One Year of @Parenthood.Adventures: From Hesitation to a Whole New Chapter
About a year ago, I hit “publish” on my very first reel on @parenthood.adventures and braced myself for the usual: crickets. Maybe a few pity likes from friends. Definitely not the beginning of a new direction in my career.
And honestly? That’s exactly what happened. Hardly anyone saw the post and I felt justified in my original resistance to starting yet another Instagram account (I’d already had @bemytravelmuse for 12 years at that point!).
One year later, this account has brought me more community, purpose, and unexpected joy than I ever could’ve imagined.
People have been increasingly asking me in DMs:
“How did you get started with this?”
And the honest answer is… this has been a long time coming. Here’s the how, the what, and the why:
Far from an Overnight Success
From 0 followers to 243k at the time of this writing within just a year sounds awesome, but it’s actually been 13 years in the making. Before this whole mom thing, I spent over a decade running Be My Travel Muse — one of the biggest solo female travel blogs out there (or at least, it used to be before the rise of AI answers – full story here if you’re curious).
I built it from the ground up in 2012, when I left my job in finance and bought a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. I lived out of a backpack, hitchhiked across 2 provinces in China, took 36-hour cargo ferries in Indonesia, and stayed in more shared dorms than I can count. I loved every second of it.
Without the knowledge I gained from all of those years (the first 4 of which I barely made a dime), of content creation – learning how to come up with a script and hook, becoming a photographer and then videographer (here’s my YouTube!) learning how to film, edit, and tell a compelling story – I would not be good enough at any of it to have a successful short form video channel like Parenthood Adventures.
I would have just stayed a blogger forever, but things change. Google changed. Travel blogging changed. I could feel the algorithmic tide rolling in, and I knew the era of long-form blogs being the primary income stream for creators like me was ending — especially with AI answers taking over the search results.
So I asked myself, what now?
The Instagram I Never Wanted to Start
Real talk: I wasn’t totally sure I ever even wanted to be a mom. I loved my freedom. I’d spent over a decade traveling the world solo — doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted. Would motherhood erase that? Would I still be me?
With all of its ups and downs, I can now say without a doubt: becoming a mom has been the best thing I’ve ever done. I love it more than I thought possible. I love him more than I thought possible.
The Parenthood Adventures brand started out as this blog about six months after my son was born. It was mostly product reviews of the many things that we bought for my baby, and grew into more travel and hotel content in time.
I didn’t start @parenthood.adventures because I had some grand vision. Blogging was declining, and I needed a new way to keep doing what I love and make a living. But honestly? The last thing I wanted was to create another Instagram account. The thought of starting from zero again — especially in a saturated niche — felt exhausting.
My first posts were product-focused and gained almost zero traction. I almost gave up right there.
But then I paused and asked myself a question I’d asked so many times before in my original business:
What’s different about me? What’s my superpower?
And then I realized something. Lots of moms can talk about baby products (100% of moms, I’d venture to guess).
What made us different is we didn’t stop traveling. My son had 12 passport stamps before he turned 2 (18 at the the of this writing just before he turns 3). He’d been to South Africa, Namibia, Indonesia, Thailand, Iceland, Norway, Mexico, Japan, and more.
That was it.
That was our thing.
Our Niche: Well-Traveled and Baby-Focused
Once I shifted the focus to what made us unique, everything changed.
Did I used to be all about shoestring travel and budget everything? Absolutely. I did it for years. I still think back fondly to sleeping in bamboo huts in the Thai jungle or spending hours bargaining for $1 guesthouses in Laos.
But now? I can’t imagine doing that with a toddler. Give me the plush hotel robe, a villa with a private pool, and a kids’ menu with watermelon on it. My priorities have changed — and that’s okay.
When I leaned into this truth, I couldn’t believe the engagement. The support. The community. Everything I had wanted for BMTM (an account that’s much smaller than @parenthood.adventures despite a decade more of effort!) started happening on this new account, and I’m proud to say that it’s all 100% organic. I do not and never did believe in engagement pods.
A New Business Was Born
Around the same time, a friend casually brought up travel advising. I really thought travel agents were left in the ’90s, but it turns out, there’s a huge benefit by booking through travel advisors, like a lot of free perks. Hotels pay the advisors for the referral, and the guest pays the best available rate. Why not take advantage of this? Everybody wins.
After booking through travel agents a few times for our trips and scoring these free upgrades for no extra cash, I figured, why don’t I do this too?
And then I realized… wow. This is a lot of work.
It was tedious at first. The backend systems, the vendor relationships, the constant back and forth and coordination — I wouldn’t say travel advising is the first job I’d recommend to anyone. You have to pay an agency to even get a chance to participate, and without a clientele, you’re pushing it on friends and family and I really didn’t want to do that. I rely 100% on my blogs and instagram for clients.
But after a slow start, it clicked. People wanted this. Especially other families who wanted the same kind of trips we were taking.
Now, a year later, we’ve helped families from 12 countries plan dream trips — from over a dozen families who have taken our same Thailand trip to Costa Rican adventures, luxury resorts in Southeast Asia to family-friendly gems in Europe. It’s such an honor, and so surreal to see how far this has come.
How to Replicate @Parenthood.Adventures success
I know this is really the question I’m getting when people reach out and ask how I got started. I remember early in my career hearing about the 10,000 hour rule and learning that the Beatles had spent years practicing in private before they hit it big. You hear about stories like this all the time – all of the hours and years and dedication that it has taken people who might appear to be overnight successes.
I’m afraid my story is no different. Without Be My Travel Muse, there would be no Parenthood Adventures. I guess I can finally look at all the time and effort I put into a marginally successful YouTube channel and understand now that I was training and learning so I could put that knowledge into something entirely new and different that I had no idea about back then. It’s always that way, isn’t it?
That said, this is my formula:
- Find creators within your niche who are doing extraordinarily well and study them. Go back in their archives, learn their histories, and follow every post.
- Experiment and forget about the failures. Replicate what works over and over.
- Commit to working on your craft when others are scrolling or wasting time. Have 10 minutes in line at the grocery store? Utilize it (just not around the kiddos. I try to be as present as possible with my family. It’s a practice for sure).
- When something stops working, don’t spend too much time mourning it. Don’t blame the algorithm. Look at what is working for people now and pivot.
- Resist the urge to fake it. Manufacturing engagement kills your ability to see what is actually working for you.
Just know that it will come with grit, dedication, and finding your own unique superpower.
And if you’re planning your next trip with us — thank you.
I’m so glad you’re on this journey with me.
Here’s to many more adventures to come. ✈️💛
—
Want help planning your own family adventure?
We offer travel advising for families of all kinds — with exclusive perks at luxury resorts, firsthand destination knowledge, and full transparency. Reach out here — we’d love to help you plan a trip that works for you.
And if you’re not already following along: @parenthood.adventures on Instagram is where the real-time magic happens.
