Growing up in Michigan, Daniel Mann’s family would drive across the bridge from Detroit into Canada for holidays without needing passports. Yet, until adulthood, Daniel’s travels were limited to these two North American countries. Now, four years after obtaining a passport, he has traveled the globe, even founding an Instagram account specifically to document his travels. @distinctiontravels has amassed over 100,000 followers invested in Daniel’s luxury travel experiences and destinations.

Travel Fever

Described in his own words as a ‘late bloomer’, Daniel only received his passport in 2018. When he missed out on a work trip to Singapore due to his absence of a passport, he decided it was time to take the leap and get one. He saw it as a matter of convenience. Yet, he could never have anticipated how important the document would eventually become to him.

While friends warned him the passport would set off a travel craving, he was skeptical. ‘I thought I’d probably visit one country per year,’ he says. Instead, he visited four countries within the first year of having a passport. Three of these countries he traveled to within a six-day time period, visiting England, France, and Spain on a whirlwind first trip abroad. He recalls spending two days in London, two in Paris, and two in Madrid consecutively. From this first accelerated adventure into international travel, Daniel was hooked.

Distinction Travels

Before founding his creator page @distinctiontravels, Daniel, like many people, had a personal Instagram account. He would post ‘a bit of everything’ – food, work, weekend activities. Yet, that changed when he discovered a number of niche secondary pages dedicated to account users’ specific hobbies. As he was just beginning his travel journey, he decided to start an account to document his travels. He wanted to create a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the photos and memories from his adventures, a sort of ‘digital scrapbook’. Thus, @distinctiontravels was born.

The name for the account, Daniel says, felt right, as he considers himself a luxury traveler. In his own words, distinction feels like ‘travel with a bow tie’. This dressed up form of travel is what he aims to convey through his feed and through his travels. When asked what luxury means to him, Daniel answers that luxury comprises of the finer things in life: anything that promotes self-care. Yet, he specifies, real luxury is when these things do not have to break the bank. ‘There are certain places that lend themselves to luxury experiences,’ he explains.

Southeast Asia, for example, offers access to a variety of luxurious experiences for unbeatable prices. Full-body massages in Thailand, four-course meals in Malaysia, and private villas in Bali are only a few of the luxury travel experiences that Daniel has had. What makes them even better is that they didn’t cost him ‘an arm and a leg’. Thus, Daniel’s travels prove that despite common ideas regarding what ‘luxury’ means, it can in fact be accessible.

This leads into Daniel’s philosophy about travel being a ‘necessary’ part of his life. To him, ‘travel is a form of self-care.’ He therefore takes great efforts to ensure he prioritizes it when organizing his schedule. While his travel-filled-feed may lead viewers to believe that globe-trotting is his full-time job, Daniel has an entirely separate career that requires his time and energy. Readers may wonder how he balances work and travel so seamlessly. His answer is to plan in advance. His own existing travel road map extends all the way to 2024. This way, he ensures he has enough time in between trips to complete his work.

Destinations and Luxury Travel Experiences

While not employed as a digital nomad, Daniel’s feed proves that a full-time job doesn’t have to impede one from having luxury travel experiences. He was generous enough to share several of his favorite travel experiences and destinations with Beau Monde Traveler and our readers.

Kenya, for example, is a destination that is very close to his heart. Not only was his visit to Kenya one of his first solo trips, but it also marked his first visit to Africa. In Nairobi, he was able to tick off a bucket list item of feeding giraffes at the well-renowned Giraffe Manor. His visit to the coastal town of Lamu on Lamu Island offered completely different experiences and views to the buzzing city.

This leads in to one of Daniel’s main takeaways from his trip to Kenya: from town to town, religion, language, cuisine, and cultures differ, despite being within the same country. Thus, for its sheer diversity of experiences and people, Daniel posits Kenya as one of the most well-rounded destinations to visit.

When asked about his best luxury hotel experiences, Daniel recalls a trip to Mykonos when he stayed at the luxury hotel Cavotagoo. The five-star stay is high on the radar of celebrities and influencers. And according to Daniel, there’s good reason for this. With private pools just outside the rooms and expansive views of the sea, it’s no wonder this hotel ranks amongst Daniel’s favorites.

In terms of culinary delicacies, the dish that stuck out to Daniel is Thieboudienne, Senegal’s national dish. Thieboudienne is a rice and fish dish, often served with a variety of root vegetables such as carrots, sweet potato, and eggplant. The rice is cooked in the fish’s juices, so that it bursts with hearty flavor and is traditionally eaten communally. Daniel was lucky enough to experience the meal the way it was intended to be eaten: as part of a group. Apart from the incredible taste, Daniel’s favorite part of the meal was being able to partake in a traditional experience with the people who created the dish.

Top Tips from a Travel Influencer

The life of an influencer may seem to be all glitz, glamour, and luxury travel experiences. Yet, as Daniel tells Beau Monde Traveler, things do not always go so smoothly. For example, during a trip to Tanzania, things went pear-shaped for Daniel when his suitcase didn’t make the plane from Paris. To make things worse, the clothes for a photo shoot scheduled in Zanzibar the next day happened to be in the suitcase back in France.

Experiences such as these have made Daniel an expert at providing advice for how to deal with the challenges associated with travel. His number one tip? Having a positive mindset. ‘There’s always something that doesn’t quite go as planned during a trip,’ he says, but ‘the response shapes the experience.’ Anything that goes wrong is ‘just one aspect’ of the entire adventure. Regardless of what happens, it will still be an adventure.

The beauty that Daniel finds in travel cannot be wiped away by small inconveniences. The luxury travel experiences are unquestionably amazing. Yet his favorite things are simply exploring the various aspects of a new place and learning about new cultures. In traveling and ‘mixing with different people’ one of course learns about the myriad of lifestyles and worldviews that exist across the globe. What’s more, as Daniel tells us, you can learn a lot about yourself through stepping outside of your comfort zone and seeing new parts of the world.

For many, what Daniel does may seem daunting: traveling so frequently and to such varied places while also balancing a full-time job at home. Yet, his answer to anyone who may ask him how to get started following in his footsteps is simple: start.

‘We get in our heads,’ he says, ‘we make plans to travel next year or when x, y, and z happen.’ But, Daniel says, if we go on waiting for ‘certain life circumstances [to] align,’ years may pass without any travel taking place.  ‘You don’t have to have it all together,’ Daniel advises, but ‘the world is big and there’s a lot of it to see.’ It is therefore worth it, he says, to prioritize travel.