Today we’d like to introduce you to Rob Taylor.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started 2TravelDads.com eight years ago with the birth of our second son. I knew I wasn’t going back to the traditional workplace and also that I needed a creative outlet. Boom! Started a blog as a distraction from diapers and realized that there was a huge gap in stories and representation of families like ours. I started by writing about camping and just sharing observations of what it’s like to be a 2-dad family in a rural place and traveling, but then destinations and news outlets wanted us to share also. In less than a year, 2TravelDads became a full-time job for me, and since then, it’s taken our family around the world. Today, the kids help us make decisions about our travels and the blog jobs we take, and they help steer our family adventures.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Running your own business is never strictly smooth sailing. Even though we have lots of opportunities to go to fascinating places and work with really incredible clients and destinations, there have been intense times. The internet is full of trolls, and putting yourself out there to the public can really be painful, including being open to direct threats and harassment. Putting that aside though, the bumps of growing a business have been primarily in terms of balancing family needs with exponential growth. It’s been difficult from the start to make thoughtful decisions about everything from the appropriate amount of family time involved in work to whether or not to homeschool the kids. Also, since 2TravelDads.com has been My career, it’s always been complex making sure that my husband can be a part of nearly everything even though he has his own career. That’s been one of the biggest challenges and continues to be, as scheduling and downtime are two elements we’re still not great at managing.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a writer, publisher, photographer, and (I hate the term) influencer. Specializing in written and produced travel content, I focus on sharing the best of what we find in our travels. If you read my work, you usually don’t find the downsides of the world but the places and experiences that shine. I’m careful about accepting projects and planning trips that will be bringing the most memorable adventures that I’ll be excited to create content about. Being choosy and doing research is at the heart of finding the right ventures to pursue, whether that be client projects or driving our own production plan. When I write something or build out a content plan for a client, it’s all about how to find the good in things and sets realistic expectations for the reader/consumer. You know it’s going to have a take from the view of a gay dad, an avid outdoorsman, a concerned parent, and a human that cares about other humans. I love that the jobs I get to work on are all about authenticity and actively taking part in life.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
What I love about Orlando and the whole area surrounding it is the presence of nature. I love that you can be downtown and then, in ten minutes, be paddling through perfectly still, cypress-filled waters. It’s amazing that even the major tourist attractions of Orlando make you feel worlds away from the city. What I Don’t love about Central Florida is how far behind the rest of the USA it is in terms of the environment. I’m always astounded by the amount of trash any given dining or active experience might produce. While Orlando itself is getting better about waste and plastics and Styrofoam and… it’s still 10+ years behind west coast cities or even rural Northeast towns. We can do better.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://2traveldads.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/2traveldads
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/2traveldads
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/2traveldads
- Other: https://paddleyourstate.com
