We recently connected with Chris Christensen and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I have had many regular jobs. I worked in high tech for 43 years at companies both large and small. I worked at IBM, Apple, American Express, and TripAdvisor, but also worked for 20 years in startups. While I enjoyed those jobs on most days, for me, going full-time as a travel journalist was a path I had built for 19 years before I went full-time.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a full-time travel journalist, and the product I create is a popular travel podcast (Amateur Traveler) and a few different travel blogs: AmateurTraveler.com, california.amateurtraveler.com, and hotel-scoop.com.

My goal is to help people make the most of their vacation time and to stretch their comfort zone.

I am most proud of my consistency. When I started Amateur Traveler in 2005, I decided to do 48 episodes a year, one each Saturday, with 4 weeks off a year. Through 20 years, I have come pretty close to that goal. Consistency has a quality all its own. I know many people now who always look at what Amateur Traveler has to say before traveling to a new destination.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

You may remember that much of travel took a holiday during the pandemic. I was one of those people who did not get on a plane for more than a year until I was vaccinated. Travel blogs lost all kinds of traffic during those years and have subsequently had to deal with major changes when Google changes its algorithms.

A lot of people stopped under those pressures. I did not.

Can you talk to us about your experience with buying businesses?

One of the 3 blogs I run, I purchased in 2024, hotel-scoop.com. As it turns out, it has been a bad year for travel blogs because of the rise of AI and some huge changes from Google. I was looking to expand the footprint of my publishing. I am not sure this was the best use of my capital, but it has at least been a learning experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://AmateurTraveler.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/chris2x
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/amateurtraveler
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisnchristensen
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/chris2x
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ChrisChristensen
• Other: http://pinterest.com/chris2x
  

  @amateurtraveler

  
  https://bsky.app/profile/chris2x.bsky.social

Image Credits

photos by Chris Christensen of AmateurTraveler.com