The Secret To Endless Travel Content Ideas

Hi Travel Creators! Today, we will be breaking down the concept of stealing. This is not my original idea. This is from the very brilliant artist and writer Austin Kleon. He has a series of books for creatives that are short and beautiful, and you should read them. It will seriously take you 30 minutes to read one of them–maybe less than that. But I’m sure that you will gain so much knowledge. Today, we are going to be taking a spin on Kleon's work and applying it to the travel creator space.

There's this quote, one of many I might add from this book, and this quote is from T. S. Eliot. It goes like this: “Poets imitate, bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” I bring this up because I want it to frame our conversation today.

In his book, Steal Like an Artist, Kleon talks about how if artists answered the question, where do you get your ideas, honestly, they would say, I steal them. Now, plagiarism is my biggest fear. It is right up there next to rest stop bathrooms and paranormal activity and I am dead serious. So I am not going to tell you to steal content from other creators because that is just dumb.

It has happened to me and it sucks. I'm also a believer that there's no true original ideas. That is my hot take. So, the more I think about it, the more I can get behind this idea, and I want to share it with you. When you have a content idea, it's most likely probably an adaptation from something you've seen before, or at least some parts of it might be.

Try not to roll your eyes too hard, okay? Just stick with me for a minute. But Kleon talks about how this idea of no original ideas doesn't squash his creativity and why you shouldn't let it squash yours. Instead, he points us to the French writer André Gide.

He once said everything that needs to be said has been said, but since no one was listening, it must be said again. So what does stealing like an artist really even mean? Well, one way to think about it is that people follow you because of you. There are lots of travel creators out there–we both know this–but why do you have any followers at all?

It's because you've got an edge. And it's the way you approach your content, your personality, it's your experiences that make up who you are. So I want you to take that as a nudge to lean into the parts of you that nobody on the internet can replicate. And if you're having a hard time doing this, it's time to come back to your brand or create a brand.

If you've never taken the time to work on your branding, it is the foundation of your creator life. I can refer you to some experts I work closely with who can help you nail this down so you can show it better and badder.

Anyways, content repurposing is really stealing your own good ideas. Like I've said before on my podcast and I'll say it again, you have spent so much time putting together great pieces of content. It sucks that it typically, or like most of the time, probably hits the internet one time and in one format. You already have everything you need to reach your content goals. It just involves turning back to finding your wins and capitalizing on them. With content repurposing, you can do just that.

Information Overload

But I personally have fallen victim to information overload recently.There are too many courses, there will always be another course to learn how to do this thing or, learn how to do that thing. But we all need that reminder that you already have everything you need. There is no need to reinvent the wheel every time you think about your content. Of course you're going to have new ideas when you dig into your analytics, but that's why we have a column in your content repurposing sheet for original or new content ideas. But are they really original?

If you think of these ideas while you're looking at your previous content, then there you go, they came from something you've already created. If you want to learn more about that content organization and repurposing system, I've got info about it and even how you can set one up. All in episode 2 of my podcast.

Speaking of content organization, Kleon recommends saving your thefts for later. In the book, he goes on to say, you should have a notebook or a place to jot down all the bits of information or ideas you come across that are good enough to steal, or in our case, repurpose. For travel creators, that content organization system is your notebook.

There's seriously nothing I love more than handwritten notes, but a digital notebook that works lovely and seamlessly across devices is the best way to make sure all of your ideas are being recorded and that you can whip them open wherever you're at and jot down your best ideas. The whole gist is you don't have to go on a wild goose chase or even spend hours scrolling to find new content ideas.

You have everything you need and you even have valuable analytics to tell you what your audience already likes so that you can do your best. And you can do it again and again. One resource I have that makes it easy to learn from other strategies is my newsletter, the content compass. It is free. Each week I cover a travel creator who is crushing their content and I share what they're doing in their content and how you can do that in your own content or steal that for your own content.

It's a free place where you can steal like an artist. The link is here if you’re interested in joining. I love reading and I love writing and I love applying whatever I'm reading to helping travel creators or like figuring out how I can spin it to help travel creators, but I want to know from you.

Do you like these little creative book breakdowns? Because I have a lot more where that came from. You can friend me on things like Goodreads and StoryGraph if you really want, but I hope this episode helps you get over some of your imposter syndrome a little bit.

Social Media as Community 

That is so hard in the travel space, especially when we feel like we're directly competing anytime we hit share and like that's not the point. Social media was created not to create competition, but community. Just reminders we need to hear sometimes. I know you know that, but sometimes you just need someone to say it to you.

But you do have everything you need to reach your content goals. That's kind of what I want to drive home here. So, if you want to learn more about how you can do that with all this content, repurposing jazz, and organizing all this content, you can do some digging on my website, travelcontentwriting.com. And if I were you, the best place to go see all my tips is on my Instagram, @travelcontentwriting. Happy creating, and I'll see you soon!