few years, I felt inspired to learn more about how to optimise my blog. SEO the Easy Way, one of Make Traffic Happen’s most popular online courses, gives a fantastic introduction to the world of SEO and how to implement strategies that will make your website traffic skyrocket. There are 35 video lectures, 16 worksheets and 7 checklists to track your progress as you go, and you’ll be sure to notice an improvement of web traffic as you make y0ur way through the course. Admittedly I haven’t actually downloaded the course or the e-book yet, but I am a member of the Facebook group and find some of their posts incredibly helpful, and I have a few friends who have downloaded the course too. This course will be hugely beneficial if you’re looking to increase your web traffic and, in turn, maximise opportunities to monetize your blog.

 

A marketing course with The Open University

 

 

During lockdown The Open University offered free access to hundreds of online courses across a range of industries, with marketing being one of the most notable. The idea was to encourage the th0usands of people on furlough in the UK to do something useful and interesting during their free time whilst they weren’t working, and what better way to do that than to learn something new! Throwing yourself into a new course is always a great idea, and if it’s online it means you can study at your own pace, however slow or fast you like depending on how busy you are. The free courses have unfortunately now ended, but OU still offers plenty of online courses to get stuck into, with their marketing ones proving popular. Improve your social media knowledge, gain an understanding into how brand campaigns work or specialise in digital marketing.

 

A language course with Duolingo

 

 

I downloaded the Duolingo app a couple of years ago when I was trying to re-learn Spanish and practice my fluency. I took Spanish for GCSE and earned a B grade in my written and speaking exams but didn’t take it at A Level, which is something I really wish I had done! I was struggling with websites or audio books which made learning Spanish feel fun and easy, until I discovered the Duolingo app and I instantly became hooked! With daily levels which can be unlocked as quickly or as slowly as you like, and both audio and visual prompts to encourage different learning styles, understanding the basics of a new language has never been easier with Duolingo, and it’s totally free to use!

 

A Photoshop course with Adobe 

 

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Hey guys, @georgiarosehardy here! I'm very honored to be doing this week's takeover for the theme #Ps_Imagine.⁠ •⁠ When people ask what I do for a living, I'm often unsure how to answer. Am I a photographer? A digital artist? An escape artist? A weirdo in a field with a tripod? The lines are definitely blurred. I started shooting self-portraits at the tender age of 16, and I'm now nearly 30! The ability to create magical worlds (as a teenager with a low budget) was transformational for me, in more ways than one. It's given me a career, been therapy through the challenges life has thrown, and makes up a large portion of my identity.⁠ •⁠ I am so looking forward to sharing more of my journey and work with you all and seeing the different ideas people come up with for #Ps_Imagine! Thanks so much for having me, Photoshop.

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Photoshop is one of the best tools out there for editing images, and if you want to start making money from your prints, it’s a good idea to invest in some training with Adobe first. Choose from a wide range of beginner, intermediate and advanced online courses to suit your needs depending on which learning level you’re at. Becoming a bit of a professional with Photoshop means you’ll learn how to become an expert in image editing and can really show off your creative photography skills. If you specialise in Instagram and want to take your account to the next level, these online courses will be right up your street.

 

A social media course with Buffer

 

 

Much like the Open University, Buffer often offers a multitude of free online courses to help you grow your skill set, but these are available throughout the year, not just during lockdown! Specialising in social media and marketing, Buffer’s fun and interactive online courses are perfect for delving deeper into the digital world and discovering algorithms and trends within social media platforms. Whether you’re more interested in Facebook or Twitter, or keen to learn more about strategies than advertising, Buffer’s insightful online courses are the perfect place to kick-start your social media learning.

 

I hope this selection of online courses help inspire you to think about which path you want to take in order to obtain that digital nomad life. There are plenty of free online courses out there which you can take alongside your day job so you can earn whilst you learn, and even the ones that aren’t free should still provide an excellent return of investment once you’re qualified/certified and can use those transferable skills. Have you ever taken any of these online courses before? I would love to know if any of them have brought you one step closer to your dream of being a full time freelancer!

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12 Things I Learnt From 12 months of Freelancing as a Full Time Travel Blogger

 

 

Hi guys,

You lot seem to like it when I do personal posts rather than just constantly sharing write ups of my recent trips, so I thought I should break up all the recent cruise content and write about something which is a really popular topic at the moment: freelancing. It seems like every single blogger I know at the moment is quitting their job in order to become a full time freelancer and live the digital nomad life. This is obviously amazing as it seems our work lives are ever changing and creeping away from the standard 9-5 working week, and I would of course encourage everyone to follow their dreams and live their best lives, but there is also a side to freelancing that isn’t shared online, and a side which makes the freelance/nomad life a little less glamourous than Instagram shows it to be. I took the plunge myself and went freelance as a full time travel blogger two years ago but spent just a year doing that (amongst other things) before I realised I needed to make another life change at the age of 24. Some days I loved it, other days I hated it, but overall I’m so glad I did it. Here’s 12 things that I learnt during my 12 months of freelancing from September 2016 – September 2017, both the good, the bad and the ugly…

The flexibility is fantastic

One of the best things I loved about freelancing was the ability to be completely flexible all the time. By steering away from the standard 9-5 life I was able to fit more in to my day, and alter it to suit my needs. A typical day for me would be to wake up and get dressed and ready to start work by 10ish – I never worked in my pj’s and always made an effort to get changed even if I wasn’t leaving the house as this helped get my mind-set into work mode. I’d then work for 3-4 hours at home before breaking for lunch (30 mins to 1 hour depending on how busy I was) and then continued working (with breaks) until I got everything done. Sometimes it was a 6pm or 7pm finish, other days I woke up later and continued working until 9pm or 10pm. Although I typically worked longer hours than a usual 9-5 job, I didn’t really feel like I was over-working myself as I took regular breaks, was at home, didn’t have a commute and could pick up my work/emails whenever I wanted. I took my dog out for walks every day, spent time seeing friends and enjoyed being at home.

It’s really lonely

Probably the biggest downside to freelancing is the crippling loneliness that goes with it. Working in a lively estate agents from the ages of 18 – 23 made me realise how much I love people, and how much I thrive off a busy, fun environment. When I took all of that away, I started to realise that I don’t cope very well on my own. I get really low sometimes, and feel the need to constantly talk to someone when I feel that way, which is why having supportive colleagues around me is something I have always relied on and will always look for in future jobs. Some people are fine on their own and could spend days without seeing another soul, but I’m just not like that and don’t think I ever will be! Loneliness was definitely one of the reasons I didn’t freelance for longer, and I don’t feel ashamed to admit that.

 

 

You can work wherever you want

In the same way that the flexibility I mentioned above was hugely liberating, the fact I could work wherever I wanted (Wi-Fi permitting) was amazing and opened my eyes as to how different my working life could be without feeling the need to be trapped in an office. I wasn’t a digital nomad during my freelance life and was very much a ‘work from home’ kinda gal, but I do wish I’d have taken a few more trips in order to experience what it might be like to work on the road. I didn’t really experiment much with co-working or with trying out social office spaces and I could have worked from anywhere with Wi-Fi to be honest, but I found café’s quite distracting and preferred to sit at home with the telly on if I needed some noise in the background.

Not having a routine is hard

Something else which I struggled with was not having a set routine. Yes I know we all get bored of the 9-5 life, but when I have a set routine I know where I am with things and I find it easier to make decisions, get myself organised and get on with my day. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having a few lay in’s during the week and starting later than usual, but sometimes I’d find myself working til almost midnight and forgetting to take regular breaks because I was stressing about getting things done on time and meeting deadlines efficiently. I am good at being organised and self-disciplined, but not having a routine really threw me sometimes and I’ve since found I prefer to be in a set routine to help get my work/life balance on track.

You can say YES more

The thing I loved most about working for myself was the ability to say YES in circumstances I wouldn’t normally have been able to do so. I went on 3 press trips during my time freelancing, one was a long weekend in Hamburg but still would have required taking 2 days annual leave, and the other two were week long trips to Menorca and Switzerland, which would have required me taking over 12 days of annual leave. I went to PR events on a Tuesday night in London because I could get there and didn’t have to worry about rushing home to get an early night for work the next day. I scheduled in blog collabs on week-days when the place/city was generally quieter because not everyone was there on a weekend. I said yes to sooo many things and it made me so happy and content with life. I was more spontaneous, more fun and way more exciting than I was when I worked 9-5, and this is something I really miss about my freelance life!

 

 

Motivation isn’t always on tap

Again, something I struggled with and still do even now. Having the motivation to constantly write blog content, constantly pitch for new business and constantly find ways to make money when you’re freelancing is SO BLOODY DRAINING!! I found this really hard when I was working for myself and I wanted to give up all the time. Although I am good at being organised and self-disciplined, trying to stay motivated whilst not having the support of colleagues and a manager alongside you was really difficult for me. I ended up turning to social media to find support from fellow bloggers/freelancers and that did help, and I made a real effort to attend events, listen to webinars and get inspiration from joining in with Twitter chats and Facebook groups etc in order to combat the lack of motivation that I regularly suffered with.

You aren’t restricted by annual leave

Kinda like the point I made about saying YES more, this was another huge bonus of freelance life; the ability to go on loads of trips or to take days off without the restriction of crappy annual leave. I really really hate the fact that I only get 20 days of annual leave and it is something which makes me want to quit my job and freelance allll over again. I hate being restricted by leave, and think we should be encouraged to take time off and travel more, as long as we don’t fall behind with our work load of course, in order to obtain a better work/life balance. I really believe that I would work better if I worked slightly longer hours over 4 days instead of 5 and had one day a week off to catch up with life admin or to treat myself to a nice day out, or to spend time with friends and family. Working for myself gave me unlimited annual leave, as long as I got everything done that I needed to, and I do miss that aspect of freelance life.

You don’t get legal work perks

However, the big downside to being self-employed is the lack of support we get when we aren’t able to work. Being freelance means you don’t get sick pay, or compassionate leave or a pension. You don’t get paid holiday or childcare vouchers or paid time off for dentist/doctors/hospital appointments. I always took time off whenever I needed to for things like this, but obviously when I wasn’t working, I didn’t get paid. Time is money when you’re self-employed, and that saying couldn’t be more true! I also had to make a note of my income and expenditure and had to create monthly spreadsheets of my earnings and outgoings so I could keep an eye on things. I hired an accountant who helped me put my spreadsheets together into a tax return for HMRC by the time the deadline for self-assessments came around, and this was something I hadn’t even considered when setting up on my own. Luckily my dad is self-employed so he showed me a thing or two, and my A Level Business Studies came in handy, but there is so much legal stuff to think about when you’re self-employed and honestly it can be so stressful!

 

 

You have a better work/life balance

Working from home gave me such a good work/life balance and I really miss it sometimes. I miss just working from my sofa, without the need to commute to the office every day, and I loved wearing what I wanted and not putting make up on etc, I felt so free and it was really liberating. I loved being able to start and finish when I wanted, and sometimes when I was quiet I would only work for a few hours and then spend some time walking my dog, catching up with friends, or doing boring stuff like house work which I never get time to do during a full working week. I do miss having flexible working hours and allowing my home life to be more important than my work life, especially when the long days and hour long commute to and from my current job each day really starts to get me down.

Blogging alone isn’t enough, you must diversify

There are obviously some bigger bloggers out there who just blog all day and make a full time wage from it, but honestly, I have no idea how they are doing it or how that is even possible. During my 12 months as a full time travel blogger, I learnt pretty quickly that I absolutely had to diversify in order to make enough money to survive, and it was really tough at first. Being sent on press trips (with free accommodation and flights) is all good and well, but you don’t get a fee for being there, unless you do and I’m not aware of it! But writing content and promoting it on social media all day just isn’t enough to bring the pennies in, unless you’re writing 5 articles a week at over £100 a pop, the reality is you’ve got to find another way of making money. Before I even started going freelance I had a good think about this and realised that I wanted to use social media as my secret weapon, and started advertising my social media services on LinkedIn to try and gain my first clients. I was pretty lucky as my old boss saw I was advertising for clients and mentioned me to some of his friends at his local breakfast networking club, and within a couple of weeks I had 3 new clients from this alone. These new clients had friends/relatives who also needed social media help, so I gained 3 more clients from them, and then my uncle down in Essex needed some help, and before I knew it I had nearly 10 clients all needing my help and I was absolutely SNOWED UNDER! It was brilliant on the one hand, but overwhelming on the other and I soon realised I needed to prioritise my time in order to work to my full capacity and do a good job for each of my clients. As well as offering social media management, I also wrote freelance articles for a few online travel magazines and did some blogger mentoring too, charging a small amount of money to cover my time to give Skype lessons to newbie bloggers who wanted tips on growing your blog through your social channels. Without diversifying, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to stay freelance for as long as I did.

You learn loads of new skills

You have to juggle so many plates when you’re freelance, and this certainly helped me to develop skills I didn’t even know I needed before I took the plunge and quit my job. I had so many different roles to take on in order to make everything run smoothly, from blogger, writer and social media manager to PA, accountant and marketer. I had to learn how to market myself and generate new business, so networking events were crucial and I was constantly sending out email pitches too. I had to be my own PA and organise my diary, my time and schedule in meetings whenever I could. I had to learn how to create income and expenditure sheets and keep a log of what money was coming in and out so that, by the time my tax return was due, I could input it all correctly. All of these skills were imperative to making my job work, and I’m glad I was able to spin all these plates at once – it was tough, but it taught me to be determined, to be patient, and to never give up! Hopefully the skills I learnt during my freelance life will stand me in good stead for future employment and will show how diverse I can be as a candidate, and how much responsibility I’ve had to take on in the past.

 

 

Your salary isn’t consistent – you need savings

I’ll end on this because, after all, money makes the world go round, and it is the most important part of freelance life! During my 12 months of freelancing I was still living at home so that took the pressure off having to make a large amount of money each month as my outgoings were quite low (just my mums rent, my phone bill and my opticians bill which all come to approx. £230 a month). For the first couple of months I really didn’t have many clients at all and was only making around £300-£400 a month, which is obviously not enough to live on and I did end up dipping into my savings in order to support myself. I had around £4000 saved up when I went freelance and knew I didn’t really want to go down past the £3000 mark, but the money was there if I needed it and it was a comfort to know that. As I progressed with my freelance career, I picked up more and more clients and took on more and more work, but it wasn’t consistent: some months I would earn less than £500, some months I earnt over £1500! If you’re looking at going freelance and you need to have a certain amount of money coming in each month, bear this in mind before you take the plunge. Towards the end of my freelance life the work started to dry up a little and I lost a few clients due to circumstances beyond my control, including some using their own in-house marketing and others employing someone more local to work for them, so I was starting to panic and realised I needed more wages in order to get by. It was during this time that I got a part time job at a retail store and signed up for an 8hour (min) a week contract. I really loved working in retail again (for the first time since I was 17) and the short 4 hour shifts 3-4 times a week really helped to make me feel less lonely, and boosted my bank balance too. I soon became an accessories specialist and was put on regular delivery shifts (7am-1pm) which meant that I could still have a decent afternoon by the time I got home, but I had the possibility to say yes to loads more shifts and I took extra hours wherever I could to make more money. Some months I ended up doing 40+ hours week at the retail store, and then working up to 20 hours a week doing my freelance work. I was exhausted but I knew I had to keep making money so carried on for as long as I could, before I quit everything to take on my first job in the travel industry.

So as you can see, there are good and bad reasons to quit your job and pursue your dreams as a full time blogger/freelancer, and I certainly had a bit of a yo-yo year during my 12 months of trying it, but I learnt so much about myself and I honestly wouldn’t change it for the world. I got to spend more time at home, more time saying yes to stuff I would normally have to turn down, and I got to pursue one of my passions at a professional level. I would say the good outweighed the bad, but after 12 months I was more than ready to get back to the 9-5 life and have a proper routine again as this is something I really struggled with when I worked for myself. I missed the social element hugely and realised how much I thrive off others when I am in a lively environment. I’ve seen so many bloggers quit their jobs and travel the world as a digital nomad which is absolutely incredible and I am so inspired by their bravery, but equally I have seen people who, like myself, tried it and realised it wasn’t for them, and I’ve realised that that’s okay too. Whatever happens in your working life, it’s good to take a step back to assess what works for you, and what doesn’t. I have no idea what the next 12 months holds for me as I have been told my current job at a luxury villa rental firm is being made redundant in the new year, but after almost 18 months of office life I may well be ready for a change again by the time 2019 rolls around… I’ll be sure to post more life updates on my blog as and when I know myself exactly what is going on in my little life!

Love Jess x

 

 

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January Newsletter!

Hello and welcome to my first newsletter of 2016!

I have soooo much news to share with you all, so this jam packed edition of my monthly newsletter will give a round up of my oh-so-busy January! It’s been a crazy month and it seems like its dragged on FOREVER but I’ve squeezed an awful lot in to the past five weeks! Without further ado here it is, are you ready?…

I MADE MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS!

I kick-started my 2016 with a positively inspiring challenge which is the motivation that’s going to see me through these dull winter months! I’ve tasked myself with visiting 25 countries before I’ve reached the ripe old age of 25! Find out how I’m going to achieve it here…

I’VE BEEN SHORTLISTED FOR MY FIRST EVER AWARDS COMPETITION!

So on 4th January I entered my little blog into its first EVER awards competition, UK Blog Awards 2016, and I’m delighted to announce that, after over 70,000 votes across 18 different categories, I’ve been shortlisted as a FINALIST in the travel category!! You can read more about my big announcement here… I’m still so thrilled and can’t quite believe it, a big THANK YOU to all who took the time to vote for me, it means everything! <3

I CELEBRATED MY BIRTHDAY!

#birthday #lastnight #vip #oxford #nightout 👯🎉🍸🎊

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I turned 23 on the 16th and spent the day with family followed by an evening of celebrations with my closest friends in my home city of Oxford! We headed to the fantastic Varsity Club for cocktails and then onto one of the city’s biggest clubs for a VIP experience in a private booth! A fantastic night was had by all and we rolled in at 5am so our heads were a little sore the next morning day/night/week! A big THANK YOU to everyone who celebrated with me. <3

I WORKED ON MY FIRST SPONSORED POST!

This month I was given the opportunity to review a fantastic new guidebook for Disneyland California and I relished working on my first ever sponsored post! Read my write up on this fantastic guidebook here – thanks go to Amazon and Independent Guides!

I GOT PAID FOR MY FIRST EVER FREELANCING JOBS!

I’ve recently started writing for US based company www.abnsave.com and recently received my FIRST paycheck for my FIRST lot of freelance work! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing for ABN over the past few months and can’t wait to expand my portfolio. Here’s to many more paychecks!

I WATCHED LES MISERABLES IN LONDON’S WEST END!

What a show! Literally had goosebumps the WHOLE way through! Incredible. 😱🇬🇧🎭👏

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I had an AMAZING time watching the fantastic Les Miserables musical in London recently – it was definitely an experience to tick off the bucket list! The show, which is now in its 30th anniversary celebrations, was incredible from start to finish- everything from the lighting to the music to the cast was out of this world! I could watch Les Mis over and over again I never tire of its fantastic score and mesmerising scenes – I was left feeling very emotional that’s for sure!

So that completes my January round up- told you I’ve been busy! Stay tuned for some big news coming up in February… I’ll reveal all soon I promise!

Love Jess x

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Top 15 InstaTravel Moments of 2015!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I hope you all had fun partying last night.. I know I did! I thought I’d kick-start the day/year/month with a round up of my Top 15 InstaTravel Moments of 2015! This has been my first EVER year of using Instagram and it has fast become my favourite social media platform! So here are my top moments of the past 12 months…

JANUARY

Spending my birthday in London with an epic walking tour across the city with one of my best friends! We walked from Kensington to Tower Bridge and took in all the major landmarks- what a way to start the year!

FEBRUARY/MARCH

Taking in the beautiful sights of Prague by climbing to the top of the Old Astronomy Tower! This was my first city break of the year with my sister and what a trip we had!

APRIL

Myself and my sisters purchased season tickets for our family to the beautiful Blenheim Palace which is just down the road from us! We’ve had so many lovely days out at this place!

MAY

For my nans 80th birthday celebrations we headed for a family weekend away in the nearby Cotswolds. We had a wonderful weekend and the weather was just perfect!

JUNE

I had a fantastic day out to Royal Ascot this month along with my sisters, cousin, mum and aunty. We got all dressed up, bet on lots of horses and even saw the Queen!

I also headed to London at the end of June for a fantastic day out at Hyde Park’s annual British Summertime Festival. Myself and my close friend had great fun watching Kylie in concert who was incredible live!

We have had the besstttt dayyy!! Roll on next year wooo 😁🎉🐴👑 #ascot #races #family #love #girls #dayout #weloveascot #wesawqueenie

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JULY

This month brought our annual family holiday and we headed down to Cornwall to spend a week in our own holiday cottage right in the heart of lively St Ives. The weather was fantastic ALL WEEK and we had the best time with each other making lots of memories and revisiting places from our childhood!

AUGUST

August Bank Holiday weekend brought a fantastic day out filled with music, fun and laughter! I took my sisters to their first ever festival, Fusion Festival near Birmingham, and we had a brilliant day out seeing lots of top artists perform- the highlight was McBusted who were amazing!

SEPTEMBER

This month it was time for my second city break of the year so my sister and I flew to Budapest for a long weekend of sightseeing. We both fell in love with the city; it was beautiful and we had the best time away!

OCTOBER

This month was super busy for me but my highlight was a personal achievement which saw me run a 5k charity fun run for The Pituitary Foundation. I raised over £300 on my Just Giving page and beat my personal best! I had a fantastic day and was so proud of myself. A big THANK YOU to everyone who has donated to this fantastic charity who have supported my since my prolactinoma diagnosis in 2011.

NOVEMBER

I had a jam-packed November but my highlight was getting my first EVER paid job as a freelance travel writer! I was absolutely over the moon and it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet- hopefully I’ll take on more roles which will allow me to become a freelance writer full time!

DECEMBER

The last month of the year was kick-started with a magical trip to the beautiful Disneyland Paris! I went with two of my closest friends for a pre-Christmas treat and we had the most amazing time, it really was beautiful and certainly got us in the festive mood!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my whistle-stop recap of my InstaTravel highlights from 2015! I’d love to hear what your favourite was? I just can’t pick one!

Wishing you every happiness for 2016!

Love Jess x

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Work with Me

 

So, in case you haven’t guessed already, I’m Jessica (or Jess as I’m more commonly known!) and I’m the author of this blog.

I’m an award nominated blogger, freelance writer, social media consultant and travel obsessive and I’m looking to work with more travel brands! I’m keen to collaborate with fellow bloggers and relevant brands in the form of guest posts, social media campaigns, press trips and sponsored reviews. I’ve previously worked with a number of high profile brands and am looking to build up my portfolio. I could offer your brand a sponsored hotel or restaurant review, a sponsored blog post and travel guide, sponsored Instagram images or even a sponsored competition/giveaway on my social channels.

 

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I have worked with a number of high profile travel brands including Contiki Holidays, Expedia, Jet 2, Yahoo UK and STA Travel on sponsored posts and social media coverage. I have also collaborated with various tourist boards across Europe and in the UK such as Visit Bath, Visit Hamburg , Menorca Tourism, Visit Spain and Visit Luxembourg both on press trips and on content creation.

Are you looking for a UK based travel blogger to work on some upcoming campaigns to promote your destination throughout 2019? Or perhaps you’re looking to hire a freelance writer to add some travel related content to your website?  Please get in touch as I’d be delighted to help!

If you’d like further information on how we can work together, or if you’d like to find out about my rates and charges, please contact me directly to request my media kit. My email address is [email protected]

I look forward to hearing from you!

Love Jess x

 

 

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