The Seedy Sexual Underbelly of Travel Influencing

On the power imbalance nobody in the industry talks about.

*names, locations, & all identifying details have been changed.

We were packed into a mezcal bar, the kind that feel carved out and grotty, everything under a diffuse layer of grime - as though the earth was trying to reclaim it, barstool by grubby barstool. I was surrounded by my roommates of the month, an international group of 20 and 30 somethings (read: primarily white and able to afford rent at 2 to 3x the national average), and we were staying in a gothic 1920s mansion perched in the foothills of the sprawling city.

I was “on assignment” in Barcelona*, working as a travel influencer, primarily covering a (now defunct) coliving. At this point, I had been a digital nomad for several years, traveling from client to client, staying for anywhere for one week to several months in a city, almost exclusively staying in colivings.

Coliving is a concept that has been around for as long as humans have cohabited, but coliving in the digital nomad sense was a concept that saw a sharp revival (and subsequent gentrification) post Covid. Armed with newly remote jobs and a crippling sense of isolation and lost time, droves of young adults had taken to digital nomadism like existential ducks to overpriced water, and establishments to support and welcome them had popped up all over the world, particularly in Europe.

I was flanked by Katiya and Shelby*, two other travel influencers that had also been invited to come create content for the opening. With fair skin, luminous blue eyes, sandy hair, and matching Irish accents, the women could have been sisters - they even dressed a bit the same, though that may have been more through virtue of the limits of living out of suitcases then a similar sense of style.

I watched as Pierre*, the host and founder, walked up behind the girls and encircled his arm around Shelby’s waist, pulling her closer and planting a kiss upon her cheek before resting his arm around her shoulders.

“Ça va Liz,” he asked me, “did you meet my cofounder Guy* yet?” I ça va’d and did the bise with the bald man to his left, straining with every molecule of my being to understand his rapid fire French under the Spanish rap that threatened to drown out our shouted conversations entirely.

At one point during our conversation, Pierre suddenly stiffened. With a forced casualness, he removed his arm from Shelby, pulled out his phone. It was subtle, but not enough that she didn’t clock it immediately, her eyes following his. Another woman had entered the bar. Shelby’s eyes widened in excitement. “Annette*!” She squealed, “how are you!!” The girls devolved into whisper shrieks and giggles, clearly reuniting, as Shelby had arrived two nights prior.

Suddenly professional, Pierre made introductions, shaking hands instead of air kissing, no longer offering to buy rounds or take photos. He erected a physical distance between us so forceful that it was palpable.

Over the course of the evening (and half a dozen drinks) the origin of his discomfort revealed itself. He had slept with Shelby the night before, and, not realizing she and Annette were friends, had slept with the other woman the week prior. He had also, I revealed to their mounting glee, hit on me the night I arrived - sending drunk texts inviting himself back to my (his?) room at the mansion. At first, we found it hilarious - kind of gross, kind of typical, something you’d roll your eyes at, a misbehaving puppy weeing on the carpet. What more could we expect?

But as we compared notes, a more nefarious thread emerged. Five women had been invited to stay, handpicked by him, to come stay at the home he was renovating and renting out. We all even looked eerily similar - slim, light eyes, blonde hair. He had copies of our passports, keys to our bedrooms.

And he had hit on every one of us.

A charitable read of the situation: he was flirty, single, and opportunistic. An uncharitable read: he had a type, and he intentionally built an environment around that type, casting us as unwitting characters in a play that had his sexual fantasies firmly at the center. The implications seeped into me over the course of the evening, the subsequent days. I believed in what he was building, I loved the space and the team that managed it alongside it. However it wouldn’t be the first - nor the last - time I would sense the boundaries muddied.

There were the hosts that offered massages to the female guests, invited them back to their homes; the ones that would go out drinking with us, stumbling home in the morning to blearily check in a new arrival. Once, a host I was friendly with flipped through the profiles of arriving guests, noting whether or not which ones he found attractive.

I never felt unsafe, per se, but I felt on guard, as though I couldn’t fully relax, lest I give the wrong idea - but isn’t that what it means to be a women navigating this world? Always cautious? But then, I argued back to myself, why did I have to be, when staying in a place marketed to me as my “home away from home?” It wasn’t a hotel, nor an apartment - it was less than a commitment, but more than temporary.

It meant I was often operating in a confusing grey area. These men would straddle the lines between landlord, employer, host, & social organizer - while simultaneously making it clear “romantic prospect” was not entirely off the table. While researching colivings, I would joke to my best friend that I was prioritizing spaces that had hosts that were “fixed” - i.e., over the age of 40 or in a committed relationship (and even that wasn’t a guarantee…).

I would wonder if my expectations - and standards - were too high. These spaces were typically hippie or hippie adjacent, populated by travelers on gap years or embarking on a new lifestyle, emboldened by change, alcohol, a new city. While I witnessed behaviour that blurred the line between “flirty” and “creepy” - if hosts and guests did hook up, it was consensual. But the power imbalance gave me pause nonetheless. The access they had to us was a one way street - our personal information, our rooms, the roof over our head. The wifi that powered our jobs. There were no HR, no rules that dictated what professional behaviour should or could look like, what lines shouldn’t be crossed, and I didn’t know how to navigate that.

I sometimes felt helpless, navigating a tightly knit world where everyone knew one another, our laptops papered with stickers collected from the communities we toured. What did it mean when I was staying in these people’s homes, reviewing the communities they had built, when a fully honest review would mean I could be blacklisted? When my next project depended on their goodwill, their review, their recommendation? What was me being an uptight American, not European enough, not carefree enough, and what was actually predatory, or inappropriate? I didn’t want to be perceived as shrill, uppity, frigid, one of those many female adjectives with negative connotations they assign us when we talk too much, too loudly.

I focused on the positives, highlighted what I loved about what I was doing. I kept out the question marks that plagued me, danced around any discomfort that churned in my stomach. It felt ridiculous, anyway - watch out, he might hit on you and your friends - & unprofessional to comment on consenting relationships that weren’t my own.

Eventually, I am loathe to admit: it worked. I fell in love with one of the hosts. When I met him, it was a rare moment of chemistry: he was the general manager, with deep green eyes and jet black hair. He was morose, intellectual. I loved to tease him, delighting in his childlike laugh. We were as opposite as opposites could be: I often described us as one of those videos you see of cross species animal friendships, a dolphin and a cat, an unlikely duo. He flirted indiscriminately, it was part of his charm. I resisted at first, but finally succumbed. He was magnetic, I was putty in his competent hands. It was one of the most maddening, intoxicatingly toxic, spellbindingly devastating romantic experiences I’ve ever had.

Before we hooked up, the air between us was so thick with tension you could cut it with a knife. He was constantly surrounded by people, I was desperate to get him alone. One day, mid August heatwave, we were sitting on a blanket in the garden when he proposed a beach trip. Knowing the whole house would want to join, I recognized my moment: I offered to run inside to invite everyone. Once inside, I climbed the stairs to my room, and shut the door. After a beat, and after having spoken to no one, I went back down, declaring everyone was too busy - we’d have to go solo.

I luxuriated in our afternoon together, simmering with excitement. I was either uncharacteristically mute in his presence or chattering nonstop - that day, I was quiet, contemplative. At the beach, I silently offered him a stone I had found - perfectly round, a circle missing from its middle. He pressed it against his forehead, massaging his inner eye, he explained, fixing me with his liquid green stare. Afterwards, he slipped it into his pocket, promising to keep it. Seven hours later he kissed me.

A year later, in his bedroom, I was bored, listless, idly rifling through his things. He was like a crow - a collector, his home a strange altar to past fixations, things fermenting in jars, feathers and tarot decks. At one point, I found a shoebox.

“What’s this?” I asked him, shaking it. “Open it,” he said, smiling shyly. Inside, there were hundreds of rocks and shells. Nestled between them was a rock - my rock. I was touched at the sentimentality.

But there was a lot of rocks.

“Do you collect these?” I asked. “No - those are all rocks people have given me,” he explained. “Girls?” I asked, my brow wrinkling in confusion. “Yea, mostly women,” he said, shrugging. My stomach dropped in recognition.

What we had - no labels of course - I wasn’t sure of anything about it. I wasn’t sure what we were, when I’d see him next, what I meant to him. But the one thing I was sure about was that it was unique, special. And here I was: realizing I was just another shell in a box, part of a collection.

the last thing i ever wrote him

I felt humiliated, admonished. This had been important to me, significant. With a sinking realization, I saw that for him, it had barely registered. But I had no claim to him, we had established nothing, he wasn’t breaking any rules.

No, none of them were ever breaking any rules. They were living their lives. If we were collateral damage? Well, that was our own fault.

Ultimately, I found a shaky kind of peace: it didn’t need to hold the same weight for him for it to be significant for me, to shape me. I could assign my own significance, collect my own shells.

I eventually fell out of love with coliving, and digital nomadism. A lifestyle that once felt to embody freedom to me slowly became restrictive, isolating. And the communities we paid to be a part of?

One of my dear friends put it perfectly: if you have to pay for it, it’s not a real community.

And that tracked. I’ve lived with hundreds of people over the years. I’ve stayed in regular contact with maybe a handful of them. It’s impossible to stay in touch with everyone, especially when they’re strewn across the globe, across timezones.

Community, real community, is borne of shared interests, common values, routine, predictability. A bundle of ties, reinforced with time and consistency.

And coliving? There was but one: we were in a city, and we were lonely.

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