Social Media Stars Making A Social Impact: Why & How Jen Logan of Jenz Journeys Is Helping To Change Our World
I try to inspire people to live life to the fullest whether it be exploring cool and unique finds, enjoying beautiful nature opportunities, or simply finding new outings and ways to spend quality time with their loved ones and create lifelong memories. I also touch on mental health in my content from time to time to bring awareness and hopefully open the conversations further about mental health.
I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jen Logan.
Jen Logan is a Canadian travel blogger and founder of her popular blog Jenz Journeys. Jen to date has traveled around the world to countries including Bali, Jordan and Turkey and accumulated over 38,000 Instagram followers along the way.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have always been fascinated with finding the coolest, most unique things out there and sharing them with everyone! Years ago before influencing was even a thing a friend said to me there must be a way for you to make this into a business! About 6 years ago my x and I split up and I started posting on Facebook all of the cool things I was doing just so he knew that my life wasn’t stopping and I was still living my best life after the breakup which seemed important at the time! In the last few years of my daughter’s mental health battle, I opened my Instagram and started covering my previous travels and cool finds with tips in a more formal way. I called them Instablogs. The Instagram blog was an invaluable tool for me to feel productive and keep my mind occupied at my daughter’s appointments and various other stages on her mental health journey!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?
In the fall of 2019, I took my first overseas solo trip. It was to Jordan in the Middle East. While there I met some great new friends and over the next few months after my return home I became really close with some of them, so much so that I returned to Jordan in February of 2020. It was a very impromptu trip actually, I was supposed to go back in April but something deep inside told me if I didn’t go then I wouldn’t be able to go at all which was absurd really but my gut persisted and I booked a flight scheduled to leave 10 hrs later. It was yet another very unique experience as I stayed with my friends living in the local Bedouin community near Petra for two weeks! It was amazing and I even spent a night sleeping in Petra itself! Ironically when I left at the end of February, within a week of my return home the first case of Covid in Canada was announced in the city I worked in. Less than a month later the country shut down. My gut was right that trip would never have happened!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
For part of my series 15 Cool & Unique Stays in Canada I had booked the AirBNB “Authentic Romaie Caravan” stay in Orono, Ontario. I invited my sister as I thought it was very close to her work so she could join and leave straight for work in the morning. The day before we were supposed to go I sent the address to my sister who informed me there was no way she could join as it was a 3hrs drive to her work from the address. I mistakenly thought the location of the place was in Oro not Orono which are in two completely different areas of Ontario, Canada! Thankfully my friend Kathryn was able to join last minute and a crisis was thankfully adverted! My lesson is to triple-check the destination location!
You have been blessed with success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
I know this will sound cliche but perseverance, hard work and quality content will pay off. At first, it was a slow route but then all of a sudden everything started to snowball and come together at once. Stay true to yourself and your brand.
Ok super. Let’s now jump to the core focus of our interview. Can you describe to our readers how you are using your platform to make a significant social impact?
My daughter passed away in August of 2020 after a challenging mental health journey. This loss really made me appreciate how fragile life is and that it is a gift we should cherish and maximize. I try to inspire people to live life to the fullest whether it be exploring cool and unique finds, enjoying beautiful nature opportunities, or simply finding new outings and ways to spend quality time with their loved ones and create lifelong memories. I also touch on mental health in my content from time to time to bring awareness and hopefully open the conversations further about mental health.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted by this cause?
Since my middle daughter’s passing, I have openly spoken about her passing and her mental health journey. Because of this many youths have reached out to me to share their mental health journeys as they relate to a lot of what I have spoken about. I have also had quite a few parents of children who suffer from mental health reach out to me for ideas to help better assist their children’s mental health journeys. In regards to my cool and unique finds, I have had many people reach out to me about a variety of places I have covered that inspired them to explore the locations themselves!
Was there a tipping point that made you decide to focus on this particular area? Can you share a story about that?
Well, as mentioned my daughter’s passing and the desire to inspire people to live life to its fullest was a significant turning point for me. For my niche of Cool and Unique stays and Finds however that inspirational seed was planted almost 2 decades ago. I have always been fascinated by the unusual and unique and, in a book, I saw the Spheres at Free Spirit Spheres. I immediately added it to my bucket list but it sat quietly for many years. After Kaelynn passed, I decided to start a series “Adventures in Covidland” Covid friendly outings during our ongoing pandemic where regionally permitted. I did this for two reasons, to help bring exposure to companies that were open and operating safely as businesses suffered greatly during Covid and also to inspire people to, again, live life to its fullest while we have it while doing so safely and respectfully. Part of this series included unique stays thanks to the isolation special stays like this had. When provincial borders across Canada opened up flights to Vancouver Island were very inexpensive and I decided to seize the opportunity to go and visit the spheres that inspired me so long ago. My friend Barb was dying to fly again and she joined me on the adventure!
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
I don’t feel I am trying to solve a problem but I am definitely trying to bring awareness to the value of experiencing life and filling it with memorable moments and also bringing more awareness to mental health. Communities can continue to offer more outdoor places for people to explore and they can support local indoor small businesses by promoting them within their local advertising channels or through social media platforms like mine. They can also provide more programs that are sensitive to those struggling with mental health at every stage of their development. Society as a whole, well that’s a tough one. If we focus more on moments, not things I think everyone would be so much better and to remember social media represents the highlights of people’s lives as opposed to the day-to-day grind. Politicians should definitely advocate for better mental health resources. Although my daughter loved her Dr. at CAMH and had some wonderful supports introduced to her after the crisis, I really feel her help came too late. Our Mental Health Care system is very broken.
What specific strategies have you been using to promote and advance this cause? Can you recommend any good tips for people who want to follow your lead and use their social platform for a social good?
For the one-year anniversary of my daughter Kaelynns passing, I collaborated with a local company called Cineyards to host a fundraiser giveaway together for Camh. Entrants each received one free entry but could purchase additional bonus entries by making a donation to Camh. The higher the donation the more entries were received. This giveaway brought awareness to both mental health and Camh as well as financial support. I also bring up mental health from time to time keeping the conversation going which is so important!
In regards to living life to its fullest, I lead by example! I am always out discovering somewhere or something new and encouraging and hopefully inspiring people to do the same! Stay true to yourself and don’t abuse your voice!
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
1. Don’t buy followers! When I first started out and had only 800 followers I was approached by an account to purchase followers. The lowest was 500 followers for $20 and I thought “hey why not” as it would be pretty awesome to get over the 1k threshold. Well, I will tell you why not! About a month later Instagram did a flush and overnight those 500 followers were gone, deleted and my $20 was too. I heard some of the larger accounts lost 20k-50k followers overnight too! It was a valuable lesson I thankfully learned very early on. Also, as I learned more about Instagram I became informed that in the long run, fake followers affect an accounts engagement ratio which would have hurt business prospects, later on, had Instagram not wiped them from my account.
2. Be selective with choosing your handle and think about where you want to go with it in the future. When I first started my handle was Canadianqtstravelblog. My x was a trucker and at one point we talked about traveling North America trucking together. My trucker handle for the CB was going to be Canadian QT. As my brand grew it became embarrassing to call myself QT and explained the back story every time I said my Instagram handle to someone so I didn’t sound conceited lol!
3. Learn about all of the new features and use them that Instagram and other social media offer. The social media platforms want to promote their new features and give an extra push to the accounts that use them! It is a great way to grow your following.
4. Careful about who you associate yourself with. Fortunately, I don’t have a horror story but I have heard of accounts collaborating with accounts that turned out to be PR nightmares. People associate you with who you associate yourself with so be selective and protect your brand.
5. Stay true to your niche and brand, that’s what people are following you for. Over the years I have been approached to advertise many things but have declined so many as I worked hard to get my followers and they follow for the content I provide. If I were to start pushing anything and everything for a paycheck I would certainly have unfollows. For me, I only promote things that pertain to travel, local events, mental health and items I actually personally use or would actually use in my day-to-day life!
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
As ironic as this sounds, a reduced social media time per day movement. I encourage everyone to be selective on what content they are filing themselves with. Spending more time living life rather than watching what others are doing and comparing.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Beautiful things manifest from arduous journeys; rainbows are seen after the storm and EVERY grey cloud has a silver lining! I truly believe everything happens for a reason and for every situation in life no matter how bad it is you can find something positive about it or take from it. It’s all about having a positive mindset. Years ago when I was pregnant with my son, my x husband had an affair and left us to pursue that relationship. The stress of the affair caused me to have pre-eclamsia. When my body started to shut down, to save my life, the only cure was for the doctors to deliver my son early by emergency c-section at 28 weeks, weighing 2.8lbs. Despite experiencing this difficult stage of life I didn’t hold contempt or anger and believed that for whatever reason the affair and separation were meant to happen and somehow because of that there was good to be found in that story. I came to find the reason 15 years later… After my x left he had another son who was only a year and a half younger than my son. My son and him are not only brothers but best friends. The silver lining from this dark part of my life, shone brightest was when my daughter passed away during the heart of Covid. At 15 years old, my son lost his older sister and was completely socially isolated (as was most of the world), not allowed to go to school, see friends, or really go out at all. This could have become a very dark time for him however, thanks to the affair my son had a brother who he saw every other weekend which boosted his spirits and gave them both something to look forward to, a friend and brother basically his own age to hang out with.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-).
Omg that is a great question! Hmmmm…
A private breakfast or lunch with Drake who is also Toronto-based, would be pretty sweet!
I’m sad to hear Ellen’s show is ending! Would love to have been on it when I make it really big. Also, Sarah Aka @thebirdspapaya!
(If I were to put my owns thoughts aside I would choose Queen Elizabeth II for my mom and for my daughter who passed away she loved lil Xan)
How can our readers further follow your work online?
My primary platform is:
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jenzjourneys/
I also have:
My website — http://jenzjourneys.com
Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/c/JenzJourneys
Tiktok — https://www.tiktok.com/@jenzjourneys?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1
I write guest columns in local newspapers too!
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Social Media Stars Making A Social Impact: Why & How Jen Logan of Jenz Journeys Is Helping To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.