Daddy, Keep Looking: From Mascots to Markets, Travel Moves from Brochures to Social

Travel has at all times been about escape — typically out of your 4 partitions earlier than a renovation, typically from a nagging boss, typically from your self. But right now, greater than ever, journey can be about inspiration. And inspiration is social.

Nowhere was that clearer than at Kreatorverse 2025 — half hackathon, half carnival, the place lemon bears, toy hunts, and a jungle of devices with personalities proved journey isn’t simply the place you go, however who’s scrolling with you.

Just ask Levin. Better identified on-line as @levinsonline, he’s a artistic chameleon: DJ, youngsters’s e-book writer, podcaster, entrepreneurial chef, and now, skilled toy collector. To his followers, he’s the “Gacha King” and “Sanrio Dad” — with over half one million followers on TikTook and thousands and thousands of likes for his joyful unboxings and toy-hunting adventures.

In Hiroshima, after hugging town’s official mascot, he messaged the household group chat: “The specialty here is lemons. So everything is lemon-flavoured! And the mascot is a giant lemon bear who smells like lemons!”

What adopted was basic Levin household banter — his daughter, Tilly, instantly added a brand new mission to his ever-growing toy-hunting record: “Bear that smells like lemons.”

And when she capped it off with “KEEP LOOKING!!!!!” the search wasn’t simply his anymore — it turned a household mission.

Cue a brand new quest — lemon-scented toys. Ridiculous? Maybe. Relatable? Absolutely.

Because journey isn’t nearly ticking temples and towers off an inventory — it’s about discovering the odd, the playful, the non-public story that connects. Levin doesn’t simply gather toys — he collects pleasure. The type of pleasure that smells like fluffy bears and childhood recollections. And with Tilly cheering him on, that pleasure spilled past their chat, turning right into a story his followers might take part too.

The Soul Behind the Scroll

On a street journey with fellow Kreators, I requested: “Who’s your idol creator? Who do you hope to meet one day?” The reply was telling: “No one in particular — we’re all different, with our own quirks and fans.”

That’s the purpose. In social journey, there isn’t one celebrity who dominates. There are hundreds of micro-worlds orbiting round personalities, passions, and peculiarities.

Take Marilyn Chew and JS (@shrugmyshoulder), a Singaporean digital nomad couple I met throughout Kreatorverse. After securing a flat in Singapore again in 2020 (solely due for completion in 2025), they figured renting — and ready by way of renovations — wasn’t well worth the squeeze. So they turned that cash (and time) into boarding passes, pouring their financial savings right into a round-the-world journey.

They advised me: “Our followers do follow us on social, but it’s hard for them to scroll through everything and keep track of the experiences we’ve shared. With our Kreator Shop, it’s simple — one page with all our recommendations and deals in one place, making it easy for them to support our passion.”

In the scroll-to-shop age, feeds are limitless. Nobody desires to dig for that one publish like discovering the fitting gate in a crowded airport. Kreator Shop is your signboard — clear, direct, every thing in a single web page.

Long-form Meets Short-form

Not each creator comes from TikTok-land. For one couple from the UK I met — Jay and Karolina (@jayandkarolina on YouTube) — the story is simply as daring. Kreatorverse was their first publicity to the frenetic, blink-fast tempo of short-form content material. Their roots, nonetheless, had been firmly planted in YouTube — long-form, slow-burn storytelling the place a story unfolds over minutes, not seconds.

“Seeing how short-form shapes travel content in Asia is such a fun journey for us,” they advised me.

And it’s. Because the way forward for journey media isn’t both/or. Long-form provides depth, context, and permanence. Short-form creates sparks, virality, and urgency. Together, they full the loop.

When Travel Becomes Work (and Work Becomes Travel)

Jax Reyes — topped Kreator of the Year for the second 12 months working — introduced the home down with a mirrored image that hit on the coronary heart of what it means to be a creator right now: “It’s not always about the money. We should not see our followers as mere people who like our video or click our links. They are people who support our passion.”

He reminded everybody to create content material that’s beneficial, truthful, and genuine. And, most significantly, to relaxation. “Sometimes when we travel we forget that we are also human… it’s okay for us to rest at times. It’s okay to enjoy that hotel, that buffet, and breathe in the fresh air of a new place.”

Because within the rush to shoot, edit, and add, it’s straightforward to neglect the purpose of all of it: journey as a job is actual, however it mustn’t erase journey as pleasure.

Humans > AI Avatars (For Now)

I requested Marcus Yong, Klook’s Vice President of Global Marketing, whether or not AI influencers had a future. “Yes, we tested them. And no, they didn’t do as well as humans,” he mentioned. “Virtual creators don’t have the soul, they don’t have the story. Humans have the emotions, the flaws, the stories behind them.”

Perfection doesn’t promote. Flaws do. And within the age of AI, that messy, human spark continues to be what makes folks cease scrolling.

If AI ever changed a human kreator, that is the knock-off you’d get. For Now.

Travel’s New Value Chain

What Kreatorverse reveals is greater than toy hunts or trending dances. It’s that social is now not simply leisure. It’s discovery, distribution, and demand era rolled into one.

• Fans comply with quirks: toys, Japanese lacquer artwork, samurai lore, tea ceremonies
• Social drives commerce: uncover → take into account → buy → share → repeat
• Creators make cities related: from Hiroshima’s peace parks to hidden alleys in secondary cities.

The way forward for journey shouldn’t be about whether or not it’s social. It already is. The actual query is: how do creators make it purposeful, genuine, and sustainable?

Passion, Platform, Profession

At the top of the day, journey has at all times been greater than an escape — it’s the bridge the place creativity carries ardour into occupation.

• For some, it’s about sharing offers that make journey extra accessible — opening doorways to take their followers to locations from creativeness to actuality with the very best offers.
  
• For others, it’s about telling tales that reframe a metropolis’s soul.
  
• And for a lot of, like Jax reminded us, it’s about remembering that behind each edit, each add, and each “link in bio” — there’s nonetheless a human being, suitcase in hand, looking for that means within the miles.
  

And typically, journey is so simple as a dad chasing lemon-scented bears as a result of his daughter advised him, “Keep looking.”

So sure, it has created one other lifeline and right now it pays in likes and hyperlinks. But it’s additionally nonetheless the oldest human behavior: to maneuver, to share, to encourage. Only now, the world is watching in 9:16.