Thank you for your interest in working with Sand In My Suitcase…

Who are we?

We’re Janice and George Mucalov, once practising lawyers, now award-winning travel writers and bloggers.

We started writing travel articles for print magazines and newspapers – and we still contribute many articles each year to leading consumer and travel industry publications in the U.S. and Canada, like Islands.com, TravelAge West, NUVO.com, Cruise & Travel Lifestyles, Taste of Life, North Shore News and Interval World.

Our luxury adventure travel blog, Sand In My Suitcase (launched in 2012), is another important online venue for sharing our travel stories with the world.

What makes our blog unique

We know the power of the written word, and we craft our posts with care. Posts are well-researched and detailed – often 1,000 to 1,500 words or more in length. We spend time on the quality of writing. Most readers may initially find us via Google. But we like to think they return as much for the beauty of our travel stories as for the practical content we provide.

Our readers

Sand In My Suitcase appeals to well-traveled and intellectually curious travel lovers. We write for the 40+ reader who likes to spice up their luxury trips with a little adventurous fun – and who enjoys a good travel tale.

About Sand In My Suitcase

Our niche is luxury travel with a twist of adventure (and we have a penchant for expedition, river and small-ship cruising). Our posts focus on hotel reviews, cruise stories, good food (with wine, of course!), bespoke tours and soft adventure – everything from river cruising in Myanmar and palace-hopping in France to walking safaris in Zambia and exploring the waterways of our own home city by pickle boat.

We also take many of the photos that illustrate our posts. Readers often comment that the photos are beautiful (and we’re always delighted when magazines publish our travel photos).

Readers can find excerpts and stories adapted from our magazine and newspaper travel articles, as well as travel posts written just for this site.

Sand In My Suitcase is a recognized award-winning travel blog. We offer a unique skill set to hoteliers, destinations, cruise lines and other brands interested in reaching an engaged target audience of luxury adventure travel enthusiasts.

“Best travel blog” and other honors

Sand In my Suitcase won “1st Place” for “Best Travel Blog” in the 2017 Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), Canadian chapter awards.

We also won “Best Blog Post” (3rd Place) in the 2018 SATW (Canadian chapter) awards for our Costa Rica post: Oh My! See Snakes, Sloths and Spiders at Arenal Hanging Bridges. Oh, and we have to mention that our site took home the Silver award for “Best Travel Blog” in the 2015 North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) annual competition. One last plug! Sand In My Suitcase is one of the “Top 100 Couple Travel Blogs” too.

Shameless self-promotion: See all our travel writing and blogging awards here.

Blog stats

Average monthly unique visitors (UV):  10,000+

Social media reach

Added bonus: We promote all posts on our social media channels.

We have an additional 23,500+ social media followers, mostly through Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram – and, since we’re choosy about who we follow, we don’t follow everyone back. We’re not travel “influencers” in the big world of social media marketing, but we have some (and real) influence :-).

Many posts have been viewed and re-shared on social media thousands of times – like our posts on the nine best luxury hotels in Bali and the Flam Railway (one of the world’s most beautiful train rides).

Readers rely on our blog to help make their travel decisions

There are the holiday-goers who ask us which Pueblo Bonito resort in Cabo to book, the frequent fliers keen to know whether they should fly on EVA Air (this post consistently ranks #5 or #6 on Google searches for “Eva Air review”), the cruisers interested in the world’s best new cruise ship, the groom who booked a particular honeymoon safari lodge in South Africa after reading our review (corresponding with us further by email), and so on… Read the comments on these posts, and you’ll get an idea.

How we can work with you

  • Blog content covering trip reports and reviews (sometimes magazine/newspaper coverage too)
  • Sponsored posts
  • Advertising
  • Social media promotion

Travel writing ethics

We’re both members of the Travel Media Association of Canada. Janice is also a member of the Society of American Travel Writers and the North American Travel Journalists Association. We never agree to write positive stories in exchange for a hosted travel experience. Sponsored content includes a disclosure notice.

Get in touch…

If you’d like more information or wish to work with us, let’s talk! Please see our Disclosure policy and contact us.