Today we’d like to introduce you to Brianna West

Brianna , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?

My journey to working as a UGC photographer and travel writer was one with a few twist and turns until I found the right path. I started by writing about my travels as a hobby when I moved abroad to Europe in 2016, just as a way to keep my family and friends up to date. It was more of a personal journey than an actual website. I simply documented places I visited and shared my personal experiences. I started to get a lot of messages from people who would be traveling somewhere to ask for my recommendations. This led to me becoming an independent certified travel agent. Why not get paid for what I was doing for free!

I think this helped me learn a lot about the industry! It was eye opening to see how different people preferred to travel. I learned the ins and outs as well as how to get some of the best deals. At the time I was still writing mostly for fun but I did start to take it more seriously. A co-worker at the time of lockdown noticed how often I was helping people and that I was still sharing my personal experiences on my site and asked if I had ever considered monetizing my website. I began to research what it took to actually travel and write for a living.

Ironically, about this time a few travel brands and hotels actually reached out to me asking if I’d be interested in partnership collaborations. This was very exciting as I love photography, and this was a natural transition for me. Eventually I stopped working as the travel agent but used that knowledge to help build my website with a focus still on helping others have the best resources and knowledge to plan their own adventures.

I started to work with more brands and hotels and also writing for other publications. As I wasn’t a huge presence on social media, and it was never my goal to become an “influencer”, UGC work gave me the best of both worlds! I was able to still travel, working with brands and hotels but now I help to create content for them to use for their own purposes. It’s a win win. I also always offer reviews and some publicity on my own channels but only for brands who share my values or for experiences we truly loved. This way I can always be transparent with my community.

I love the flexibility of working for myself. I can choose which projects align with my needs or interest and always have something new to try. Freelance work has been a blessing for my lifestyle and my journey is always evolving. I can’t wait to see where I go next!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

Of course it’s had its ups and downs. Building my own website was HARD! Learning to write contracts and negotiate deliverables and rates took trial and error. Improving my writing and photography skills and keeping up to date with new software is always a growing process. People don’t realize that you have to essentially do every part of the job yourself when you start your own business. I had to teach myself coding, design, marketing, etc etc. Most people in this line of work are doing the jobs of full teams when starting out simply because outsourcing is too expensive until you have created some success yourself.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I am a travel writer and UGC creator who specializes in sustainable travel as a digital nomad. I know, you might be scratching your head at how all of that works.

First, I am a travel writer. I ghost write or guest write for different publications as a freelancer. I also have my own website where I write about travel with an emphasis on how to do it sustainably. I talk about eco travel, green washing, ethical animal tourism and more. I also work with brands who share my values and are environmentally conscious and always trying to improve. Which leads us to the next part.

Second, I work as a UGC creators. This means I help to create user generated content (photos and videos) for brands, hotels and tourism boards to use on their own platforms, channels and for marketing purposes. I love this because I have no obligation to share on my own website or channels unless I choose to. This once again gives me the freedom to only share and promote brands and hotels we truly love ourselves.

Finally, I run my own Digital Nomad Academy for other people who wish to learn to travel full time. They absolutely do not have to go into the travel industry or become a writer, photographer or any of my personal income streams. This is simply to help people who want to make the leap with all the information I and other digital nomads learned through our own experiences.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?

My parents of course have always been supportive of me, even when I made big changes in my life plans. I actually have my masters degree in clinical and counseling psychology. I wanted to go into that field since I was in the 5th grade. However, moving abroad and the way the system worked changed my plans. I shifted gears during the pandemic and found a way to work remotely in order to move with my husband who is a professional hockey player. We change locations almost every year and I knew I needed something that I could do from anywhere that also brought me joy.

Second, my husband who has recently started to help during our travels with the content creation process. He has also slowly started to help take over the long form video editing parts of the business as it was by far my personal least enjoyable aspect of the job. He is so supportive and has grown to truly enjoy traveling which has made our relationship even better!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.travelmunchers.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travel_munchers
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@Travelmunchers
• Other: https://biosites.com/editor#/TravelMunchers/

Image Credits
All images are my own.