\u201cExcuse me, are you Sven?\u201d It\u2019s a normal question but this time I was caught off guard. I wasn\u2019t in Starbucks. Nope, I woke up that morning and booked a train from Munich to Salzburg. After 1,5 years in lockdown, it was time to test if I\u2019m still excited about creating travel content for my Instagram channel @travelling.dutchman. It’s a hobby that started 5 years ago and got a bit out of hand when it peaked to 20.000 followers with sponsorships in Italian palaces and Colombian jungle lodges. That was all before we went into lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My time as a traveling creator was short-lived and while I was making my way through Salzburg\u2019s main sights, I doubted if I should pick it up again. Isn\u2019t it a waste of time? Will there be a balance between effort and payoffs? And that\u2019s when I got stopped over by a stranger asking me: \u201cAre you Sven?\u201d. I mumbled something like \u201cehh.. yeah I guess?\u201d. Her name was Nofi, she is also an expat in Germany. Nofi told me that she started to follow the adventures of @travelling.dutchman when I moved back to Munich. We took this selfie, had a talk and made our ways. I immediately called some friends: \u201cHoly ,sh**, I just got recognized in public! What are the odds on a random day In Salzburg?!”. I told the story to a fellow air uppie later that day. And while I was driving back to Munich I realized, these are friendships I made through being a content creator, and I partly got the job as influencer marketeer @air up because I was on the other side of influencer marketing as a blogger. These are the payoffs that I couldn’t have imagined before. Lesson learned: do what excites you because you can\u2019t foresee all the potential upsides of your current actions. I don’t believe in random coincidences like this, thanks for pointing me in a direction Nofi! I’ll keep creating. \ud83d\ude00\u00a0
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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