L - R: Our guide from Cape Sidecar Adventures, Sue Watt (Freelancer for TTG Luxury), Amie Keeley (Aspire by Travel Weekly), Claudia Joseph (Freelancer for Daily Mail), Heather Richardson (Freelancer for Tatler), Ana Candido (SA Tourism UK), Phoebe Smith (Freelancer for Wanderlust) and our tour guide Gabriella.

Some of the coverage that resulted from a hosted press trip to South Africa - valued at well over £300k.

Mail on Sunday

Read full feature here

Published 27 April 2019 on South Africa’s 25th Freedom Day. The double page spread by Claudia Joseph focussed on The Blue Train with a lead in package by Carrier including MORE Quarters in Cape Town, The Blue Train to Pretoria, a safari at Royal Madikwe and a stay at The Saxon in Johannesburg.

Circulation 1.2 million with over 24 million digital readers and over 15 million Facebook followers.

Tatler

Read full feature here.

Heather Richardson did a wonderful piece on The Blue Train for Tatler online in March 2019.

Tatler has a brand footprint of 1.3+ million readers a month across print, tablet, mobile, online and social media - with 97% of their readers considering themselves luxury travellers who take 7 trips abroad every year.

Sunday Times Travel

Read Blue Train feature here
Read Royal Madikwe here

The Dec 2019 issue featured a 2-page feature on The Blue Train.

There was also a separate feature including Royal Madikwe with accompanying photo.

It was part of a 25-page Total Guide to South Africa. This was an extra commission.

Circulation 69,207.
Sadly the magazine is no longer in print.

Telegraph
1000 Dream Trips

Read the full feature here

Sue Watt contributed to a feature called “1000 Dream Trips” in The Telegraph.

The Blue Train was listed as Dream Rail Journey.

Fifty-Five trains were included of which 22 were long haul.

TTG Luxury

Read full feature here

Sue Watt did a double page feature for TTG Luxury aimed at 900+ high end travel agents.

Her feature “Game Changing” ran in the summer 2019 issue and has been nominated for a Travel Media Award for “Trade Feature of the Year”! Fingers crossed for 25 January. Cudos indeed for her first-ever trade feature!

She also did a separate review for TTG Luxury on SAA’s Business Class.

Unforgettable Journeys Book

Sue Watt contributed a 4-page feature on The Blue Train to the DK Eyewitness’ Coffee table book titled “Unforgettable Journeys”., which was published in October 2020. Available now on Amazon and other outlets.

Aspire Magazine

Read full Blue Train feature here.
Read full review of Royal Madikwe

Amie Keeley wrote a beautiful 6-page Blue Train feature titled “Golden Age of Travel” plus a 1 page safari review in Travel Weekly’s Aspire magazine for the December 2019 issue.

It goes to over 9000 luxury travel agents in the UK.

Amie recently won “Trade Staff Writer of the Year” at the 2020 TravMedia Awards.

Wanderlust

Read full feature here

Phoebe Smith’s Wander Woman blog for Wanderlust online gets over 500,000 unique user visits per month. She did a fantastic job capturing both The Blue Train and Royal Madikwe with great photos too.

Phoebe also did a couple of incredible podcasts. (See Wild Waters and Off The Rails)

Wanderlust is the UK’s leading travel brand with a reach of over 700,000 unique users/month.

Phoebe was voted AITO’s “Travel Blogger of the Year 2019” and was a finalist for TravMedia’s 2020 “Freelance Writer of the Year”. She is also a finalist for the upcoming 2020 Travel Media Awards for her Wander Woman podcast in the “Broadcast Programme of the Year” category.

CALM Sleep Story

Phoebe Smith writes soothing sleep travel stories for adults for the CALM app. Her sleep stories are very popular with some getting over 2 million listens. Her Blue Train/South Africa sleep story went live in August 2019 and is narrated by Erik Braa.

Here Phoebe explains about the concept.

Calm was Apple’s app of the year in 2018 and is said to be worth $250 million. You can enjoy a 7-day free trial of Calm if you want to listen.

Selling Travel

Read full feature online here (page 80)

Phoebe Smith also managed to secure an extra commission to do a full 3-page article on South Africa and slow travel for the July/August 2019 issue of Selling Travel magazine.