Im finding it difficult to come across genuine travel experience stories whether here or on other platforms. It’s simply turned into purely business and I’m finding it very hard to maintain and or need to consume travel “content.” I’m deeply missing the Anthony Bourdain approach which is where a piece of my desire to explore places came from. All I see now is who can sell what tour, whose operating where, how can we use AI, content etc… It feels like the beauty of travel is slowly diminishing and being drowned out by the bottom line, which is such a western way to conduct life as a whole. I can go through a few pages of the community discussions and there are no genuine travel memoirs anymore, just people hoping to sell.
In general, I hear you. I can't speak for other platforms, but on Travel Massive the editorial focus is on showcasing startups and interesting projects that our members are involved in. We're less interested in publishing traveler stories, since most writers publish on their own blogs or platforms.
About the kinds of content here — I'm focused on building this platform for our community to discover new people and ideas in the travel industry, and for building connections (both online and offline). We're also working on a new feature that will highlight creators and writers in the community. More on that in the next month or so.
In terms of your overall thesis... I believe the good stories are still out there, but the signal to noise ratio has increased so they are harder to find. To put in perspective: the cost of creating content is 100x less than a decade ago, so we're in a tech arms race for people's digital attention. I don't believe this phenomenon is just a travel thing - it's impacting all kinds of content, from sport to lifestyle to music. I don't have the answers for this, other than to spend more time outside!
A few suggestions of where I find travel stories:
- I enjoy reading Stuart McDonald's weekly newsletters from Travelfish which curates lots of interesting travel stories, mostly with a SE Asia focus. www.travelfish.org/newsletter/
- I follow some long form YouTube vloggers. Over on our homepage sidebar you can scroll through recent videos produced by creators in our community (use the "next" and "previous" video links to check more out). This is updated every few weeks.
- Ric Gazarian's "Counting Countries" Podcast is an amazing series that explores extraordinary travel stories around the world. globalgaz.com/counting-countries/
Hope that helps, and that you can find some stories worth reading.
Thank you for your response and I appreciate your insight as always. That makes sense that Travel Massive is a platform to help showcase member startups and projects. For some reason I did not know that, but I can also attest that there has been a huge shift with I see posted as someone who has been a member for almost 10 years and attending my first Travel Massive event in possibly 2013 or so.
Yes I am you are right. It's not just travel at all, it's every sector in every industry. And yes you are right just spend more time outside lol. Im literally in Costa Rica as I respond to these great responses.
Thanks so much for sharing some resources for where to find what Im lookin for.
Was chatting about this very topic the other day with another travel writer, and we agreed that if you’re looking for quality long form material, you’re far better off considering publications that are “travel adjacent” rather than travel specific.
Why? The former still have some budget (and are often paywalled), and they still generally offer some degree of editorial oversight (something badly lacking on say Substack million word long diatribes). Meanwhile the travel trade press is a wasteland of comped and/or appallingly paid pieces, where the words are as much the fill you pour in around the ads as any kind of storytelling vehicle.
Pubs like Atmos, Noema, Atlantic, New Yorker, FT travel, NYT (sometimes!), Hard Stories, Hakai (no longer publishing but great archives) etc, none of these would describe themselves as dedicated travel pubs, but there’s plenty of travel words in them.
No, you’re not making this up and honestly, I feel it too.
With all the creative freedom social media allows, travel content has become heavily influencer-led; quick reels, pretty visuals, and selling destinations fast. It looks great, but often skips the real depth, the people, the stories. Everything starts to feel the same.
Honestly, I keep wondering what really makes someone “influential” now. And more often than not, the answer seems to be: HAVING A GOOD ASS DRONE!
I loved Anthony Bourdain. He made travel feel human and actually meaningful.
But I don’t think that kind of travel has disappeared. It’s just quieter now, lost in all the noise and exaggerated storytelling. Not what the algorithm pushes. The real stuff still exists; it’s just harder to find.
Maybe what’s missing is more people choosing to tell honest stories again… but yeah, it’s getting harder to cut through when everyone has access to the same tools.
Thank you first for understanding and secondly for responding with so much depth and pointing out that yes we love Anthony Bourdain.
You are right and it seems to fall in line with what others have said regarding this topic. There is just so much noise that we just cannot see it. Sometimes I feel like I am complaining about it vs doing something about it.
I work with teens and I can see the growth towards disconnect because what is human about us is being so washed out with the facade that life is pretty pictures and quick moments, when we all know that is so far from the truth.
The point you make about whats missing, I will ponder on this more. As a photographer/filmmaker I have struggled deeply over the years with sharing, but the goal is for the to change.
Brianna, I completely understand what you're expressing; everything feels like a money grab, even when it's not meant to be. We're feeling more and more disconnected because we don't know HOW to connect anymore - without pressure, itineraries, or 'posing for the pic'. This is a real problem that many of us are relating to.
Luckily, I have good news for you! I work with a handful of dedicated folks behind the scenes of an upcoming global-social (glocal as I'm calling it) app that focuses on the heart of community tourism - intentional and reciprocal relationships between travelers and locals.
The app is named Scapade and it will be launching soon! It will be a way to 'say yes' more often to impulsive connection with others through travel and engagement.
Picture this: you travel to a place outside of your hometown, OR you are exploring a new part of your hometown - somewhere you've never explored before. You decide to log onto Scapade and find out that there are actually several locally-operated activities and connections happening near you; and the best part is that none of them will look or feel like the 'cookie-cutter' main attractions you're used to seeing, because we will be bringing light to those that have continuously gone overlooked by 'Big Travel' despite being the very heart of that marketed destination.
So, all of that is to say: I feel your pains and rest assured there are people who are working to combat this problem and share the 'solution' with the world!
Hi Brianna, Your feeling makes sense, but I don’t think the beauty of travel is diminishing so much as becoming harder to see beneath the commercial layer wrapped around it.
A lot of travel media is optimized for conversion whether its itineraries, affiliate links, creator branding, AI-generated guides. The industry learned how to monetize aspiration, and once platforms rewarded reach over reflection, slower and more observant storytelling got buried. Sad to say. My thoughts are and always travel is about curiosity without urgency. Travel will always be approached through people, culture, the slower aspect, food, random interaction, joy of getting lost and stumbling into a hidden gem. But genuine travel stories still exist. They’ve just migrated away from the loud center of the internet. But I don’t think the spirit of travel itself has disappeared. I think we just have to navigate differently now. The meaningful stories are no longer sitting at the center of the feed waiting to be handed to us. You have to dig a little deeper, follow quieter voices, read slower writing, seek out people who still travel to observe rather than perform.
obscure YouTube channels with almost no editing, podcasts where nobody is trying to “scale,” conversations with people who traveled before travel became personal branding.
The irony is that authentic travel writing has almost always lived at the margins. Even now, the people having profound experiences are usually not documenting them in algorithm-friendly ways. They’re writing privately, slowly, imperfectly or not at all.
So the beauty probably isn’t disappearing. It’s just no longer what platforms are designed to surface. I am going back into the travel industry in a new manner, because once travel is in your blood, nothing will be the same.
Yea, it's true. The "influencers" are barely dressed teenagers, the content is written by machines that have stolen your words, Facebook insists you access your "customers" by putting a phone number on your page so you can "sell" your product to them, and you can't say no; you can just say "later" as if it were incumbent upon you to make your telephone number public in a way that makes them even more filthy lucre. Legacy media—that's what we are now. Experience has no value, emotion even less.
Thanks for pointing out the fact that platforms themselves are also pushing for people to perform this way. It's not just the people themselves but how these platforms are designed for maximize usage and exposure. The goal is to keep humans on devices no matter what, which is changing how we communicate with one another since we've adapted to using these platforms more and more. I appreciate the ways we can stay "connected," but I do not appreciate how we so often begin to identify with these systems. This seems to be the way humans just fall in line historically to the systems that be. Thanks for understanding and sharing.
Brianna. I think you're right, and I think Ian's point about the signal to noise ratio is spot on. There's still good work out there, but it's buried under an avalanche of content that exists to sell rather than to say something. Substack has become one of the better places to find it, partly because the model rewards readers who actually want to read though even there, you have to dig.
I agree with you. I tried Substack for a bit and started to feel a bit of what I am expressing in this post. I think I also need to come to terms with the fact that humans now just have the ability to share more everywhere lol. I will also admit that possibly I am looking for something on the internet that is just not there anymore vs looking at outlets that are designed for what I want like books, in person events, long form documentaries, etc... Youre right, I have to dig. Thanks for sharing.
I feel this. My satisfaction and appreciation for travel content has improved since I got off Instagram, where so much seems a grift. Reading blogs, Substacks/newsletters, mainstream media - there are still writers, photojournalists, creators out there doing good work without trying to sell you a course. Don't give up!
Yes getting off of social media for sure is helpful. I think being over loaded with content is also causing what Im experiencing. Being able to control or at least tame the noise is the goal. I wont give up. I will do better at being intentional with where I am getting my information from. Something in me just truly misses the days of just sharing. Thank you for sharing.
Yes you are right, and as Ian mentioned, the signal-to-noise ratio has increased significantly. I am familiar with this subject as I run a weekly travel reads newsletter at www.thetravelwire.net. Every week I look for travel narrative articles, so I have built a system to help find reads. Some weeks I struggle to make a full list, as finding narrative articles is not possible on Google, and most personal travel blogs have become travel guides. Nothing wrong with guides if they are from someone who genuinely knows the place, but many blogs are just loaded with affiliate links for tours and hotels.
It can feel that way sometimes at first glace. A lot of travel especially online is packaged, polished, and optimized to sell experiences rather than tell them. Algorithms reward what’s visually striking and easily bookable, not always what’s meaningful or deeply human. So the stories haven’t disappeared they’ve just been pushed into quieter corners. Sad yes!
They still exist in long conversations with locals, in slow journeys, in the messy, unplanned moments that don’t always make it into curated feeds or glossy campaigns. Real travel stories are less about perfect sunsets and more about perspective shifts and a conversation that changes you along the way.
Maybe the question isn’t where the stories have gone, but where we’re choosing to look for them and whether we’re giving ourselves the space to create our own again. The stories are there but we have to be bold and find among the noise. Sorry for] long post. Should have given a long post alert,:)
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Comments
Im finding it difficult to come across genuine travel experience stories whether here or on other platforms. It’s simply turned into purely business and I’m finding it very hard to maintain and or need to consume travel “content.” I’m deeply missing the Anthony Bourdain approach which is where a piece of my desire to explore places came from. All I see now is who can sell what tour, whose operating where, how can we use AI, content etc… It feels like the beauty of travel is slowly diminishing and being drowned out by the bottom line, which is such a western way to conduct life as a whole. I can go through a few pages of the community discussions and there are no genuine travel memoirs anymore, just people hoping to sell.
Am I making this up?
Hi Brianna,
In general, I hear you. I can't speak for other platforms, but on Travel Massive the editorial focus is on showcasing startups and interesting projects that our members are involved in. We're less interested in publishing traveler stories, since most writers publish on their own blogs or platforms.
About the kinds of content here — I'm focused on building this platform for our community to discover new people and ideas in the travel industry, and for building connections (both online and offline). We're also working on a new feature that will highlight creators and writers in the community. More on that in the next month or so.
In terms of your overall thesis... I believe the good stories are still out there, but the signal to noise ratio has increased so they are harder to find. To put in perspective: the cost of creating content is 100x less than a decade ago, so we're in a tech arms race for people's digital attention. I don't believe this phenomenon is just a travel thing - it's impacting all kinds of content, from sport to lifestyle to music. I don't have the answers for this, other than to spend more time outside!
A few suggestions of where I find travel stories:
- I enjoy reading Stuart McDonald's weekly newsletters from Travelfish which curates lots of interesting travel stories, mostly with a SE Asia focus. www.travelfish.org/newsletter/
- I follow some long form YouTube vloggers. Over on our homepage sidebar you can scroll through recent videos produced by creators in our community (use the "next" and "previous" video links to check more out). This is updated every few weeks.
- Ric Gazarian's "Counting Countries" Podcast is an amazing series that explores extraordinary travel stories around the world. globalgaz.com/counting-countries/
Hope that helps, and that you can find some stories worth reading.
Hola Ian,
Thank you for your response and I appreciate your insight as always. That makes sense that Travel Massive is a platform to help showcase member startups and projects. For some reason I did not know that, but I can also attest that there has been a huge shift with I see posted as someone who has been a member for almost 10 years and attending my first Travel Massive event in possibly 2013 or so.
Yes I am you are right. It's not just travel at all, it's every sector in every industry. And yes you are right just spend more time outside lol. Im literally in Costa Rica as I respond to these great responses.
Thanks so much for sharing some resources for where to find what Im lookin for.
Thanks for the plug Ian.
Was chatting about this very topic the other day with another travel writer, and we agreed that if you’re looking for quality long form material, you’re far better off considering publications that are “travel adjacent” rather than travel specific.
Why? The former still have some budget (and are often paywalled), and they still generally offer some degree of editorial oversight (something badly lacking on say Substack million word long diatribes). Meanwhile the travel trade press is a wasteland of comped and/or appallingly paid pieces, where the words are as much the fill you pour in around the ads as any kind of storytelling vehicle.
Pubs like Atmos, Noema, Atlantic, New Yorker, FT travel, NYT (sometimes!), Hard Stories, Hakai (no longer publishing but great archives) etc, none of these would describe themselves as dedicated travel pubs, but there’s plenty of travel words in them.
Hey Brianna,
No, you’re not making this up and honestly, I feel it too.
With all the creative freedom social media allows, travel content has become heavily influencer-led; quick reels, pretty visuals, and selling destinations fast. It looks great, but often skips the real depth, the people, the stories. Everything starts to feel the same.
Honestly, I keep wondering what really makes someone “influential” now. And more often than not, the answer seems to be: HAVING A GOOD ASS DRONE!
I loved Anthony Bourdain. He made travel feel human and actually meaningful.
But I don’t think that kind of travel has disappeared. It’s just quieter now, lost in all the noise and exaggerated storytelling. Not what the algorithm pushes. The real stuff still exists; it’s just harder to find.
Maybe what’s missing is more people choosing to tell honest stories again… but yeah, it’s getting harder to cut through when everyone has access to the same tools.
Hello Sayali,
I literally laughed at "HAVING A GOOD ASS DRONE."
Thank you first for understanding and secondly for responding with so much depth and pointing out that yes we love Anthony Bourdain.
You are right and it seems to fall in line with what others have said regarding this topic. There is just so much noise that we just cannot see it. Sometimes I feel like I am complaining about it vs doing something about it.
I work with teens and I can see the growth towards disconnect because what is human about us is being so washed out with the facade that life is pretty pictures and quick moments, when we all know that is so far from the truth.
The point you make about whats missing, I will ponder on this more. As a photographer/filmmaker I have struggled deeply over the years with sharing, but the goal is for the to change.
Thank you.
Brianna, I completely understand what you're expressing; everything feels like a money grab, even when it's not meant to be. We're feeling more and more disconnected because we don't know HOW to connect anymore - without pressure, itineraries, or 'posing for the pic'. This is a real problem that many of us are relating to.
Luckily, I have good news for you! I work with a handful of dedicated folks behind the scenes of an upcoming global-social (glocal as I'm calling it) app that focuses on the heart of community tourism - intentional and reciprocal relationships between travelers and locals.
The app is named Scapade and it will be launching soon! It will be a way to 'say yes' more often to impulsive connection with others through travel and engagement.
Picture this: you travel to a place outside of your hometown, OR you are exploring a new part of your hometown - somewhere you've never explored before. You decide to log onto Scapade and find out that there are actually several locally-operated activities and connections happening near you; and the best part is that none of them will look or feel like the 'cookie-cutter' main attractions you're used to seeing, because we will be bringing light to those that have continuously gone overlooked by 'Big Travel' despite being the very heart of that marketed destination.
So, all of that is to say: I feel your pains and rest assured there are people who are working to combat this problem and share the 'solution' with the world!
Hi Brianna, Your feeling makes sense, but I don’t think the beauty of travel is diminishing so much as becoming harder to see beneath the commercial layer wrapped around it.
A lot of travel media is optimized for conversion whether its itineraries, affiliate links, creator branding, AI-generated guides. The industry learned how to monetize aspiration, and once platforms rewarded reach over reflection, slower and more observant storytelling got buried. Sad to say. My thoughts are and always travel is about curiosity without urgency. Travel will always be approached through people, culture, the slower aspect, food, random interaction, joy of getting lost and stumbling into a hidden gem. But genuine travel stories still exist. They’ve just migrated away from the loud center of the internet. But I don’t think the spirit of travel itself has disappeared. I think we just have to navigate differently now. The meaningful stories are no longer sitting at the center of the feed waiting to be handed to us. You have to dig a little deeper, follow quieter voices, read slower writing, seek out people who still travel to observe rather than perform.
You find them in:
small independent newsletters, like mine I just started. Well its on Linkedin and its new. Shameless plug :)
www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-well-traveled-mind-7395813426612051968/
obscure YouTube channels with almost no editing,
podcasts where nobody is trying to “scale,”
conversations with people who traveled before travel became personal branding.
The irony is that authentic travel writing has almost always lived at the margins. Even now, the people having profound experiences are usually not documenting them in algorithm-friendly ways. They’re writing privately, slowly, imperfectly or not at all.
So the beauty probably isn’t disappearing. It’s just no longer what platforms are designed to surface.
I am going back into the travel industry in a new manner, because once travel is in your blood, nothing will be the same.
Yea, it's true. The "influencers" are barely dressed teenagers, the content is written by machines that have stolen your words, Facebook insists you access your "customers" by putting a phone number on your page so you can "sell" your product to them, and you can't say no; you can just say "later" as if it were incumbent upon you to make your telephone number public in a way that makes them even more filthy lucre. Legacy media—that's what we are now. Experience has no value, emotion even less.
Hi James,
Thanks for pointing out the fact that platforms themselves are also pushing for people to perform this way. It's not just the people themselves but how these platforms are designed for maximize usage and exposure. The goal is to keep humans on devices no matter what, which is changing how we communicate with one another since we've adapted to using these platforms more and more. I appreciate the ways we can stay "connected," but I do not appreciate how we so often begin to identify with these systems. This seems to be the way humans just fall in line historically to the systems that be. Thanks for understanding and sharing.
Brianna. I think you're right, and I think Ian's point about the signal to noise ratio is spot on. There's still good work out there, but it's buried under an avalanche of content that exists to sell rather than to say something. Substack has become one of the better places to find it, partly because the model rewards readers who actually want to read though even there, you have to dig.
Hi Scott,
I agree with you. I tried Substack for a bit and started to feel a bit of what I am expressing in this post. I think I also need to come to terms with the fact that humans now just have the ability to share more everywhere lol. I will also admit that possibly I am looking for something on the internet that is just not there anymore vs looking at outlets that are designed for what I want like books, in person events, long form documentaries, etc... Youre right, I have to dig. Thanks for sharing.
And maybe you're right too that a lot of what seems to be missing has just moved offline!
I feel this. My satisfaction and appreciation for travel content has improved since I got off Instagram, where so much seems a grift. Reading blogs, Substacks/newsletters, mainstream media - there are still writers, photojournalists, creators out there doing good work without trying to sell you a course. Don't give up!
Hi Lisa,
Yes getting off of social media for sure is helpful. I think being over loaded with content is also causing what Im experiencing. Being able to control or at least tame the noise is the goal. I wont give up. I will do better at being intentional with where I am getting my information from. Something in me just truly misses the days of just sharing. Thank you for sharing.
Yes you are right, and as Ian mentioned, the signal-to-noise ratio has increased significantly. I am familiar with this subject as I run a weekly travel reads newsletter at www.thetravelwire.net. Every week I look for travel narrative articles, so I have built a system to help find reads. Some weeks I struggle to make a full list, as finding narrative articles is not possible on Google, and most personal travel blogs have become travel guides. Nothing wrong with guides if they are from someone who genuinely knows the place, but many blogs are just loaded with affiliate links for tours and hotels.
It can feel that way sometimes at first glace. A lot of travel especially online is packaged, polished, and optimized to sell experiences rather than tell them. Algorithms reward what’s visually striking and easily bookable, not always what’s meaningful or deeply human. So the stories haven’t disappeared they’ve just been pushed into quieter corners. Sad yes!
They still exist in long conversations with locals, in slow journeys, in the messy, unplanned moments that don’t always make it into curated feeds or glossy campaigns. Real travel stories are less about perfect sunsets and more about perspective shifts and a conversation that changes you along the way.
Maybe the question isn’t where the stories have gone, but where we’re choosing to look for them and whether we’re giving ourselves the space to create our own again. The stories are there but we have to be bold and find among the noise. Sorry for] long post. Should have given a long post alert,:)