Life as we know it changed over the past few years, and society is now more eager than ever to travel the world. Adventurers want to see new cultures, meet others, and experience what the world has to offer. The awareness of maintaining a healthier lifestyle and a sustainable way of living has also increased. Travel is, in itself, one of the best forms of self-care. When exploring out of one’s usual environment and taking a break from the daily stresses of everyday life, it’s no surprise that the travel industry is booming. However, when one values a sustainable lifestyle, planning a luxury, eco-friendly travel trip can be difficult.

Travel and wellness influencers, Christine and Sarah MacLean share their experiences of luxury travelling while sticking to their values of sustainability, wellness, and ecotourism. Beau Monde Traveler had the pleasure of chatting with the Canadian sisters, who spoke about their travels and values.

Christine and Sarah are sisters from Ontario, Canada. Together, they defied the odds that suggest that you need to find yourself a stable, and at times ,unfulfilling job after education to become successful. With a seven-year age difference, they developed a unique relationship through their passion for wellness, travel, and ecotourism. Today, the sisters boast over 70 thousand authentic followers on their Instagram account, @wellnesstravelled, while also running an online blog to share their stories and expertise.

For travel influencers such as Christine and Sarah, people may assume that the opportunity to travel freely is something that they have experienced throughout their lifetime. However, their story is very different from what one may first expect.

The wellness and travel influencers grew up with two other siblings. With four children, their parents opted to take them on camping trips or to lake cabins in their home country to avoid the exorbitant expenses that comes with traveling internationally. These experiences allowed the sisters to appreciate the beauty of nature and the world around them. Their interest in ecotourism and exploring the outdoors began to grow, making them eager to experience the beauty of other destinations outside of their home country.

The Path To Becoming Wellness and Travel Influencers

The @WellnessTravelled Instagram page features luxury locations that one would dream to visit. Bright, natural colours of blue seas and green landscapes flood their page, causing traction from followers all over the world. Anyone with a love for travel would be inspired by the adventures that Christine and Sarah share. But looking back from where the influencer sisters began to where they are now, it is incredible to see their experiences and the lessons that they have learnt along the way.

Christine was initially working in advertising, but she was more passionate about wellness and healthcare. This interest led her to employment as a content creator at a not-for-profit healthcare company while attending night school to become a registered holistic nutritionist.

Sarah was unsure about what career path she was going to take, but she knew that she wanted to travel after she graduated. Through this uncertainty, Sarah landed her career at the company, FlightCentre, as an independent contractor. This provided her with an income while having the luxury of working anywhere in the world. Through this unforeseen career path and new travel opportunities, WellnessTravelled was born.

With a large age difference, their relationship flourished while Sarah was studying, leading to them taking trips together throughout Sarah’s career. The encouragement from external sources led them to take a chance and share their experiences through Instagram as a side project, which was still a fairly new application. Little did they know that it would grow so large and provide so many opportunities. Now, over four years later, their side project has turned into a business.

Eco-Tourism and Sustainability

A key factor towards the success of the travel influencers was the wellness niche: “There are a million travel creators, but not as many of them focus on this side. In our case, we focus on sustainability, ecotourism and more conscious travel.” This has allowed the sisters to focus on their own style of travel and stick to their core values, while still sharing the luxuries that sustainable travel can offer.

Despite always having an interest in wellness, the educational and learning experience that comes with travelling provided them with a new outlook on life. In Thailand, Christine and Sarah experienced first-hand seeing the impact of over tourism on the environment, and in particular, the coral reefs. This pushed them to visit hotels and destinations that are trying to preserve the location where they are based.

Luxury and sustainability don’t always come hand in hand. It can be extremely difficult to stick to those values when planning your travels. However, despite challenges, Christine and Sarah make the best out of every trip by appreciating each detail that can offer a sense of wellness or an environmentally friendly atmosphere.

“Sometimes we’ve visited places that are more wellness-based but haven’t removed plastic water bottles, for example.” Destinations may be limited to do this due to unclean drinking waters and other environmental factors, but the sisters view this as progress over perfection. “Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but we try to find the good in every property.” The travel influencers’ experiences and expertise have found that smaller places are usually better for sustainability, allowing them to share unknown destinations that their audience may not have heard of prior.

Airbnb properties have been a big highlight for the sisters during their careers, as they can meet new people while staying in eco-friendly accommodations that are almost unheard of. Through their travels in Portugal, they experienced a stay on a regenerative farm, which certainly provided a unique experience while accompanying their values and message to their online following. Airbnb stays also give the sisters the opportunity to meet new people that are local to the area that they are visiting, ultimately learning about new cultures and ways of living.

With a bit of digging and extra research, Christine and Sarah find luxury, and green accommodations to visit and share with those who hold the same values of them. The research pays off in the social media influencer world, as these lesser-known destinations can become easier to find for their followers, which also helps to support the small businesses that accommodate them.

The influencers also found that bigger hotels are starting to follow the trends and awareness for a greener planet by gaining the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, which provides the framework for a healthy, highly efficient and cost-saving green buildings. This allows them to share luxury travel destinations so that travellers can visit without feeling guilty.

Continuing To Grow While Travel Stopped

While the WellnessTravelled social media brand began to rise, extreme difficulties hit the sisters as travel stopped. “Our Instagram account is called Wellness Travelled, and then travel stopped. We had to have the conversation of how we can make sure that this doesn’t die, as we love what we’re doing, and we were starting to receive communications from brands.”

Christine and Sarah began to share local tourism to grow their account, focusing on their home province, Ontario, and then eventually the rest of Canada. “Showing off our home helped us to grow. We had a lot of people following us, which led to Airbnb businesses and local tourism boards contacting us.” They had previously experienced a lower following from their home country, but this significantly grew as they shared their Canadian travels.

Now producing video content to keep up with Instagram trends, what once was a side project has now become bigger than they could have ever anticipated. Their updated approach to travelling means that international followers now have lists of destinations in Canada that they would be eager to visit.

A Social Media Workplace

Wellness and travel influencers, Christine and Sarah, find their social media business extremely rewarding. Spreading the positive message of living a healthier lifestyle, while supporting smaller brands and local economies are additional perks to the job that they hadn’t expected. The influencers have worked with sustainable brands such as Tom’s of Maine, which make health and beauty products from naturally derived ingredients. They also enjoy working with Bonterra, an organic wine brand made in California.

The values of working with brands must align with the sisters’ so that they can remain authentic with their following: “There have been brands or places that have contacted us but haven’t lined up with what we are trying to share, and we need to stay true to ourselves.” This, again, is another perk of their social media workplace, as they have the opportunity to set their own boundaries that align with their brand values.

From just two sisters in Canada, unknowing of what life had in store for them, to successful travel and wellness influencers who spread messages of sustainable travel, it is exciting to see what the future has to offer for them. Many of those who travel want to find the luxury but lesser-sought destinations for peace and tranquillity, and it is certainly an added bonus if you are making a positive impact on the economy and environment that you are visiting. The WellnessTravelled sisters have certainly left their mark in the world of social media, and in real life, and will certainly continue to influence others to travel smart.

All photographs and video content courtesy of Christine and Sarah at Wellness Travelled.