Celebrating 10 Amazing Mature Bloggers (2024)

It has been a couple of years since I had a Mature Bloggers post, and it is time to celebrate some of the awesome people who write blogs about travel, take awesome photos, run podcasts about delicious cocktail making and much more.

The following mature bloggers all have a story to tell. Their reasons for starting their blogs vary. Some, like me, are solo travellers and bloggers. Others travel and blog with partners.

Each one of them is inspiring in their own way, battling through adversity, surviving loss, moving countries or turning their passion for travel into a full-time career.

I am proud to be part of the community of mature bloggers who, when we can, travel the world to inspire travellers old and young to experience life differently.

More Mature Bloggers to Inspire You

Bella from Passport & Pixels

I’m Bella, a documentary producer-director, photographer, writer, and long-term solo traveller.

I’ve been obsessed with travel, nature and adventure since I was a teenager. Among many adventures in over 65 countries on all seven continents, I’ve climbed Kilimanjaro, been on an expedition to see wildlife in Antarctica, photographed animals on safari in Africa and witnessed an erupting volcano in Guatemala. 

I started Passport & Pixels in 2016 as a creative outlet and shop window. It was an editor at Lonely Planet who inspired me: I was working there as a videographer, and I approached her about writing for them. “Can you show me examples of your work?” she said. “Where’s your travel blog? You’re not serious if you don’t have a travel blog.”

And so Passport & Pixels was born.

Throughout all my solo travels, photography and the blog has given me a purpose – a focus for each day and a way to share my experiences when I had no one to talk to. And what started as merely a personal project has evolved into something even more fulfilling: a way to inspire other travellers – especially other solo women – to get out of their comfort zone, take risks, and live life to the fullest.

Since those early days Passport & Pixels has introduced me to some amazing people and brought me wonderful experiences. I’ve won several awards including Best Photography at the UK’s Travel Media Awards 2020. I’ve had stories and photos published in BBC Travel, National Geographic Traveller, LoveExploring, and – yes, Lonely Planet! – among others. I’ve worked with tourism boards and luxury hotels and was even a speaker at a National Geographic Traveller Masterclass.

But for me the biggest reward is still when I get an email from a reader telling me my posts helped them plan their own travels or inspired them to go on their own once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

Melanie from Sunny in London

I married my cameraman. 

While studying Communication at Florida State University in the late 90’s  I had the chance to move to London as an American for a semester and intern for NBC News- London Bureau. 

During that time I developed a crush on an English cameraman at the Bureau. There wasn’t really an easy way to keep in touch in that world before Facetime, What’s App and all the things that make long distance easy now. So, we went other directions when my internship ended. 

Years later our paths crossed again. (Ok- I did a little Facebook stalking). He put a ring on it, and I moved to London permanently. 

When determining my unique selling point as I crossed the pond, I branded myself ‘Sunny in London’ and started a blog. Too many times people asked why someone would move from Florida to London. 

My real name is Melanie, and I write mostly about London. For me, every day here is a travel opportunity. Whether it’s experiencing a new restaurant, attraction, pub, event in town or hotel, if it’s in or around London- count me in! 

My YouTube channel reflects the spirit of journalism on which my relationship and career started. I’m a Video Content Creator for a London hotel group and a TikTok strategist for London restaurants. I love showing London’s story.   

Susan L. Schwartz from A Lush Life Manual

One of my greatest thrills was when someone from a tourism board told me, “You are the only one doing this.” 

I had been writing my luxury travel blog, Best Bits Worldwide, for about two years when I came to the realization that, although I do love to eat, getting excited over food was just not my thing. I was much more interested in what was being served in the glass next to my artistically drawn plate of pasta. On any given trip, I tended to gravitate to the hotel bar more often than was required. 

As a lover of podcasts, I turned to that medium to see if I could find anyone reporting on the stories of cocktails and the folks who made them. Unsatisfied by what I found, I decided to start my own – a weekly podcast telling the tales of the people behind the spirits. Initially, it was called Best Sips Worldwide to go along with my already established blog, Best Bits Worldwide. After fifty episodes in, I knew it needed a home of its own.  

A Lush Life Manual blog was launched in 2016 and the podcast was rebranded as Lush Life Podcast.  After being nominated as a finalist for the 2018 Saveur Blog Awards for Best Drinks and then winning Rising Star of the Year by Travmedia in 2019, I knew I had made the right decision giving Lush Life its own home. Being labelled the “drink’s girl” by members of our travel community is the best compliment I can get! 

I think after all these years I can honestly say I was born with a Martini glass in my hand! 

Dylan from Shoot from the Trip

Hi, I’m Dylan and I created Shoot from the Trip in 2017, initially as somewhere to share my travel photography. With no journalistic background and a fairly technical 9-5 role, I needed somewhere other than social media that I could use as a creative outlet so I started writing.

Originating from North Wales, I spent over 20 years living in Southern England, before relocating back to my North Wales roots with my partner Pete and the recent addition of a rescue dog. My travel bug started relatively late in life, when I first got on a plane to NYC at the age of 19 with no clue of what I was doing. It was an adventure that sparked my love of travel, and I’ve returned to New York several times since.

Fast forward a few years, I’ve travelled fairly extensively across Europe, North America and the Caribbean. My true love of travel is getting out into the mountains, which is probably thanks to my Snowdonia roots. I love being outdoors and hiking, one of the reasons I relocated home I guess.

Our travels are usually as a couple, although I do a lot of solo exploring and hiking, and run all aspects of the blog myself. Pete’s involvement is usually being patiently papped for some shots, or having to wait in the corner of a hotel room until I’ve finished taking all the photos I need – the downsides of being a travel blogger’s spouse!

Although much of my recent content is North Wales-based, where I have good authority, I’m still trying to get away as much as possible to new destinations and returning to places I love.

Rachel from Rachel’s Ruminations

Like every travel blogger, I’ve always loved to travel, sometimes based on nothing more than the sound of a place – Timbuktu, Zanzibar, Kalamazoo, Bora Bora!

So it’s not surprising that I joined the Peace Corps straight out of college, went to Malawi, met a Dutch man who I eventually married, and immigrated to the Netherlands. My rather on-and-off career as a teacher has allowed me a lot of travel, sometimes during school vacations, and when I led workshops at schools in various countries and stayed a bit longer.

I call my blog Rachel’s Ruminations because generally, I ruminate on a story for a while, sometimes weeks. Then one day I can sit and type it out pretty much fully-formed. I mostly cover independent travel to historical sites, and try to make my articles practical and useful for my readers.

About two years ago I quit teaching to focus on my blog and traveling. My timing could hardly have been worse, since the pandemic hit just half a year later! It turned out okay, though, since I had a big backlog of story ideas and even got to travel sometimes. 

I recently started a second website about UNESCO World Heritage sites. It’s still under construction – there are 1154 sites, after all! – but eventually, it will be a one-stop shop for information about visiting these fascinating places.

I’m 60 years old, but I can’t imagine travel ever getting old. I still travel whenever and wherever the opportunity arises, with or without my husband. When he retires in a year and a half, we’re planning to move to a slow-travel lifestyle: we’ll stay in each place for a month or more and see it well, circling back to our little place in the Netherlands every few months. That’s my idea of a perfect “retirement”! But the blogging will certainly continue.

Emma from Travel on a Time Budget

I started my blog in 2017 during a period where, in hindsight, I was looking for something to fill a gap in my life. I’d lost both parents within a five year period and had spent the time since the second death signing up to all sorts of things in an attempt to fill my time and find something meaningful. I took French lessons, went to history seminars, obtained a diploma in history, went away for weekends, did some volunteering work.

I’ve always loved travelling to different places, in particular going off on regular short city breaks. However, having a full-time job meant I could generally only go off for a night or two. So I planned trips where it was easier to do this: I learnt how to travel on a time budget.

Several people had suggested I write about my trips and in the context of my ‘next thing’, I booked a session with a website developer to show me the basics. I started posting the odd thing, but told very few people – I was embarrassed about the quality of my work, so kept it secret. 

2019 was a turning point. I attended my first travel blogging conference and learnt so much. It changed the way I thought about my blog and I realised I needed to invest more time in it. I moved to compressed hours at work to give me the extra time to devote to it.

My blog is still a work in progress. But I’m proud of my achievements and all I’ve learnt. I hope that in some small way I can inspire others to travel to some of the wonderful places I’ve been lucky enough to experience.

Malia from Shoyu Sugar

Growing up in “paradise”, it’s ironic you often end up missing out on many of the very things the visitors come for. (I definitely felt this way growing up in Hawaii!) After returning to the islands from my first long-term trip, I found myself viewing my home through the eyes of a traveller. In 2012, I created ShoyuSugar.com as a way to collect all of my insider tips – the best places to eat, local farms and markets to visit, and interesting day trips (often I call these my “food missions”). I wanted to encourage locals to “staycation” like the tourists do and also to help tourists get beyond the typical guidebook lists. 

Before I left Hawaii to pursue travel writing full-time, I made a Hawaii “bucket list” to experience as much as I could. Friends and blog readers joined me for a [picnic lunch on the grounds of I’olani Palace, circling the island of Oahu by public bus and a long overdue visit to Pearl Harbor. We took a full moon hike on Oahu and on my home island of Maui, we watched the sunrise over Haleakala – something I’d only done once or twice in my life, despite being born and raised on the slopes of the majestic volcano. 

Fast forward 8 years later, I’m based on the other side of the world – in Istanbul, Turkiye. Here it’s a whole new world to discover, a challenging language to learn and an endless variety of new recipes to try. I love being able to travel slowly from my new home base, especially by train or ferry whenever possible. Besides writing, I indulge my love of languages as an online English teacher, which hardly feels like work most days – I get to chat with interesting and inspiring students from all over the world! 

Christa from Beyonderlust

Back in the 90s, when I was a teenager, most of my friends spent their hours mooning over posters of NSYNC. I was poring over travel brochures. I had stacks of them, all covered in circlings and notes like ‘Eiffel Tower, DREAM!’

More than two decades later, I’ve visited over 60 countries as a travel writer and a presenter for BBC’s The Travel Show. I’ve explored all of the places I had circled on those brochures, and many more, from fascinating Fogo Island in the outer reaches of Newfoundland to the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

But in all of those years, and with all of those experiences, I never started my own travel blog. I’d hiked for days through the Guatemalan Jungle, dodging spiders as big as my face. I’d interviewed former head-hunters in the northern Philippines. But a blog? That was far too scary. What if no one read it? It would mean putting myself out there – just me, my own words and pictures, without the cover of a fancy travel magazine or broadcaster.

But that all changed this year, when I turned 44 and thought to myself, you know what? Life’s just too short. So, I’ve taken inspiration from some incredible mature bloggers and launched my site, Beyonderlust.com. It will bring together the best of my travel experiences from across the years, along with useful guides and, crucially for me, local perspectives. It invites you to go ‘beyond wanderlust’ to make those priceless human connections with people across the world.

Though it’s just recently launched, I’m already loving the experience, and I only wish I’d summoned the courage years ago…

Latoya from Franglais 27 Tales

Travel has always been a part of my lifestyle from a young age and especially those trips to France, which started with school day trips. Therefore, a few decades later, when I was asked by a university friend to submit a guest post following a recent Florida trip, there was only one answer to give – a resounding yes.

That guest blog post started the publishing of my online travel writing beyond the confines of my journals and mobile phone notes. My tips and recommendations were therefore accessible to all and complemented my newly set up Instagram account with the photos from my adventures. My travels included solo travel and group travel ranging from multiple trips to France, as a Francophile, but also to off-the-beaten-track destinations such as Uzbekistan.

My travel passion soon led to me founding my own website, www.franglais27tales.com and meeting other London-based travellers and joining travel conferences run by the company Traverse and other travel-related events. I still enjoy visiting those destinations that are not on the obvious tourist trail, such as a recent trip to Uruguay.

These days, I find ways to combine some of my other passions with travel and will often attend international film festivals, explore film and TV locations abroad and, of course, there is wine tourism too which often adds a unique perspective to travels.

I have now visited over 60 countries and there are still so many more on my travel list to explore and to discover some new wine countries too in the process!

Michelle from Coconut Odyssey

I’m Michelle, the scuba diving and wildlife-obsessed travel blogger. I didn’t start my blogging or social media journey until my late thirties, as I’d spent over a decade working as a fashion designer. 

After nearly 15 years in the industry and spending every day of annual leave travelling the world, I decided in 2018 to take a break from fashion. I’d just returned from a diving trip in Indonesia and barely unpacked when I decided to quit my job, repack and jump straight back out on a flight!

My passion for wildlife and the underwater world has taken us to some incredible places, from diving in Raja Ampat, Philippines and the Maldives to trekking with gorillas in Uganda (where I got pushed over by one!) to safari trips in Kenya to Tanzania.

So, with this passion and years of travel experience, I decided to start my blog Coconut Odyssey to inspire others and to showcase the best destinations for wildlife and scuba diving travel.

Over the years we’ve become passionate underwater & wildlife photographers and even ended up with a couple of award nominations. If you want to see raw wildlife content and discover new crazy marine species with a sprinkle of scuba diving comedy then stop by our social media channel @CoconutOdyssey

Everyone always says, never quit a job without having another to go to, but I can still honestly say, 5 years later, it’s the best choice I’ve ever made!

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I hope you enjoyed getting to know the fabulous more mature bloggers I have chosen for 2024. If you would like to read of the previous years, check out 2019, 2020, 2021. Let me know in the comments below who you have been inspired by!

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