Travel Influencers

and the people who hate them

In 2017, I went on a press trip to Peru with several other travel writers, an influencer, and the influencer’s husband. Her husband was not only her actual husband, but her Instagram Husband, who photographed her and managed her social media accounts. Usually organized and funded by a tourism board or hotel, a “press trip” allows “the press” (travel journalists) to experience a place and, ideally, write about it. I was there on assignment for a food magazine, writing about a chef in Cusco. The other writers were also on assignment, or were looking for angles and pitching editors. The influencer and her husband were not writing anything. They weren’t talking much, either, except with each other. They were aloof, as if they had secrets, or as if they were celebrities who were sick of their fans.

On the train from Cusco to Machu Picchu, the influencer slipped bracelets, courtesy of some jewelry company, onto her delicate wrists. Her husband photographed her gazing out the window, chin resting on open palm, gold bangles glinting, a slant of sun lighting her face. On Machu Picchu, she wore a pink strapless ball gown. I wore sneakers and yoga pants and, I admit it, a fanny pack, and felt the way I often feel around glamorous women—like a slovenly man. The influencer was irritated by how crowded the place was, upset that gross tourists were clogging up her photos.

On Machu Picchu, influencing no one.

This was back when every press trip I went on included a token influencer. That era was short-lived, likely because trip organizers learned that influencers weren’t worth it: Whomever sponsors the press trip covers all of the guests’ expenses, but influencers demanded additional payouts. In exchange, they would post a few pictures on Instagram. By contrast, journalists, who turned out whole stories in real magazines, were ethically prohibited from accepting cash from sponsors. Moreover, while travel influencers may easily influence their followers to impulse-buy, say, a travel makeup bag, they’re unlikely to get people to impulse-book a five-star hotel in Peru.

The other writers and I spent a lot of time staring at the influencer, fantasizing ourselves into her stilettos. She didn’t have to scribble constant notes, or record interviews, or churn out 1,200 words for $300. She was earning so much money influencing, she and her husband owned their home in Manhattan. What a bitch! The other writers and I were like angry goth chicks smoking cigarettes outside the party, the influencer the perfect-ponytailed cheerleader with the quarterback boyfriend. One of the writers somehow figured out that the influencer was buying followers. Then we felt better because buying followers is desperate and gauche! Ew! (I had never heard of buying followers and wondered if I should buy followers.)

Cusco

Over the years, I’ve told lots of people about that influencer. I relish the reactions I get when I describe the insane prom dress she wore to the ruins of a 15th-century Incan citadel in the Andes. But I simultaneously feel uneasy about making her the punchline. I feel uneasy, in general, about how often women are the punchline. In light of rape apology and wage disparity and the dismantling of Roe, I’d rather not uphold the premise that women are inherently unserious.

Influencers are an easy target. In every conversation I’ve heard about influencers, the influencers are the butt of the joke. When portrayed in movies and on TV, they’re the butt of the joke. Women account for 77 percent of those who monetize their social media accounts, so it’s really no surprise that people delight in trashing influencers. When they’re not the butt of the joke, influencers are the object of wrath. Or they’re exalted and envied—the Madonna-Whore Dichotomy. The stereotypes are that they’re vapid and dumb. They’re taking advantage of us. They’re lying to us. They’re “thirst-trapping” us. They’re man-eaters. The prevalent attitude toward influencers mirrors the prevalent attitude toward sex workers—disapproval of the women, not of the system that sustains their vocation.

This isn’t a defense of influencers or the multi-billion dollar industry of influencing. On the contrary, the whole thing disturbs me. I’m disturbed by the Orwellian converting of a person to a “brand.” I’m disturbed by claims of “authenticity” and “vulnerability” from people who filter their photos until their faces and bodies look human-adjacent, who equate confessions like I’ve been feeling down lately with “putting themselves out there.” I’m disturbed by the cynical business model—making people feel inadequate, convincing them to buy their way to worthiness.

Like sex workers, influencers, by providing a fantasy, are gaming the patriarchy, capitalizing on the idolatry of youth and beauty. Travel influencers, specifically, capitalize on America’s obsession with travel as a status symbol. Isn’t that kind of savvy? I mean, isn’t that what business is—making a living by engaging in commerce, by convincing consumers to part with their money? And don’t we hail businessmen as “smart”?

The male travel influencers I’m aware of have Instagram handles that include the words vagabond and expert and seeker. Their profiles list their missions: freedive every ocean, conquer every country, eat every animal while its heart is still beating. They may be adventurers in head lamps, rather than models in swim suits and floppy hats; we may admire their entrepreneurial spirit and revere them as intrepid, but influencing is influencing. The men, too, prominently display links to their online stores. They shill for Billabong or REI or some expensive camera brand. They sell their online courses titled How To Live an Authentic Life.

The last day of the Peru press trip was my birthday. A shaman read my tea leaves. He told me I was doing everything right. The rest of the group flew back to the States, but I stayed to travel to Lima by myself. I couldn’t stop crying. My birthday makes me cry. So does traveling unaccompanied. Both have a way of stripping my skin off, letting every feeling pass too close to the bone.

Travel influencers may push the idea that traveling solo is the height of romance, but I’ve bottomed out in I-don’t-even-know-how-many hotel rooms. I should write an essay called All The Exotic Places I’ve Cried. I’ve cried in several oceans. On sailboats and high-speed trains. I cried in a salt mine. Crying while traveling is a loop: I’m sad and then feel guilty for being sad because I’m so lucky to be traveling, to be alive, to be the person giving change to the person asking for change, to be seeing the Northern Lights or the bioluminescence or the singers on the street with their hand-made instruments or the wall built by Incans in the Thirteenth Century, and the guilt makes me cry more and so on.

In Lima, the weather was gray. I took a picture of a message someone had spray-painted on the ground: Haz algo bueno hoy (Do something good today). I walked down to the beach made of stone instead of sand and watched the surfers. I opened Instagram and looked up the influencer. The highly curated, but undeniably beautiful images from our trip generated an unsettling epiphany: What bothered me about her (what bothered me about every influencer I’d ever traveled with) wasn’t that her job was easier than mine, more lucrative than mine. It was that like me, she had figured out a way to live a life of travel, but with her Instagram Husband and her legions of fans, she was never alone. She had both, freedom and security, gifts I perceived on a binary. This is always what stokes the flames of my envy—suspicion that someone, somehow, has circumvented loneliness. If I could have bought that part of her life from her, if I could have clicked on the right affiliate links, shopped her online store for it, I would have.

The influencer had posted seven pictures from our trip. In the one from Machu Picchu, she’s staring at the sloping green hills, her pink gown catching a breeze, her wrist wrapped in bracelets, her thick hair twisted on top of her head. She’s holding her husband’s hand, but that’s the only visible piece of him. Not a single tourist mars the image. She and her husband must have rented the place out. Or maybe the Peruvian government gave her Machu Picchu, like a collab. There she stands, perfect, adored—8,000 feet above sea level, on top of the world.

Love,

Diana

P.S. What stokes the flames of your envy? Let me know in the comments.

P.P.S. Write about someone who bothers you. Get really honest about the reason.