A self-proclaimed ‘dinosaur’, Elena Sandor has been a digital content creator for more than 16 years. Having run a successful cooking blog for seven years, her dreams came together in 2013 in the form of Eat Wear Travel, the ultimate destination for travel, lifestyle, beauty, and parenting content. ‘I transformed a passion into a full-time job; that’s the goal and that’s the dream,’ she says. Elena worked tirelessly to build her social media presence, including her Instagram account, which has garnered more than 200,000 followers.

Elena moved to the UK from Romania in 2010. Alongside her job in finance, she expanded her blogging content beyond her niche of cooking, writing about and reviewing beauty, fashion and travel businesses. With a PhD in economics, she was a valuable asset to her team at work but began to feel trapped by an environment that restricted her creativity, ‘I didn’t recognise myself in it, I felt like it was taking my soul.’ And so, during her lunch breaks, she would recruit her friends to help her take photos despite strange looks from passersby. Elena managed to post consistently to her blog and found that her hard work was beginning to pay off.

Elena quit her day job and leapt into the world of content creation, giving herself six months for success. After this point, if she wasn’t making enough money to get by, she would find a new job and leave her dreams behind. However, thanks to her determination, talent and genuine excitement for her new career, she didn’t have to return to the spreadsheets. She rebranded her website, changed its name and got a new camera. Despite having, ‘no team, no one to help me’, Elena secured her first job writing copy for the launch of a new range of lamps for which she got paid £30. While this sum pales in comparison to her recent brand deals, ‘I treasure that £30 the most because it was the first time that I was paid for something that I love to do.’

Growing up, foreign travel wasn’t a feature of Elena’s life in Romania, but instead, her family explored their beautiful homeland. Aged 22, in a break between studies, Elena and a friend decided to work in Italy, and it is still her favourite country to visit to this day. This proved a pivotal trip for Elena as it was here that she ‘fell in love with all the different cultures, people, traditions and mysteries that you can explore’ whilst travelling. Through her studies, she had learnt a lot about the cultural and economic systems of various countries but wanted to see them for herself. ‘It is one thing to learn about it, but it is another thing to actually experience it, to be there in the middle of it.’ After this trip, there was no going back.

Asked about her favourite trip, Elena is torn between three incredible experiences. She was entranced by the gleaming and intricate architectural wonder of the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi where she ‘felt at peace and more in tune with myself.’ She also tells a great story about her experience abseiling from a castle in Jersey. The organisers of her tour had signed Elena and her friends up for the experience despite her being ‘a new mum’ and ‘never the gym type back then.’ Nonetheless, she decided to face it and, quite literally, make the leap. It is one of her favourite memories.

With a similarly courageous attitude, Elena took a desert quad biking trip in Bahrain although she didn’t know how to drive. ‘It was really, really scary but I loved it so much’, she says with a mischievous smile. After two hours of biking, she couldn’t wait to go again. She urges travellers to let go of fear and inhibition as it is in this intrepid state of mind that we find the most remarkable experiences. Followers of Eat Wear Travel are in for a treat as Elena’s blossoming feed shares plenty of spellbinding adventures that provide more than enough inspiration for your next trip.

Eat Wear Travel is the product of Elena’s ambition and hard work. Scrolling through Instagram or reading her blog, we don’t necessarily see the input that lies behind every smiling selfie or aesthetic food shot, ‘I could be sending emails at two in the morning, I could be editing for hours and realise that I forgot to make dinner.’ Although she finds herself living much of the time through the lens of a camera, Elena wouldn’t have it any other way. It is through her role as a digital content creator that she has been able to visit so many countries and to her this is more than worth it. 

Elena’s ambition knows no bounds. She would like to write a travel guide. ‘I know this has been done, and overdone, but I want to write one too; why not?’ Only this time, hers will include local people and local restaurants, the true hidden gems of travel; she wants to share the stories of locals, ‘because they made the country.’ In the meantime, alongside her guest lecture circuit, Elena is working on a social media course so that she can help other content creators take the first steps into this competitive industry. It is a particularly personal goal for her as when she first started out, ‘there were no resources, no one to show us the ropes. We just learned through trial and error.’ Through teaching and consulting, she hopes to provide that support for social media newbies.

As Elena has made abundantly clear, it is beyond the limits of fear and trepidation that you find the most rewarding experiences. Having moved to a new country and built a loyal social media following from scratch, it is safe to say that Elena has learnt from experience. Follow her social media channels for more exciting stories and to see where Elena’s adventures take her next.