Instagram and travel content go hand-in-hand. We all love looking at beautiful people in beautiful destinations, and it’s pretty inspiring to see how beautiful the world is, and fantasize about the #beautifuldestinations. For travel influencers, there’s often a focus on creating a fantasy dreamscape of idealized destinations, rather than reflecting the reality of tourism and travel.

Common visuals in travel influencing are hypersaturization and colour theming (think lightroom presets); maximalism, filling the frame with busy and colourful visuals); unique and ~authentic~ worldly experiences; luxury content of first class flights and resorts, expensive goods and fancy foods; fashion using travel as a backdrop, with the real focus of the picture being on the influencer themself, not where they are. Travel influencing has a look, and we all know it. We want that life! We are being sold a fantasy of travel in idyllic locations and glamorous travel where we are the centre of our own beautiful universe.

I know that I sound like a bit of a cynic, and maybe I am. But really, I don’t have a problem with wanting to curate the perfect Instagram feed; I’m guilty of it myself. I don’t think that editing your content is inherently bad, but I do think that “travel influencer” content does shape the way that we imagine travel, and it’s important to address the realities of travelling and creating travel content for Instagram.

Jumping back to my definition of “travel influencer” content, a description of this content can be narrowed down to hyperstylization: exciting people having “authentic” experiences in glamorous locations. The issue that comes from this content is that a lot of it comes from post-production. Editing colours, saturation, exposure, contrast, et al is standard, but we also see people editing in visuals to create a fantasy that does not reflect the reality of these locations. A popular example of this is a photo of springtime at a small farm in Vermont, as edited by a prominent influencer.

While a lovely piece of digital art, it is in no way representative of visiting Vermont. When we consume such stylized travel content, we are building up an idea of what our experiences should and will look like. It can be damaging to build up our travel expectations based on what we see online.

Another example of the false realities we see on social media is how easy it is to get great photos of ourselves. Unless you’re very patient or willing to wake up very early, you’re probably not going to get a shot of yourself alone with the Eiffel Tower, or the London Eye, or any other popular tourist attraction.

The presence of crowds in major tourist areas was one of the things that threw me the most during my visit to London earlier this year.

Why do all these tourists and travellers have to be around me, a tourist, as I create travel content? How am I going to get cute pictures if there’s all these people around taking pictures?

-Me, January 2020

I will admit that a lot of my expectations of London were built up based on what I saw on social media, and I was a bit affronted by the reality of what being a tourist there is like. I loved London, but it wasn’t exactly what I expected. I spent less time taking photos than I had planned, but more time walking around and forming my own experiences of the city. I edit my travel pictures, and will be going through my editing process in an upcoming post. However, I always try to depict my travel experiences in an authentic way, just tidied up a bit.

Social media influencing and content creation is work. It comes from spending a lot of time and effort making it look like your content is natural and easy, #flawless. I don’t want to devalue the creation of travel content, and the work that goes into it, but I do want people to think critically about travel as seen on social media, and what they can expect for their own experiences.