An Interview with Lauren from TheDownLo

In my series of interviews with travel blogger, I look for travel bloggers and influencers with interesting lives who can share some inspiring stories and useful advice from their experience. This week we have Lauren from TheDownlo travel blog.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I’ve worked in all aspects of the travel industry for years from marketing crazy, off-the-beaten-path tours to being the managing editor of an online publication. I have bylines around the web from Eater and the Huff Po to Thrillist and MSN. I have done Snapchats for the Food Network and Instagram takeovers for Forbes. With 195K social media followers, I describe myself a digital storyteller who brings places to life through multimedia.

This year, I’m finally going all-in on the blog. My niche is offbeat adventures and foodie finds. I describe myself as an experience seeker, adventure addict, and bucket list maker and doer, I’ve been fortunate enough to have amazing experiences around the world and close to home from becoming a certified Viking in Iceland to blackwater rafting in New Zealand and horse surfing in America. Weird and wacky is my jam and I absolutely love doing things you never dreamed possible for shock value alone. My goal is to visit all 50 states and 50 countries before 50 – these are my stories from the road and the legacy I want to leave.



What’s your biggest achievement as a Travel Blogger?

Being able to do this full-time and make a sustainable living doing what I love.

You have an unlimited travel budget for 24 hours. Give me your itinerary.

Explore the Amazon and Salt Flats in South America, step foot on Antarctica, see the Northern Lights from an ice hotel in Norway and Finland, safari in Tanzania and Kenya, hug koalas in Australia, and experience the culture and chaos of Vietnam and South Korea.

How do you fund your travel?

Primarily through partnerships with various tourism boards and other travel companies.



What is the single most effective strategy that a blogger can use to bring traffic to a blog?

Write good content, master Pinterest and learn SEO early.

That feeling when you finally hit 100k followers on Insta. ✨?‍♀️??? Curious what it’s like to be an influencer? https://t.co/waSolGCVhH — Lauren Monitz ✈️ (@LaurenMonitz) December 13, 2017

What tools do you use to monetize your blog? Which works best for you?

I primarily do sponsored content so no tools persay, but Keysearch for SEO, Meet Edgar for promotion, and Canva for design.

What is the first trip you remember taking and how old were you?

We used to take yearly trips growing up which alternated between beaches like Puerto Rico and Aruba, Disney and Vegas.

Have you been anywhere which turned out to be totally different to how you imagined? If so, how?

Plenty of places, most notably New Zealand, which had been on my bucket list forever. It’s really pretty, but lacked a lot of the culture and great food of other places.

Have you had any bad experiences whilst travelling?

Every travel experience teaches you something – good or bad. Japan wasn’t a great country to embark on my first solo trip since it’s a pretty solitary culture and hard to meet people.

Where is your favourite place in the world?

Turkey and Thailand

Do you have a bucket list? If so what is on it?

Of course, so many things! See the northern lights, go on Safari, visit the remaining world wonder, Antarctica…

If you were not travelling what would you be doing instead?

Hmm good question. If I went a totally different path, maybe med school. If I was just doing marketing for a company, probably being antsy for my next vacation ☺

What has travel taught you?

That no matter how or where people grow up, we’re more alike than we are different.

Who, in your opinion, is the most successful travel blogger? Why do you think that is?

Nomadic Matt has really become a household name since he figured out how to diversify his income streams. He went from blogging to writing a book to creating a course and even founded an entire conference.

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P.S. If you want to be interviewed and share your travel stories with us, then send an email to instatravelstyledotcom@gmail.com

You can follow Lauren: Instagram | Blog | Facebook