Wellness Travelled
In the realm of mindful globetrotting and digital content creation, few names shine as brightly as Wellness Travelled. Founded by sisters Christine and Sarah, Wellness Travelled is not just a platform; it's a beacon of inspiration, guiding wanderlust souls towards transformative journeys of health, wellness, and self–discovery.
From serene spa retreats to exhilarating outdoor adventures, they curate experiences that nourish the body, mind, and soul. Their mission, rooted in authenticity and sustainability, resonates deeply with a global audience seeking meaningful travel encounters. In this interview, we delve into the journey behind building Wellness Travelled, exploring the passion, purpose, and vision that drives their work while inspiring a vibrant community of followers.
CAN YOU SHARE HOW WELLNESS TRAVELLED BEGAN?
Wellness Travelled was an idea that came from the advice of others! At the time we started the account, Sarah was a travel agent, travelling the world on a regular basis. Christine was lucky enough to come along on some of her trips when she could take time off from our corporate job in advertising. We would post photos from our trip on Instagram, and as “travel influencing” started taking off, friends, family, and co–workers would tell us, “You need to do that too!”
But first we needed an idea for our page. Given we both worked intense and sometimes stressful jobs (at the time, Christine was sometimes working 100 hour weeks!), we always tried to use our vacations together to reset our health. We loved to eat healthy, exercise, do beach walks, and give ourselves a “body holiday.” This gave us the idea for @WellnessTravelled.
“Instead of just being well travelled we wanted to instead inspire people to travel intentionally and promote wellness & self–care as a reason to travel.”
Our page has certainly evolved since then, but the core of this idea remains in our content today.
FOR EACH OF YOU, HOW HAVE YOUR BACKGROUNDS AND WORK EXPERIENCES INFLUENCED YOUR APPROACH TO CRAFTING ENGAGING CONTENT?
Sarah’s background is in travel sales, working as a top performing agent at Flight Centre for many years. She eventually started her own business as an Independent travel agent. Unfortunately, the pandemic changed the travel industry, so Sarah, with her entrepreneurial spirit, shifted focus to Wellness Travelled full–time.
“Sarah’s expert knowledge in the travel industry and background running her own business has been invaluable in working with our tourism board, hotel, and airline clients.
Christine’s background is in Creative Advertising. She was an Art Director for several large ad agencies in Toronto, before settling into a creative role at a local non–profit, SickKids Foundation, for many years. She’s been able to apply her extensive knowledge in creative advertising, script writing, television production, and client relations to many aspects of the @WellnessTravelled business.
“From the creative concepting to ensuring deadlines are met, her past skills are still highly relevant to running a social media marketing business.”
WITH NUMEROUS WELLNESS DESTINATIONS AND UNIQUE STAYS EXPLORED, WHAT ASPECTS OF WELLNESS TRAVELLED DO YOU ENJOY THE MOST, AND HOW HAS IT ENRICHED YOUR OWN LIVES?
The aspect we enjoy the most is getting to meet with the owners, operators, and staff at each location we visit.
“We love connecting with other people on our trips, and learning about the experiences by those who live and breathe it every day.”
We are always grateful when they can take time out of their busy day to really help us understand everything we need to know, and more, so that we can then go and explain it to our community in a way that resonates with them.
TELL US ABOUT ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE TRAVEL EXPERIENCES.
It is hard to pick just one! However, the trip we often reflect on the most is our trip to Thailand about 8 years ago. We were there for 3 weeks, so it really allowed us to explore the country at a slower pace and really enjoy each moment to the fullest. We loved the culture, the food and how genuinely nice the locals were.
“We also did a homestay experience with a Karen tribal family in Northern Thailand and found it to be one of the most culturally enriching travel experiences we’ve had to date.”
HOW DO YOU APPROACH DIGITAL MARKETING FOR WELLNESS TRAVELLED?
“Our digital marketing strategy is currently very grassroots, as we mainly grow our accounts organically.”
However, this past year we did invest in a blog re–design, we’ve started email marketing with monthly newsletters, and in 2024 we are going to tap into Pinterest to drive a new audience to our blog and social channels.
WHAT STRATEGIES DO YOU FIND MOST EFFECTIVE IN REACHING, CONNECTING WITH, AND INSPIRING YOUR AUDIENCE?
“During the pandemic, we strategically focused on building a community based on our location (Ontario, Canada). At the time, people couldn’t travel so we offered Canadians amazing places to visit within their own backyard. This helped us build a really engaged local audience.”
To this day, we still focus on our local audience, and connect with this community first and foremost. So, it’s no wonder our local content always performs so well with lots of saves and shares. And when we showcase international destinations, we still always try to make it relatable to our core engaged audience. This doesn’t mean we leave out our large base of American’s and international followers, showcasing lots of amazing destinations around the world mixed in with our local content.
HOW HAS THE ROLE OF PLATFORMS LIKE INSTAGRAM AND OTHERS CONTRIBUTED TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF WELLNESS TRAVELLED?
Instagram is our core platform, with almost 400k followers to date. However, in the social media space, it’s so important to diversify, so we also have a TikTok with 101k followers, and a YouTube channel with close to 1000 followers. We also have a blog, wellnesstravelled.com.
All of these platforms contribute to our growth, both in terms of our ability to land new clients, and our ability to monetize. For example, some tourism boards will only work with creators who have a blog.
“We always recommend content creators diversify their platforms as a strategic way to scale your business.”
LAST YEAR, A REEL FEATURING ONE OF OUR CLIENTS, SUGAR BEACH, A VICEROY RESORT, WENT VIRAL. CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE THERE?
“Sugar Beach, a Viceroy Resort, is hands down the best resort we have ever been to. In fact, we hope to return soon, but this time bring our partners, who were very jealous of our stay!”
At Sugar Beach, it is very hard to take a bad photo or video. From the jaw–dropping Pitons to the unique resort architecture, every moment is a photo–opp moment! Our viral reel was taken in one of the Residence properties, right at sunset. We were able to capture a perfect simple moment, that we feel resonated with a lot of people. It almost didn’t look real and I think that made people watch the video a few times over, thus signalling to the algorithm that it was “explore page content.” Furthermore, we were so excited to see some major accounts like @BeautifulDestinations and @Wonderful_Places re–shared the content, a huge win for us and the resort.
Our experience at Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort, was nothing short of magical. A few highlights from our stay would be the spa experience. We were blown away by the design of the spa and the spa rooms, that look more like luxe treehouses. We were also so impressed with the dining experiences in each of the restaurants. We were also very grateful for the room upgrade that included a walk–in closet, soaker tub, outdoor shower, living room, and large plunge pool. After touring the island, we can attest to the fact that this Resort is truly located in the best spot in St. Lucia, with views of Pitons from every angle. Finally, we have to call out the incredible staff who were so warm, welcoming, and attentive to our every need. We’re not exaggerating – one staff member even helped to fix our broken tripod, a total live safer!
WHAT ASPECTS DO YOU THINK ARE MOST IMPORTANT TO INCLUDE IN CONTENT LIKE REELS AND TIKTOKS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR VIRALITY?
“Unfortunately, the illusive algorithm can be hard to predict. However, we do apply several strategies to each of our posts, to give them a fighting chance at making it to our audience’s feed and the explore page.”
In fact, in the last year we’ve had over a dozen videos hit over 1 million views, using some of these strategies:
Lead with a visual or text overlay hook (i.e. a transition or asking a question)
We use our Instagram Stories to predict what shots will perform best (if the story gets a lot of likes and shares, we know our audience is intrigued and will likely engage when it’s in a reel as well)
Use a “save and share call to action” in the caption
Using trending or catchy music that adds to the concept of the reel
Using closed captions on voice over reels, to help people read along when they can’t turn on volume
We recently launched an eBook all about growing your account using Reels. We have lots more tips to share if you want to dive in further. You can download it here.
WHAT KIND OF ENGAGEMENT DO YOU VALUE MOST FROM YOUR AUDIENCE?
We are grateful for any engagement we get on our page. We wouldn’t be here without the likes, saves, shares, comments, and DM’s from our audience. We genuinely value it all.
WHAT THOUGHT AND CONSIDERATION GOES INTO SELECTING DESTINATIONS TO FEATURE?
When choosing a destination for our page we usually consider these three things:
Is it somewhere we would genuinely be interested in visiting
Can we promote wellness, nature, and/or sustainability within the destination?
Is it somewhere we think our audience would be interested in knowing more about?
HOW DO YOU ENSURE A BALANCE BETWEEN WELLNESS, ADVENTURE, AND SUSTAINABILITY IN YOUR TRAVELS?
It is often hard to find a trifecta, but you’d be surprised how often these qualities are interconnected within a hotel or destination. After all, if we don’t protect our beautiful landscapes, we won’t be able to have adventures within it! I am excited about a potential collaboration with Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort in Saint Lucia early this summer!
“Belize is a great reference for a country that encapsulates all three. We recently partnered with their tourism board to promote sustainable tourism within the country.”
Belize is filled with outdoor adventure, wellness (via their local food, wellness inspired hotels, and activities that get your body moving!). And of course, Belize has every reason to protect their stunning landscape, so sustainability is top of mind. We stayed at eco–conscious hotels, experienced the local culture, and were able have lots of adventurous activities, most notably diving at the Belize Barrier reef, where we saw Caribbean reef sharks! Belize works very hard to protect their reef and has made a large stretch of it a Marine Reserve. It’s no wonder that Belize is one of our favourite countries to visit (we’ve been twice now).
GOING OFF THAT, HOW DO YOU INCORPORATE ECO-FRIENDLY PRACTICES INTO YOUR TRAVELS, AND HOW DO YOU HOPE TO INSPIRE YOUR AUDIENCE TO MAKE MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS TRAVEL CHOICES?
You’d be surprised how easy it is for travelers to reduce their impact on the environment when travelling. Here are some of our favourite *easy* eco–hacks when travelling:
Pack a reusable travel mug, water bottle, and reusable bag if you plan to shop.
Do your research to find hotels that are eco-conscious within your destination.
Support the local community you are visiting by shopping and dining at local spots.
Carbon offset your transportation at the end of your trip.
Travel locally and support your own community.
Avoid the small toiletry bottles when you travel and instead bring your own products in silicone reusable tubes to cut back on plastic waste at hotels.
CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE VISION BEHIND YOUR CREATOR TOOLS INITIATIVE AND THE RESOURCES YOU PROVIDE TO SUPPORT INDIVIDUALS IN THEIR OWN VENTURES?
This is a newer part of our business that we are very excited about. Since the social content creator industry is still so new, it can be a tough space to navigate (for creators and brands alike). We have learned so much about the industry in the last few years, that we feel like we can give advice to help other creators build their businesses making fewer mistakes that we did.
Our eBooks focus on Instagram growth and monetization as a creator. We also dive into Reels, and have even created a media kit template so that new creators can build out their beautiful media kit without having a design background. Our plan is to continue building out more tools for creators, from video presets to a video course. You can see our existing tools here.
WHAT EXCITES YOU THE MOST ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WELLNESS TRAVELLED?
“We are very excited about continuing our Creator Tool shop, as we love helping others in the industry build their businesses.”
We are currently in planning stages for 2024, but we just wrapped an 8–day trip to Quebec, where we stayed at North America’s only Ice Hotel! We recommend checking out our Instagram story highlights and recent Reels for some winter travel inspiration. Other than that, you will have to stay tuned to see where our page takes us in 2024 ;)
HOW DO YOU SEE WELLNESS TRAVELLED EVOLVING TO FURTHER FULFILL YOUR MISSION OF EMPOWERING PROSPECTIVE TRAVELERS IN THE YEARS TO COME?
While we plan to continue sharing content that appeals to our core Canadian audience, we plan to evolve to also keep our brand new USA audience engaged as well. This might involve more USA collaborations, or international destinations that appeal to both Canadians and Americans. We also know that having kids is in the horizon, so we hope to have more family friendly content on our page in the future as well. We are so excited to see where Wellness Travelled will take us in 2024 and beyond.
