Travel influencers inspire wanderlust in the common traveler. They reveal unseen places, share experiences, and bring attention to destinations to encourage visitors. For businesses that rely on tourism, creating an influencer marketing strategy with specialized travel influencers can help you get more bookings, more visibility, and even the potential to go viral.
Finding influencers to promote your brand or business is the first step. Let’s explore the top eight travel influencers and why it pays to work with social media stars with built-in audiences.
Contents:
What Is a Travel Influencer?
Why Are Travel Influencers Important?
The Top 8 Travel Influencers
Collaborating with Travel Influencers: Best Practices for Brands
Finding Travel Influencers with Klear
What Is a Travel Influencer?
A travel influencer is someone who has a sizable social media following and frequently posts content related to travel and tourism. Most importantly, they have audiences who trust their content to make their traveling or purchasing decisions.
Many travel influencers have followings of 100K or more and make a living posting travel-related content. They partner with cities, hotels, restaurants, attractions, and other tourism-dependent places. Through this content, influencers weave stories of people and places while bringing their followers along for the journey.
Why Are Travel Influencers Important?
For businesses that thrive on tourism, travel influencers are a key part of their sustained success. Influencers play an important role in inspiring travel. They highlight unique places and share them with the masses, which can help bring in new traffic and customers for life.
Unlike traditional advertising that often feels scripted, these influencers offer relatable experiences and honest reviews that resonate with their followers. Their collection of content—from stunning photos to first-hand stories—serves as a digital treasure map, guiding us through hidden gems we might never discover on our own.
Travel flourishes through shared experiences. As travel costs grow higher, travelers want to ensure they’re getting their money’s worth. Many people turn to the internet to learn more about a place they’ve never visited to see if it’s likely to be worth the expense. With the help of travel influencers, businesses can stand out to new audiences, attract more customers, and create buzz around their brands.
TIP: Don't miss our other blogs featuring top influencers across industries and platforms, including technology, gaming, music, Twitch, and more.
The Top 8 Travel Influencers
If you’re looking for travel influencers, our influencer marketing suite is a great place to start.
Klear lets you search through a growing database of influencers based on your criteria. You can filter by industry (such as travel), audience size, social media channel, and other options to find the best-fit influencers for your goals.
We’ve done some of the hard work already by finding eight of the best travel influencers.
Murad Osmann (95 Klear Score)
Russian photographer Murad Osmann turned travel photography into a viral art form. You may have seen his iconic “Follow Me” series on social media, where he captures stunning landscapes from around the world while his girlfriend, Natalia Zakharova, leads him through enchanting destinations.
He’s been rated as one of the top travel influencers by Forbes and has garnered more than 3.2 million followers on Instagram. His work not only showcases beautiful places but also highlights the magic of adventure and companionship.
Pedro & Pauli (82 Klear Score + Travel Expert Badge)
Travel couple Pedro and Pauli are among the top Instagram travel influencers, with highlights from their global travels. They tell stories through their content and feature some of the world’s most beautiful hotels and bucket list destinations.
With over 1,900 posts and 111K followers on Instagram, the pair continue to inspire their followers to see the world with the one you love.
Kiersten Rich aka The Blonde Abroad (90 Klear Score)
Travel blogger and social media travel influencer Kiersten Rich has been to 75 countries and doesn’t hold back about sharing her adventures. Her photos have captured the attention of more than 500K followers on Instagram as she highlights the glamorous side of travel.
She has also mastered the art of family travel with a baby and shares tips and insights on those experiences.
Alex Strohl (97 Klear Score + Photography Expert Badge)
One of the top travel influencers on Instagram, Alex Strohl shares his travels with nearly 2 million fans. From cold, remote locations to underwater scenes, Alex aims to show his followers places they’ve never seen before.
In addition to travel, Alex is also an accomplished photographer. He combines his two passions to become one of the most famous travel influencers on social media and treats every trip as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Drew Binsky (89 Klear Score + Travel Expert Badge)
Drew Binsky is the man who has visited every country in the world — and is eager to share his experiences with more than 1.1 million followers on Instagram. He’s also an active YouTuber, where he highlights the interesting stories of people he’s met along the journey.
Drew’s unique brand of storytelling alongside the imagery of beautiful and offbeat places he’s been makes him a one-of-a-kind travel influencer. And of course, he hasn’t neglected to reveal some hidden gems right here in the USA.
Samuel & Audrey (74 Klear Score +Travel Expert Badge)
Another traveling couple, Samuel & Audrey are among the top Instagram travel influencers with more than 51.5K followers. Also known as That Backpacker, the duo focus on video content as they explore the world.
Canada, Argentina, and the great outdoors are key themes on their Instagram page. They’ve shared nearly 1,000 posts of their adventures with their followers, which include a mix of travel tips and personal experiences.
Colleen Roden (86 Klear Score + Lifestyle Expert Badge)
Colleen travels and lets her 364K Instagram followers know about it. With most of her destinations based in the U.S., she’s also taken fans on digital trips to the Caribbean.
Her IG content is a mix of wanderlust, family life, pets, and lifestyle posts. She’s also not shy about sharing food pics, fashion, or the experiences she enjoys while she travels, including hot air balloons and rooftop igloos.
Stefano Cicchini (84 Klear Score)
Digital nomad Stefano Cicchini is a leading travel influencer on Instagram, with 331K followers. He shares his journeys to international destinations, capturing everything from beaches to bustling markets.
In addition to his work as a travel influencer, Stefano collaborates with luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz. He’s equally passionate about food, which he features prominently on both his social media and blog.
Collaborating with Travel Influencers: Best Practices for Brands
Whether you’re working with the top Instagram influencers or on the hunt for a micro-influencer, you need to know how to collaborate with them. Good communication, clear goals, and win/win situations will help your efforts go further.
With this in mind, let’s look at some best practices to follow to make travel influencer collabs a success.
Understand the big picture strategy
Top travel Instagram influencers can be standalone campaigns or part of a much larger influencer marketing strategy. Get clear on how your collaboration fits into your overall marketing goals.
For example, are you inviting several influencers to the launch of your new hotel or attraction? Do you want one influencer to cover a specific event?
Whatever your goals, make sure your influencer partners understand what you want to achieve so they can do their best work.
Offer something in return
Influencer collaborations should never be one-sided. You will need to offer something in return.
In some cases, this might be a trade-for-content. You offer an experience for free (e.g., hotel stay, meal, visit to your attraction, etc.) and the influencer will create content based on their experience.
Or, if you’re working with well-known travel influencers on Instagram, you may need to offer additional compensation. Influencers rates will vary, based on audience size and the complexity of the request.
When you can create win/win partnerships, you’ll have a much better chance of reaching your goals and building valuable relationships.
Use an influencer proposal template
You can outline the specifics of each influencer collaboration with our influencer proposal template. This template acts as a detailed brief to keep you and your travel social media influencers on the same page.
Here, you can specify important things like:
- Deliverables
- Due dates
- Payment terms
- Brand guidelines
- Goals
- Calls-to-action
- Metrics for success
A template prevents you from having to reinvent the wheel with every new campaign and partnership.
TIP: Learn more best practices for beefing up your influencer marketing strategy when you download our free Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing.
Finding Travel Influencers with Klear
No matter your influencer marketing goals, Meltwater’s Klear platform can help you craft a winning strategy from start to finish. Klear helps you find travel influencers on Instagram and other social media channels, vet them according to your brand goals, and connect with them to create powerful travel-related campaigns.
You can also track campaign performance from the same interface, allowing you to see the impact each influencer has on your brand.
Learn more when you request a demo by filling out the form below!
