COURTESY OF LAUREN BATH“Travelling makes you
more accepting of other
people. It helps you
understand other cultures.”
Right: On location
in Venice for
Zonin1821, Italy’s
largest privately
owned winery.
Below: Bath visited the
Swiss Alps, where
she photographed
a friend atop this cliff.the Thai street food. And in Bali, I stayed in a
little budget hotel in Kuta for a few months. It cost
US$7 per night—I negotiated that rate—so I could
aff ord to leave half my stuff there and go explore
the other side of the island. It was total freedom.”
Now, her travel schedule is so action-packed,
those unscripted moments can feel few and far
between. And she’s okay with that. “I do believe in
the energies and the universe. I had a gut feeling
this would work out. Being on the road is
amazing, but I’m also running a business, and it’s
hard. However, I’m in this for the long haul.”
As of press time, Bath’s followers have soared
to more than 4,60,000, and she is now a highly-
sought-after travel photographer and social
media infl uencer, advising tourism boards and
hotel brands on how to navigate the digital
world—and capturing stunning images for them
along the way. In four years, she’s worked on 150
campaigns and visited destinations as varied as
Oman, Finland, Canada, and Argentina, in
addition to exploring all corners of her home
country. Within six months of quitting her job,
she was earning as much as she had been in the
kitchen. “I’m not the same person I used to be,
when I was a chef,” she says. “Travelling changes
you fundamentally. It makes you more accepting
of other people, it helps you understand other
cultures. There’s not even a piece of me that has
any prejudice anymore. You can’t learn that sort
of thing—you have to experience it.”
— Jacqueline Giff ordon the social media platform. “My friend Garry
and I would practise. We’d do a sunrise shoot
on Wednesday, then research a technique like
water-droplet or macro photography and learn
it together. It became an addiction,” she says.
Bath knew she was on to something when her
account, where she was posting beautiful
beach pictures of the Gold Coast, started
growing by 1,000 followers per day. By the end
of 2012, as New Year’s Eve approached, the total
was nearly 2,00,000. That’s when she decided
it was time, in her words, to “go rogue and
become a full-time Instagrammer.”
Doing so allowed her to indulge her love of
travel, a passion that, like photography, Bath
discovered later in life. Her father, a professional
chef, and her mother, an excellent home cook,
gave Bath the love of the trade that led her to the
chef’s life. (“Hospitality is such an invigorating
industry,” she says. “You form these friendships
and people become your family, but the hours are
terrible.”) Then, several trips to Thailand
and Bali changed her perspective on the world.
“I loved the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, and allBEYOND
Mastering
the Journey