When I Have More Money: The Journey from Travel Enthusiast to Luxury Travel Blogger

It’s been nearly four years since I start my blog (four years? where has the time gone!) and what started as a hobby has grown to become a major part of my life. It’s foremost my passion and a labour of love but it has also become a full time career and one that I feel so lucky to have. My blog allows me to go out of my comfort zone, live out my dreams, make incredible memories that are preserved forever and pretty much live my best life.
In January 2015 on the one year anniversary I wrote a post about how and why I started SilverSpoon London but nearly three years on so much has changed!! I started writing a blog as part of another website to promote a freelance events planning business but I soon found out how much I loved writing it and decided to separate it off. I had rekindled my love for writing as someone who’d always enjoyed putting together short stories and had pursued a degree and masters in English Literature. I don’t know why I ever stopped but having a blog made me remember how much I loved it.

The first step was choosing a name and with my impending marriage to my Mr Silver, I wanted the name to reflect that. I brainstormed a list and remember so vividly Mr S coming home from work and me reading the list out to him. Silver Spirit….Silver Service…Silver Surfing…SilverSpoon…we looked at each other and knew that was the one. I didn’t even need to think about what my main topics would be. I’ve always been passionate about food; collecting cookbooks, scrape booking recipes, watching the food channel, working my way through a bucket list of restaurants – I basically felt about food the way some girls feel about fashion and beauty! Luxury travel being my other obsession, my blog would have a dual focus including lots of content on my home city of London.
I started on blogger using a basic theme which I enhanced with an Etsy template – I also had a logo designed by an etsy seller. With our big trip to Australia a year earlier and a more recent trip to Thailand, I already had some ideas for content to start working on. The photos were from an old camera and the blog was basic – but I loved it and it was mine. Joining social media channels was the next step with Twitter fast becoming my favourite and the place that I began to meet all my friends. I somewhat neglected Instagram (which I hugely regret now!) as it wasn’t the giant of social media that it is now!
And I was away!! Blogging about my holidays, my honeymoon, restaurants Mr S and I visited – producing as much content as possible and loving every minute of it. Soon I was invited to review restaurants, asked along to events and offered experiences whilst meeting more and more new friends along the way!

The next big step on my blogging journey was investing in my DSLR camera. This was turning into so much more than a hobby and a little creative space on the internet. Mr S and I actually bought our Nikon D750 camera with our wedding money and we’ve since invested in different lenses and lots of apparatus.
There was a dramatic improvement in my photography and with that an increase in readership. What started as a passion and love for writing soon became married to a passion for photography and visuals. I’ve taken photography classes and workshops and while I’m still no where near where I want to be, I’m pretty proud of where I’ve got to having started as someone with no clue about photography.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

The next big step in taking my blog from more that a hobby to career was moving from the Blogger to WordPress. To my non-blogger readers, WordPress is a more professional platform that allows more flexibility in terms of functionality and design. It took a while to find the perfect person to work on this with me but when it was done I was so happy to reveal my new blog complete with a redesign and greater functionality. It was also the first time I’d ever had any help from an outside source for the blog, having prided myself on doing everything.

The relaunch happened about a year and a half after I started the blog and up until then I was still only blogging about personal holidays. I had my Australia trip, Thailand and honeymoon on there, several European trips and then my dream to to South Africa. I had had one or two press trip invitations but other circumstances meant I couldn’t attend them. When a trip exploring London and Paris with Renaissance hotels landed into my inbox, I couldn’t quite believe it! With an over night stay at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel before jumping on the EuroStar to spend the night at Renaissance Paris Arc de Triomphe Hotel it was an incredible adventure! As we rode around Paris in limos, sipping champagne and stopping at different Paris hotels I was pinching myself in disbelief that I’d been invited on this incredible trip owing to a little blog that I’d started myself but poured so much love into.
Fast forward to today and my blog has taken me to a luxury resort in Mexico, a private island in the Caribbean, a dream trip to Santorini, five star hotels, three Michelin star restaurants, on the Belmond Pullman Train and to the Glamour awards to name a few. I now work with brands who I love and have invested in for years before I had a blog such as Laurent-Perrier, Hakkasan Group, Four Seasons, American Express and British Airways. I’ve also made the national and international press as well as being on the front cover of a magazine!

Please don’t think I’m saying any of this to brag, I’m still pinching myself in disbelief that a silly little hobby that I started turned into so much more and has become an integral part of my life. It’s something I’ve worked tirelessly on from the moment I get up in the morning to when I go to bed at night and it’s all honestly been a dream come true. Today I continue to write about personal holidays as well as press trips and only accept sponsorships from brands I trust. My content remains as organic and authentic just as it was from the beginning. Above all I want to say a massive thank you to my readers who have stuck with me for nearly four years…you’re the best!!

For me blogging has been about so much more than press trips, sponsorships and restaurant invitations. I’ve made a group of friends who have become incredibly dear to me. Not a day goes by without a what’s app to my best blogging friends – we’ve come to rely on each other in so many ways and have become friends for life through our common hobby.
Lastly, I want to write about my personal journey through blogging. Despite my love of travel I’ve always been scared of going out of my comfort zone but blogging has made me conquer so many fears and face my anxiety and hang ups head on. Without blogging I’d have never ascended Table Mountain, gone in a helicopter, ridden a camel, stayed in the middle of the jungle. SilverSpoon London has been a huge part of my personal growth and in years to come, if I ever stop blogging I’ll remember how I got the courage to make those changes.
Starting and developing my blog really has been my greatest ever journey and I’ll alway remember the day I started – I only wish I’d taken the plunge sooner!