Travel is the highlight of the year for many people as they embark on vacations around the world. Most people can only dream about getting paid to travel. Carmen Edelson, the blogger behind Carmen’s Luxury Travel, is living that dream.
Although there are thousands of travel bloggers out there, Carmen stands out as exceptional. Her audience is made up of businesspeople and well-to-do-retirees looking for high-end travel destinations and accommodations.
Humble Beginnings
Carmen was raised by a Cuban-American family in New Jersey. Her parents arrived in the United States in the late 1960s and worked hard to provide for their family. When she was growing up, Carmen’s family didn’t have enough money to travel, let alone to exotic destinations.
In her early thirties, Carmen took her first international trip. She made the last-minute decision to travel to Spain. This trip gave her a thirst for all the vacation destinations the world has to offer.
Carmen’s Luxury Travel: Beginnings
When Carmen arrived home from Spain, she knew she wanted to spend more time traveling. Because of her passion for travel, she began traveling to luxury vacation destinations and sharing her experience on her blog, CarmensLuxuryTravel.com. She enjoyed sharing her experiences and insight with other people.
Carmen’s blog quickly became more than just a hobby. In 2013, she launched her brand, Carmen’s Luxury Travel. Her social media accounts now boast over 250,000 followers. She hopes to share her travel experience with others, helping them make their own travel plans.
Although many travel blogs focus on young adults, Carmen’s blog focuses primarily on people over the age of 35. Despite having followers of all ages and income levels, her travel blog is written with hardworking professionals and financially comfortable retirees in mind. She helps them make plans to travel the five-star way.
Meeting & Beating Challenges
Despite her success, Carmen is always learning and always looking for ways to improve her brand. The constantly changing landscape of social media continually challenges her.
Despite the fact Carmen has become pretty adept at using Instagram, the rising popularity of TikTok has created a challenge for her to overcome. Carmen is looking for ways to dive into video content creation, making short videos for Instagram and TikTok. With everything else on her plate, this proves to be a juggling act.
Carmen makes it her goal to find unique activities, hidden gems, and alternative options that allow travelers to get the most value for their money. Her well-traveled audience appreciates the effort that she puts into her blog and social media.
The Current Landscape of Carmen’s Luxury Travel
When blogging was only her hobby, Carmen focused on writing reviews of hotels, destinations, cruises, restaurants, and other vacation experiences. As she’s built up a thriving audience, she has broken into the world of social media content creation.
Carmen utilizes Instagram to share her travel experiences in real-time. She puts together pictures of her trip and short-form videos to upload on her Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels.
Although her social media presence is an asset to her company, it doesn’t take away from her blog’s content. She views her social media pages as a headline while her blog is like the article below the headline. While followers can get a feel for her experience through her social media accounts, they can reliably turn to her blog for an in-depth look at her experience.
As Carmen’s brand has grown, she has partnered with travel brands like tourism boards, hotels, and cruise companies. These companies exchange vacation packages for her in-depth review of their services.
Because Carmen’s blog began as a hobby, her audience trusts that she will only recommend quality experiences. Her audience and her sponsors know that her sponsored content will have the same honest take-aways as her unsponsored posts.
The Bright Future of Carmen’s Luxury Travel
The travel industry was greatly impacted when the pandemic hit in 2020. Moving forward, Carmen is excited to promote domestic travel within the United States. As travel opportunities open up again, she hopes to return to international travel soon.
Despite the setbacks due to the pandemic, Carmen is confident that there will be a travel boom in the future. She’s seen glimmers of this boom as people have resumed vacations and enjoyed domestic travel.
Recently, Carmen grew her team to include two full-time employees. As her business continues to grow, Carmen is confident that her team will grow as well. With the extra hands on deck, Carmen hopes to spend more time on video content.
Carmen offers some sage advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: invest in yourself, follow your passion, and use your energy on your strengths. If your strengths are in one area (like writing), hire someone else to manage other tasks (like website creation). You can only move your business so far forward if you’re constantly stretching yourself beyond your limits.
Maybe someday you’ll find a way to chase your passion full time, just like Carmen has done with Carmen’s Luxury Travel.
