What could a collaboration with Stralend Schrijven mean for your destination or brand? Let me tell a bit more about me, my online platform Stralend Schrijven and how I collaborate with destinations and brands.

About me & how it started

My name is Sandra van Bijsterveld (you can find me here on LinkedIn) and after studying Slavonic linguistics and specializing in translation and copywriting, I started working as a freelance translator and copywriter. Tourism was one of my areas of expertise, and I provided native Dutch copy for airlines and cruiselines, for websites like Expedia and Skyscanner and for print magazines like Meridian Travel and Cruise & Style Magazine.

After doing this for over 10 years, I decided to start my own travel blog in 2013, writing about our own holidays in the Nordic countries, Central Europe and in the Netherlands. Because of our interest in the Nordic countries, I also created content about how to bring a bit of Nordic lifestyle home to The Netherlands.

Stralend Schrijven attracted more and more visitors and I started getting invited to press trips, resulting in more new travel content. In 2016, I was nominated for the Scandinavia Press Prize, organized by the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian tourist agencies in the Netherlands. I was also asked to be a juror for a major Dutch press prize, and to give presentations at travel events and a leading journalism school.

Newspapers, magazines and radio stations started asking me to comment on subjects featured on my blog, providing an extra way to promote the places I visited.

• Interview about Danish hygge for Bilderberg Hotels
• Interview about Scandinavian home decor for Nu.nl.

Since 2019, I am a fulltime travel blogger. Also, my husband Maarten has become an important part of Stralend Schrijven – mostly in the background providing photographs, videos, transport, technical support and most of all great travel company 🙂

During our camping trips, our Eriba Touring Troll ‘Rockabilly’ makes sure we always feel at home and functions as a nice eyecatcher in camping campaigns.

Niche websites

Over time, I realised that a lot of my followers were specifically interested in one of the topics on my blog. For example: they wanted to read about Sweden, but not about Croatia. This made me decide to switch from using blog categories on one big blog to splitting up my blog into the following niche sites (you can click on the logos to see the websites):

In order to target followers who are interested in a specific subject, every niche website has its own dedicated newsletter.

Social media

My websites and newsletters are my main outlets. But you can also find me on social media:

• I use Instagram during my travels;
• I share blog posts on Facebook and Pinterest;
• and I publish short videos on YouTube.

Target audience & numbers

All together, Stralend Schrijven has between 25.000-65.000 unique visitors/month (2025), around 2.500 newsletter subscribers and 8.000 social media followers. They are mostly active travellers from the Netherlands (and some from Flemish Belgium), interested in nature & culture and ranging from young adults to families with children and seniors.

Travel guides

In 2024, I was asked to transform my travel experiences into travel guides, published by Dutch publishing house Edicola. These travel guides and Nordic-themed publications are available in offline & online book stores and in libraries in The Netherlands and Belgium.

• Denmark travel guide (published in 2024)
• Nordic-themed planner for the year 2025 (published in 2024)
• Southern Finland travel guide (published in 2024)
• Finnish Lapland travel guide (published in 2025)
• Nordic-themed planner for the year 2026 (published in 2025)
• Czechia travel guide (published in 2026)

How I work with destinations and brands

In general, these are the ways I work with destinations and brands:

• Campaign creation: I create campaigns for destinations and travel companies, highlighting their offerings with a mix of website, social media and newsletter content. Other options include delivery of images, paid promotion of content and creating and promoting a free download about the destination.
• Blog trips (individual & group trips): often, a press/blog trip is the starting point of a campaign, allowing me to really get to know the destination and to promote it in an authentic way, using my own experiences and images. For examples of publications that resulted from press trips, please see the ‘Blog’ section of each destination website above or ask me for an example.
• Product reviews: I review products like travel guides, outdoor wear or Nordic food & design items. For more engagement, a giveaway can be linked to these reviews.
• Affiliate marketing: I am happy to do affiliate promotions that match my audience.
• Sponsored placement: would you like to be included in a blog post or page that is relevant to what you offer? Contact me to discuss the options.
• Content creation for other platforms: do you want me to create content for a different media outlet than Stralend Schrijven (for example, your own website or print magazine)? As an experienced copywriter and travel content creator, there are various services I offer. Let me know what you need and I will be happy to provide you with a quote. Examples of content I wrote for others to publish on their websites are this article about Finnish Lapland for Voigt Travel, this article about Jutland (Denmark) for Buro Scanbrit and this article about Ruka (Finnish Lapland) for Nordic.
• Travel-related translations: as an experienced professional translator and travel enthousiast, I would be happy to provide you with English or German to Dutch translations related to travel. Here is an example of a translation I did for Finnlines.
• Photography: I am not a professional photographer, but it is possible to acquire the right to use my photos.

And of course, if you have a different idea on how we could work together, I would be happy to hear from you at info [at] stralendschrijven.nl.

I don’t publish guest posts and I don’t do link swaps.

Previous collaborations

In the past, I have collaborated with destinations and brands such as:

• Travel to Northern Europe: Visit Sweden, Visit Dalarna, Visit Malmö, Visit Umeå, Visit Sälenfjäll, SCR Swedish Camping, Visit Denmark, Visit Aarhus Regionen, Visit Vadehavskysten, Visit Middelfart, Visit Fyn, Destination Sydkyst Danmark, Visit Norway, Visit Bergen, Destination Trysil, Lofoten.info, My Helsinki, Visit Espoo, Visit Tampere, Visit Levi, Visit Ylläs, Visit Oulu, Voigt Travel, BBI Travel, Nordic, StenaLine, Viking Line, Finnlines, Feriepartner Danmark, Landal Greenparks (Denmark), Dock C Cruisepartners (HAL cruise to Norway), Danibo, Visit Jakobstad, Visit Kokkola, Visit Vaasa, Visit Kimitoön, Visit Lahti
• Travel to Central/Eastern Europe: Visit Czech Republic, Go To Brno, Visit Pilsen, Central Bohemia, Gate to Bohemia, Landal Greenparks (Czechia), Polish Tourism Organisation, POZnan Travel, Croatia Full of Life, Visit Split, Visit Hungary, Experience Serbia, I feel Slovenia, Latvia Travel, Live Riga, European Sleeper
• Travel within The Netherlands: Visit Utrecht Region, Beleef Woerden, Toerisme Veluwe Arnhem Nijmegen, Laag Holland, Visit Noord-Limburg, Visit Zuid-Limburg, VVV Texel, Berg & Dal, Het Andere Friesland, Vechtdal Overijssel, Geldersch Landschap en Kastelen, Visit Flevoland, Visit Brabant, Keukenhof, Corpus, Citizen M Rotterdam, SS Rotterdam, Landal Greenparks
• Nordic lifestyle: Scandinavian Outdoor Academy, Fjällräven, Ilse Jacobsen, Revolution Race, Urtekram, Estrid, A&C Oslo, Organic Basics, Stronger, Scandinavische Woonwinkel, Jotex, Moose Färg, Danish Design, AW Bruna, Spectrum, Carrera Culinair, Lumière/myLum, September Film, Noordelijk Film Festival, Nordstil, Fikat, Northern Delight, Gammal & Ny, De Witte Eland, Studio Kvinna, Hairlust, MARIA ÅKERBERG

Why work with Stralend Schrijven?

Some reasons why working with Stralend Schrijven might be interesting for you:

• Specific target audience: content is published on the relevant niche site and reaches a specific target audience. This increases the chance of readers actually booking or buying (compared to a more general blog or website).
• Broad age group: readers are families with children and teenagers, but also seniors who have more time to travel.
• I am more than happy to give you an indication of what I will be publishing in advance, so you know what to expect. (Interested in this? Contact me via info [at] stralendschrijven.nl.)
• Publications do well in Google and are found by people who are looking for inspiration and information online. Most of my traffic by far comes from organic searches. Contrary to channels like Instagram of Facebook, this creates a long term effect: publications are being found and read for months and years after being published. Traffic often even increases over time.

Terms & conditions

Full transparency: these are my terms & conditions for collaborations.

• What I publish is my honest and personal experience, focusing on positive experiences.
• I own the copyright of all text and images I create. Sharing my posts on social media is great, but if you would like to use my text and/or images for your own content, please contact me in advance.
• I always disclose collaborations at the bottom of my publications.
• Links inserted in exchange for a fee, commission, trip or product are marked as rel=sponsored. (Readers won’t see this and the links work as usual. It just lets Google know I was somehow compensated – which Google requires.)
• Publications may contain affiliate links. Again, these links work as usual, they just register that the person who clicked came from my website, so I can get a commission if they buy/book something. This compensation for my work makes it possible for me to be a fulltime blogger.
• As the owner of my websites I can update and edit the content after its publication. In some cases it may even be necessary to delete content after a while, for example if an accommodation ceases to exist. But I always aim to create content that will remain online as long as relevant and guarantee that collab publications will stay online for at least a year.

Ideas? Questions? Let me know!

Would you like me to promote your destination or brand? I would be happy to create a proposal of what we could do. Or maybe you have a proposal yourself – please let me know! You can reach me at:

• info [at] stralendschrijven.nl
• LinkedIn
• Instagram