Top Creators: Guest Interview with Michelle L. Jensen

Michelle L. Jensen is the creator of Travel HerStory, a blog for millennial women who want to travel, primarily alone. After spending her 20s in the entertainment industry and writing a female-led action-adventure novel, she now focuses on solo travel through film and fiction, highlighting filming locations and literary destinations around the globe.

This article is part of an interview series with Top Travel Massive Creators and is made possible with the support of Stay22. Thanks Michelle for taking the time to share your story!

How did you get started as a travel creator?

Back in 2013, I started blogging out of boredom. I was working a desk job at a film and TV studio. I didn’t have much to do there unless something went wrong. On a friend’s recommendation, I started a blog. It initially focused on travel, as I had just returned from my college graduation trip to Europe.

I soon ran out of content because I was stuck at my desk instead of traveling the world. The blog became a collage of things before evolving into the Nerd Out app in 2015. I ran that pop culture event calendar for three years before I had to close it down.

While nerdom holds a special place in my heart, I longed to travel blog; thus, Travel HerStory was born!

How would you describe your content and your audience?

My content is for millennial women who want to travel, primarily alone. I originally focused on budget travel, but I’ve rebranded to focus on solo travel through film and fiction. I miss my former career in the entertainment industry a little, so I want to weave that back in by highlighting filming locations around the globe.

The same goes for literature. I wrote a female-led action-adventure novel during the pandemic and have been pitching it to agents. It’s a long, arduous process, so bringing that fictional magic to my blog has been thrilling. Travel destinations that either inspired the author or are where characters are based (e.g., 221 B Baker St.) are my go-to.

What platforms do you create on, and which has been most important to your growth?

I spend most of my energy on my blog because it’s the platform I own and fully control. I don’t love playing the algorithm game on socials, so I relish having my own space. It’s also where the bulk of my revenue comes from, so that makes it easy to justify the time and auditing I do annually.

I’m also active on Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads. Pinterest is the largest driver of traffic behind Google, so I focus on it most. Since other socials don’t drive much traffic for me, I mostly use them as community-building platforms.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced as a travel creator?

My biggest challenge has really been finding my own niche. I thought I kind of had to be a little everything for everyone when I began, but as I’ve grown, I’ve realized being everything isn’t possible. It’s okay not to be the expert on all subjects.

Instead, I’ve been leaning into only what I can offer. Most bloggers didn’t spend their 20s in the entertainment industry. Most bloggers haven’t written an action-adventure novel. Those things make me unique.

And it’s okay that these niches have much smaller audiences than budget travel, because being the big fish in a small pond isn’t a bad thing. If anything, it makes me stand out more.

What does your content creation process look like?

I didn’t use to plan at all. But when I went to write, I’d get stuck without photos of certain things, like how I got to the location or what my hotel looked like. I’m still not perfect at this; I really goofed on my 4.5-month trek through Europe last year by not photographing much of the transport, but I keep learning how to improve my workflow.

I mainly batch work if I can to get as much done as possible, meaning that I work on Pinterest one day, and then audit posts another so that I’m not swapping between projects. I’ve also built checklists of what I need to remember to include (e.g., internal links, alt text, etc.), since I can often forget things when there’s so much to include for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

How do you work with hotels, hostels and products?

Product founders mainly find me and reach out because they see my other reviews. I’ve found this to be a great way to try out several items and do comparison posts.

For hotels and hostels, I always reach out once I know where I’m headed. In both cases, a successful partnership looks like a well-written, honest blog post and photos that showcase the location or item.

What are your top tips for being successful with affiliate marketing?

Be genuine. Recommending everything under the sun doesn’t work. You have to give your reader some reason to trust your opinion. Maybe you’ve used that product for 5 years and can speak to how it’s held up. Or it may be how much money you saved by using that tourist card. Whatever it is, you have to make a solid argument for it.

Also, don’t be scared to say something negative. If I read a review that’s 100% glowing, I trust it less, since nothing is ever completely perfect. Even if it’s “I didn’t like the smell of the soap,” that’s something.

What advice would you give to someone starting out as a travel creator today?

Learn SEO. I didn’t for the first 11 years of my time as a blogger, which meant I had hardly any views and didn’t even make enough for gas money.

You have to meet your viewers where they are, and knowing which keywords to target and how to place them is most of the battle. Don’t guess what they want. Do research to find out how you can best help them.

Social media also relies on SEO a lot, particularly TikTok, so even if you aren’t going full speed ahead with blogging, it’s still a useful skill to have.

Who inspires you — in travel, in content creation, or beyond?

This is going to be a weird answer, but I try to stay in my own lane, so I’m not constantly comparing myself to others. I find that when I start looking at others, I end up spending a lot of energy bringing myself down because I’m not doing X, Y, and Z the way they are. It’s not a useful way to spend time for business purposes or mental health.

What does the Travel Massive community mean to you, and what’s next?

I’ve just started my journey with Travel Massive, but I love being part of a global community that’s in the same boat as me. I’ve found the travel community to be helpful to one another, rather than competitive, and that’s something to be proud of.

I’m headed to Hawaii with family, which’ll be interesting as I haven’t done a trip like this since 2021. I’ve hopefully learned a lot about myself since then, and as I’ll be working this time, I’m hoping to manage my time efficiently.

I’m slowly building out my solo travel, literary tourism, and set-jetting sections of my blog while auditing old posts. Additionally, I’m working for GetYourGuide and AAA. It’ll be a busy fall and winter season for me with all this freelance work.