How I Turned Travel Into My Full-Time Job | SIMPLY SLOW TRAVELER

Hello everyone and welcome back to Simply Slow Traveller. Today's video is going to be a little different. Over the years, and especially here on YouTube, I received so many questions about the places I travel to, but also about the person behind Simply Slow Traveller, where I am from, how all of this started, what I do for a living, how I create these videos, and many little things in between. So I thought it was finally time to sit down, or in this case, wander around somewhere very special and answer some of them. And perhaps the best place to start is with one of the questions I receive the most. Where are you from? I am Portuguese and I was born and raised here, on the island of São Miguel in the Azores. Portuguese is my first language and although Simply Slow Traveller has taken me to so many different places over the years, this little island in the middle of the Atlantic will always be home. When I was 19, I moved from the Azores to Lisbon to study advertising and marketing, and later continued studying branding and fashion design. Around the same time, I also started my own fashion blog. It was nothing particularly strategic at the beginning, I simply loved fashion, photography, but looking back, that little blog was probably where my journey in the digital world truly started. Fashion was a very big part of my life at the time, and eventually that fashion grew into something much bigger. I created Frances Stories, my own knitwear brand, and that became a very important chapter of my life. For eight years, Frances Stories was a huge part of my journey. The pieces were made in Portugal, with the focus on natural materials and the slower, more conscious approach to fashion. And strangely enough, it was also Frances Stories that eventually led me to travel content. I wanted to photograph and share the pieces in beautiful places, so I decided to create a separate Instagram account dedicated to travel. That account was Simply Slow Traveller. At first, it was simply another creative space, but slowly more and more people started finding it, and somewhere along the way, the little travel account became the main story. Frances Stories will always be something I look back on with so much affection, because in many ways it helped bring me here. But after eight years, I feel it is finally time to close that chapter. So as a part of this final goodbye, there are currently some very special discounts available on the Frances Stories website, as we prepare to find a home, your home, for the last remaining pieces. If you would like to discover them, you can find everything through the QR code on screen, or through the link in the description. Another question I receive all the time is about our camera equipment. Most of what you see here is filmed on a Sony Alpha 9 Mark III, but we also create a lot of content using DJI cameras and drones. We've been working in partnership with DJI and we're really happy with the equipment and how naturally it has become part of the way we film our travels. And if you're curious about the full setup, I always leave our complete filming and editing gear linked in the description. But equipment is really only a very small part of creating these videos. From the beginning, Simply Slow Traveller has always been something I built with the help of the people closest to me. My partner works with me and films a lot of what you see here, and my sister is also part of the project. And actually, that brings me to another question that has appeared quite a few times recently. When I first started the YouTube channel, the idea was not really for it to be personal. Many of you on Instagram were asking for longer videos about the places we were visiting, so YouTube started as a way of sharing those destinations in more detail. I knew I didn't want the videos to be narrated in the third person, because I still wanted them to feel like my own perspective and my own experience. But with all the traveling, filming and everything happening behind the scenes, I also knew that doing all of the voiceovers myself would be very difficult. And that is where my sister Isabel came in. She has been part of our YouTube journey from the very beginning and is responsible for the channel, editing the videos and also being the voice you are hearing right now. She gives voice to the stories I write. Over time and also because of your feedback, I slowly started appearing a little more and sharing more personal moments. So you know why. The voice you hear in our YouTube videos is Isabel's, while the voice you hear when I speak directly to the camera is mine. I generally feel very lucky that Simply Slow Traveler has grown in a way that allows me to work so closely with the people I love. And since we are talking about editing, a lot of you are curious about the process. One YouTube video usually takes around 5 full days to finish. Music and sound design are incredibly important to us. Whenever possible, we also try to keep the natural sounds of a place because I think those little details are what really make you feel like you are traveling with us. Color grading is probably one of the most time-consuming parts of the entire editing process. Isabel treats every clip individually so that, in the end, everything feels like part of the same visual world. I have always loved planning trips. Before we travel, I usually spend a lot of time researching a destination and thinking about the kind of story I would like to tell through the video. And because I want these videos to be useful as well as beautiful, I always do a lot of research beforehand, so there is normally a story and a structure in my head before we even start filming. But not everything is planned. Travel rarely goes exactly according to plan and I think that balance between preparation and spontaneity is also very much part of Simply Slow Traveler. One of the biggest questions is if Simply Slow Traveler is my full-time job and yes, it is. Traveling became my job because, over time, I was incredibly lucky to build a community around the way I like to experience places. For a long time, I was already creating very detailed itineraries for my own trips and, eventually, my partner and I started turning all of that research into the Simply Slow Traveler digital travel guides. They have become a huge part of what we do. We travel to the destinations ourselves, research them extensively, photograph and experience the places we recommend and then create curated itineraries to make planning your own trip a little easier. They are one of the main ways Simply Slow Traveler is able to exist as a full-time project and an actual business that employs a team. And yes, today we also work with many hotels and brands. Some stays or experiences you see, maybe partnership projects and others, are completely independent. But one thing that has always been very important to me is working with places and brands that genuinely feel connected to the world of Simply Slow Traveling and that I feel comfortable recommending to you. And then there are the little ideas that start simply because I love them. Simply Slow Mail is probably my favorite example. After spending so many years building something entirely digital, I started missing the feeling of something tangible, something you could actually hold, keep in a drawer, pin to a wall or discover slowly when it arrived to your letterbox. So I created Simply Slow Mail. Every month I prepare a small travel experience inspired by a different place that I love and send it around the world through traditional mail. It is intentionally very analog and very slow and that is exactly why I love it so much. If you would like to discover Simply Slow Mail, I will also leave the link in the description. I am incredibly grateful for where this journey has taken me and especially for all of you who have chosen to follow it. I really hope you enjoyed getting to know a little more about me, about the people behind Simply Slow Traveler and about how this little project was born and slowly grew into what it is today. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you very soon for another slow adventure!