• Head shot of the author – in the travel genre, almost 100% of the time it is a young woman freelance writer.
• Use numbers in the title – research indicates people are more likely to click on titles that have numbers. She uses numbers in almost all of her personal essay stories.
• “Next time, I’d do 3 things differently” – a common trick in travel writing – what I’d do differently
• “Traveling solo” – much travel writing has to show a uniqueness – a young woman “traveling solo” is a hook
• Much of her travel may have been for free as she notes “fortunate enough to participate in press trips around the world“. She also did multiple semester study abroad programs (seems like 3 of them) and explains how she funded it.

Every Business Insider story and title – photo of the young author, numbers in the title. Business Insider is a parody of the travel genre – and they don’t even realize it!

The travel sector is filled with narcissists – and so says many of the people who write these articles!

Heh – numbers in the headlines, “mistakes” and the head shot!