Travel has always been about escape — sometimes from your four walls before a renovation, sometimes from a nagging boss, sometimes from yourself. But today, more than ever, travel is also about inspiration. And inspiration is social.
Nowhere was that clearer than at Klook Kreatorverse 2025 — part hackathon, part carnival, where lemon bears, toy hunts, and a jungle of gadgets with personalities proved travel isn’t just where you go, but who’s scrolling with you.
Just ask Andrew Levins. Better known online as @levinsonline, he’s a creative chameleon: DJ, children’s book author, podcaster, entrepreneurial chef, and now, professional toy collector. To his fans, he’s the “Gacha King” and “Sanrio Dad” — with over half a million followers on TikTok and millions of likes for his joyful unboxings and toy-hunting adventures.
In Hiroshima, after hugging the city’s official mascot, he messaged the family 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 followed was classic Levins family banter — his daughter, Tilly, immediately added a new mission to his ever-growing toy-hunting list: “Bear that smells like lemons.”
And when she capped it off with “KEEP LOOKING!!!!!” the quest wasn’t just his anymore — it became a family mission.
Cue a new quest — lemon-scented toys. Ridiculous? Maybe. Relatable? Absolutely.
Because travel isn’t just about ticking temples and towers off a list — it’s about finding the odd, the playful, the personal story that connects. Levins doesn’t just collect toys — he collects joy. The kind of joy that smells like fluffy bears and childhood memories. And with Tilly cheering him on, that joy spilled beyond their chat, turning into a story his followers could join in too.
The Soul Behind the Scroll
On a road trip with fellow Kreators, I asked: “Who’s your idol creator? Who do you hope to meet one day?” The answer was telling: “No one in particular — we’re all different, with our own quirks and fans.”
That’s the point. In social travel, there isn’t one superstar who dominates. There are thousands of micro-worlds orbiting around personalities, passions, and peculiarities.
Take Marilyn Chew and JS (@shrugmyshoulder), a Singaporean digital nomad couple I met during Kreatorverse. After securing a flat in Singapore back in 2020 (only due for completion in 2025), they figured renting — and waiting through renovations — wasn’t worth the squeeze. So they turned that money (and time) into boarding passes, pouring their savings into a round-the-world adventure.
They told 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 endless. Nobody wants to dig for that one post like finding the right gate in a crowded airport. Kreator Shop is your signboard — clear, direct, everything in one page.
Long-form Meets Short-form
Not every creator comes from TikTok-land. For one couple from the UK I met — Jay and Karolina (@jayandkarolina on YouTube) — the story is just as bold. Kreatorverse was their first exposure to the frenetic, blink-fast pace of short-form content. Their roots, however, were firmly planted in YouTube — long-form, slow-burn storytelling where a narrative unfolds over minutes, not seconds.
“Seeing how short-form shapes travel content in Asia is such a fun journey for us,” they told me.
And it is. Because the future of travel media isn’t either/or. Long-form gives depth, context, and permanence. Short-form creates sparks, virality, and urgency. Together, they complete the loop.
When Travel Becomes Work (and Work Becomes Travel)
Jax Reyes — crowned Kreator of the Year for the second year running — brought the house down with a reflection that hit at the heart of what it means to be a creator today: “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 everyone to create content that is valuable, truthful, and authentic. And, most importantly, to rest. “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 in the rush to shoot, edit, and upload, it’s easy to forget the point of it all: travel as a job is real, but it mustn’t erase travel as joy.
Humans > AI Avatars (For Now)
I asked Marcus Yong, Klook’s Vice President of Global Marketing, whether AI influencers had a future. “Yes, we tested them. And no, they didn’t do as well as humans,” he said. “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 sell. Flaws do. And in the age of AI, that messy, human spark is still what makes people stop scrolling.
If AI ever replaced a human kreator, this is the knock-off you’d get. For Now.
Travel’s New Value Chain
What Kreatorverse reveals is bigger than toy hunts or trending dances. It’s that social is no longer just entertainment. It’s discovery, distribution, and demand generation rolled into one.
- Fans follow quirks: toys, Japanese lacquer art, samurai lore, tea ceremonies
- Social drives commerce: discover → consider → purchase → share → repeat
- Creators make cities relevant: from Hiroshima’s peace parks to hidden alleys in secondary towns.
The future of travel is not about whether it’s social. It already is. The real question is: how do creators make it purposeful, authentic, and sustainable?
Passion, Platform, Profession
At the end of the day, travel has always been more than an escape — it’s the bridge where creativity carries passion into profession.
- For some, it’s about sharing deals that make travel more accessible — opening doors to take their followers to places from imagination to reality with the best deals.
- For others, it’s about telling stories that reframe a city’s soul.
- And for many, like Jax reminded us, it’s about remembering that behind every edit, every upload, and every “link in bio” — there’s still a human being, suitcase in hand, trying to find meaning in the miles.
And sometimes, travel is as simple as a dad chasing lemon-scented bears because his daughter told him, “Keep looking.”
So yes, it has created another lifeline and today it pays in likes and links. But it’s also still the oldest human habit: to move, to share, to inspire. Only now, the world is watching in 9:16.
