Dave Brett Takes on the World as a Travel Blogger

I’m losing count of how many countries I’ve seen Dave Brett in, but it has been on at least three continents plus the country that joins North and South America: Panama. He’s an adventure travel Blogger over at traveldave.co.uk and has been traversing the globe and writing about it for more than a decade. I caught up with him for an interview in person at a TBEX event.

How did you get started as a travel blogger and how did you transition into making this your full-time job?

First, I’m very happy and proud to be called a travel blogger. That’s how I started and what’s still working. I got started back in 2005 when I went to Finland on my my own backpacking and I was staying with some friends I met from this UK Scouts event called Jamboree. In Europe the boy and girl scouts are mixed together and there were people from many countries attending. A Finnish scout troop invited me to their country and I told my dad, who was fine with it, but not my mum. So she was very angry at me.

At the time, phone cards were very expensive. So I was thinking, “I can’t call my mum like, every day. That’s gonna be really expensive.” So I decided it would work if I write every single day on something she can see. If I could sort of check in, that would be fine. And the next day Travel Dave UK was born, at the ripe age of 16. So that’s how I started travel blogging: to keep my mum up to date.

That month in Finland I remember it was like -20C outside. I packed way too much. I had so many bags and was just so unprepared for that trip. But just having a sauna and being in Finland and going out in the ice cold and seeing reindeers—it was a magical time.

The blog was mostly a hobby until I returned to Finland on a university exchange program and studied there (in English) for a year, international travel and tourism. I took and entrepreneur course and my lecturer was 24, had a ponytail and jeans, and he’d already had four businesses. My mind was blown. I showed him my blog and he said, “You have a business here. You have a brand, you have content, you have a wonderful way of sharing your destinations.” I’d never looked at it as a business until that point. So then it was through his his course and a few books I checked out, including the Four Hour Workweek, that got me off and running.

Then the next turning point was TBEX in Costa Brava. That changed everything because I had never met another travel Blogger up to that point. I had no idea you could make the sort of money.

So that leads to conferences, where you and I have connected many times. For people that have never been to one, what can they expect to get out of it?

That first one I met all these heroes of mine that were making real money writing about their travels, some of them still doing it today. I’d read books telling me to surround myself with successful people doing what I want to do and I’m sitting on the bus with all my favorite bloggers. It was really inspiring.

Now I’m further along, but it’s super valuable to be in the same place for a few days, to learn and get inspired. And to see where we are as an industry. We survived the pandemic, those of us still standing, then after the Google hit, a lot of us are facing search traffic issues right now. It’s so nice to get around a table and just talk about our worries because a lot of us are travelling on our own, running our own solo businesses and that’s why that personal element is so great to come to back again and again.

For me it’s still nice to learn, to see what other alternatives we can focus on. What’s the shift, what are the trends? And then just hear from amazing speakers, hear about what they’re doing. To hear what’s successful for them. After a few TBEX events, I’m not as scared anymore about Google traffic. But please no more updates, okay? I think I’ve had enough of that.)

You told me that it really became a full-time job with real income in 2014. How did the blog evolve and how did you choose what nice to focus on?

I started out talking about travel in general and backpacking because that’s what I was doing, but over time the focus shifted more to adventure because that’s what I was really interested in experiencing and writing about. It’s not all that niche because the adventure market is massive. Adventure travel is actually a luxury product though and a lot of people don’t associate adventure with luxury, but it is a very high-end product and there are a lot of travelers out there looking for very exclusive, very authentic adventures. So it has been nice to be able to pivot it into that space.

I joined the ATTA, the Adventure Travel Trade Association, which has been fantastic. It has been nice having a community of adventure writers and tour operators and and focusing on events. As a brilliant travel product, so I’d say yeah, shifting into that space has been great. Countries and provinces seem to be seeing the potential and how it ties into a more desirable type of visitor.

In Japan, for example, they’ve got Hokkaido and have been doing a great job of promoting it through the media. They’ve they’ve seen how adventure can really shape and change a region using the the nature you have already.

It was interesting to be there and see how another culture works. The Japanese love structure and they they take feedback very, very seriously. Three stars out of five is actually a very, very good review there. So when I go there I feel like I’m working with a whole hockey team. I normally have a guide, a translator, tour operator, bus driver, maybe a few government ministers along. So the bus gets quite big and there are a lot of pens and papers and picture taking, but they’re just very focused on getting the product right.

What’s the worst press trip you’ve ever been on?

A few have been trouble, but the worst I went on was one to to Romania because the the whole bus got food poisoning, which didn’t go down so well. There was a long bus ride on the itinerary and there were some quite comical moments happened on the on that journey. The whole bus filled with content creators and influencers, about 60 media on that trip and all had food poisoning apart from the vegetarians. So there was definitely something wrong with the meat.

I’m trying to put it in a nice polite PC way, but there was a lot of bus stopping where we all had to. run into the fields. And even the guide wasn’t great. He also got a bad, bad reaction. We were all in it together. Apart from the vegetarians who were amused by it all, saying, “Told you so.”

You were on a panel about Artificial Intelligence, talking about how it impacts us as travel bloggers and how we can use its power for good. What came out of that?

We had a I discussion about the big elephant in the room, about copyright infringement and plagiarism and taking writers’ works, but it’s nice to see there’s more to AI. It’s such a powerful tool if you know how to use it. You’re basically replicating yourself and “copilot” was the word used, which I think is a is a great term. Creating your own virtual assistant to assist with all of the the stuff that sucks your soul out of you while you’re while you’re a travel blogger so you can just focus on the things that you love again. It’s also about creating new products, which can lead to new income streams or exposure options.

It’s amazing to see where AI will go because it will just keep getting better. So now is the time to play around with it and learn about AI and learn where it is going rather than completely cutting it off, which I feel is the wrong approach. But yes, there is still an issue with the plagiarism and the copyright problems, also creeping into the professional photographers’ worlds as well.

Do you still think it makes sense for newbies to jump into this space as a travel content creator?

I am trying to turn more of my blog posts into videos because maybe that’s a faster-growing market and is harder for AI to copy. We still need the written word though. People still love to read articles about travel, on their phone or otherwise. If you’ve got a really good way, a passionate way of writing about the destinations that you love, you can probably make it if you persevere.

There’s been so many of us in the past, like 1,200 at TBEX in Toronto years ago, far less after the events immediately following the pandemic. It is weird looking around and still trying to see who’s still going and who is new on the scene and having success.

There’s still space, there’s still room. Many of us have had businesses for 10 years or more in this space and are doing better than ever. The most important thing is that you have to have the passion for it because it it’s it’s not going to make you a millionare. Meanwhile though, you get a lot of travel out of it and you get a lot of experiences and a lot of memories and a lot of stories. So if you’re in it for the right reasons, there’s definitely space.

Traveling the world, one adventure at a time Dave Brett is a solo adventure travel blogger covering the world. His globe-trotting adventure travel blog features travel tips and advice, travel stories, travel videos, and travel photography that will inspire your next trip abroad and help you plan it too. See more at Travel Dave UK.