Tom Calahan, The Blogger Turned UHNW Travel Agent

03.05.2024 - 13:43 / forbes.com

Tom Calahan started blogging about luxury travel in 2106 after starting a successful software company. After his blog became a cult hit, he and his wife Lucie went on to found Dorsia Travel

Let’s start with the blog. Why did you set it up? I’d founded a software company in my teens and started earning good money pretty quickly so I could afford to stay in nice places. I set the blog up back in 2016. The Good, The Bad And The Luxurious was just a hobby at first and nobody knew anything about me so I enjoyed being brutally honest.Then I started to gain a following perhaps because there were so few platforms back then where the reviewer was remaining totally anonymous and paying their own way.

You always paid for your stays.

I’m glad I’m not beholden to anyone. I don’t want to write mean things for no good reason, but people pay lots of money to stay in these hotels so sharing honest feedback with readers and Dorsia Travel’s clients are always my priority. It isn’t always the done thing in Britain, where Dorsia Travel is based, to be so upfront with negative feedback. But people’s holidays are major investments and they need to be properly informed. I wrote about a number of my main hotel bugbears recently, and things guaranteed to annoy me include a charge for water or overly fussy staff who check up on you every three to four minutes.

Your reviews became cult reading for their trenchant opinions. How did hotels react?

I’ve only been banned from one hotel - a few years back I stayed at Sirai Beach in Kenya and loved it but I highlighted a few things I felt could be improved. When I wanted to stay in its sister property Sirai House I learned the owners didn’t want me to stay as they didn’t want to see anything critical about that property - one of their homes - on the internet. Given they had decided to commercialize these residences I thought their inability to accept criticism from paying customers was a bit pathetic, but ultimately I don’t mind if people are unhappy with my reviews as they’re always fair and honest. I thought Italy’s Il Pellicano was hideous even though lots of people revere it. And I hated every single thing about Nairobi’s Giraffe Manor but it is completely booked out so I can’t imagine they’re concerned about my review.

Now you have a wife and young family, how has that affected your travel?

Since Lucie and I had our two daughters, aged one and three, holidays are a lot louder but it has really broadened our focus at Dorsia Travel. We always dealt with families, but now we’re even more attuned to parents’ needs because we know firsthand just how cautious you need to be when you’ve got little accident-magnets roaming around a property. We’re also much more likely to