An Instagram star boasting 73k followers, 32-year-old Mike Clegg is a travel blogger. Or, perhaps, not. Despite making a living out of his travel writing, in fact, he doesn’t like being called that. Indeed, Mike hates people’s misconception about travel bloggers as much as he hates the aisle seat. “When I travel, I am working. I haven’t been on holiday for four years,” he says, repeatedly stressing this concept throughout our 45-minute interview.
It’s true, we all tend to visualise that Chiara Ferragni stereotype, and the luxury hotels, heavenly beaches and swimming pool parties which constitute the very essence of an influencer’s life. Scrolling down his Instagram account and his blog, Travel & Destinations, Mike seems to be no different. Spending more time sitting on a plane rather than on his sofa, he gets paid by tourism boards, high-tech companies, and hotel chains to write about his life and post pictures of dreamlike destinations on social networks.
However, he doesn’t live in never-never land and it angers him to know that people think money from blogging is easy cash. “Most people don’t realise how much work it is. I have visited more than 35 countries and when I get into trips it’s non-stop,” he says, explaining that being a blogger doesn’t just involve writing posts 24/7 on multiple platforms. To become a pro, Mike spent a lot of time learning from expert photographers, reading every page of their books “front and back” endless times. The pressure of taking instagrammable photos is often overwhelming. In a series of snapshots, there’s the salary of a month. Plus, Mike’s clients are demanding; collaborating with Canon, for instance, is very hard, as they expect his photographs to always be “on top” and “unique”.
As well as working freelance, Mike single-handedly manages his blog, and touring on a strict schedule, trying to see as much as possible, while simultaneously taking notes and pictures, makes up most of his time abroad. A “rewarding” but “glam only on the outside” job, as he describes it, being a travel writer means learning the hard way how to cope with solitude, homesickness and, most importantly, tiredness.
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PROFILE: Founder of Travel & Destinations Mike Clegg
By Tommaso Ciani
In the evening, when he returns to his luxurious five-star suites, often courtesy of his sponsors, Mike’s worked so hard that he’s too tired to even clean out the mini-bar. “To get perfect Instagram spots, I walk all my feet, from 12 to 15 hours a day at least,” he explains. There’s no time for a relaxing breakfast close to the hotel’s infinity pool, as a travel writer must optimise his schedule. Possibly, only blogging celebrities enjoy such treatment, but the issue is controversial. It’s hard to consider yourself on holiday when describing your trips abroad happens to be your job. Yet, just the idea of laying on a memory foam mattress in a hotel suite after a busy day of work would probably mean holiday to most people.
Although at times Mike is weary of his incessant travelling, he passionately wants his blog to be a useful resource for other people. As he followed his dream to become a “big guy” within the travel industry, he doesn’t regret leaving England. “Even if I lived in London, I would still not be able to see my friends that much because they have a more mature lifestyle than me. They work full-time and some of them have children,” he says. Still, he comes back home at least a couple of times a year, especially for weddings, which he considers “really good catch ups to meet many people in one go”. It is through social media that he has learnt how to defeat home-sickness, however. “It allows me to shorten distances,” he says making a joke about his parents’ embarrassing comments on his Instagram live stories.
After years of globetrotting, Mike’s finances don’t yet allow him to pay an extra ticket for the sake of having company. At the beginning of his career, travelling hadn’t just an emotional cost – making him feel often tired and lonely, it also clashed with budgeting. Mike often found himself forced to sleep on night buses to save money. “I couldn’t afford to pay a hostel. Staying just for the day and getting a bus back was much cheaper,” he explains. Sometimes, trips weren’t even worth the money, like when he travelled to Istanbul and didn’t realise that he’d just taken blurry pictures or when he went all the way to India but got food poisoning, with a milkshake, and had to miss the Holi Festival. Despite having often tread the thin line between being self-sufficient and broke, Mike has – commendably – never missed the chance to travel non-stop.
It’s his girlfriend, Kim, who’s taught him to seize all opportunities. A best friend as well as a partner, she was the reason Mike founded Travel & Destinations in the first place. Since they met in London, Mike left family and friends and followed her, first to Canada, then to Austria. There, he began to invest money and time into blogging.
Because she’s an English teacher at International Schools, Kim contractually moves every three years. This nomadic lifestyle they share has resulted in Mike’s understanding that melancholy is just part of the game. Kim’s determination in pursuing her goals in life has also spurred him to embrace adaptability as a life mantra. That said, Mike’s never actually tried to learn a new language and even though he’s been living in a German-speaking country for over two years now, he doesn’t speak a word that isn’t English.
Next summer Kim’s contract in Vienna will expire and they’ll be packing up again. “Hopefully we’ll be moving to Asia, but it’s just a hope right now. From there it would be easier to travel around the continent,” says Mike stretching on the chair, visibly excited about this possibility. Uncertainty doesn’t scare him anymore or, at least, not as much as the idea of studying Mandarin.
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YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW HIM ON FACEBOOK:
On what it is actually like to live as a travel writer, and how lonely it is
Mike Clegg, born in Bangor, Wales, is a 32-year-old travel blogger. In this picture he is in Austria, where he now lives
In these pictures Mike travelled to Germany, Italy, India, Vietnam, and Malaysia
Ph. Mike Clegg