My Internship at Spotted by Locals

My name is Kai Chen and I am 20 years old. Currently, I am in my second year of Arts and Culture Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, but I am originally from a very small town in Germany close to Cologne. As a compulsory part of my Bachelor’s program, I had to do an internship within the cultural sector. Due to my part-time Board position in my faculty association, I was looking for an internship that allowed me to be flexible and to work remotely. Combined with my passion for social media and traveling, I was very happy to find the internship opportunity at Spotted by Locals, which just seemed to tick all the boxes.

At first, I was a little bit nervous to start the internship, given the extraordinary times that we are in right now. There was a lot of uncertainty in my head on how it would be to work in a company that focuses on traveling during a global pandemic. Nevertheless, there have been many interesting and diverse tasks, regardless of the situation, that I was able to work on during the past three months. One of my main responsibilities was the editing and creation of content for the main blog. This was not only a very fun and creative task but also a very fruitful one. Previously, I did not know how difficult it is to write for a company that requires you to adjust your own writing style. However, with Bart’s guidance and patience, I was able to acquire a lot of knowledge and was able to improve my writing skills. I have also done communication and PR related tasks, in which I have contacted several companies and bloggers that have led to new contacts and mutual promotion. Additionally, managing the social media channels was another very insightful experience as I was able to dig deeper into analytics and interactions, which have helped me to broaden my horizon and look beyond the surface of just the content.

An aspect that I loved about this internship is that Bart (co-founder) is always open to new ideas. As an intern, I had a lot of freedom and was encouraged to be creative and come up with my own ideas for new projects. If you are following Spotted by Locals on Instagram, chances are that you’ve seen some of the story templates which I have designed. Flexibility is also a very beneficial aspect of this internship, as I was able to work from anywhere in the world (as long as there is a good Wi-Fi connection). Granted, it can be challenging to structure your own work, but this has definitely helped me to improve my time management and organizational skills.

It has been a wonderful and valuable experience at Spotted by Locals and I am incredibly grateful to have been given this opportunity. I would recommend this internship to anyone who is looking for a new challenge and is curious to learn more about traveling, social media, PR, and writing. Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions regarding the internship!

Interested in being an intern at Spotted by Locals? Contact co-founder Bart at bart@spottedbylocals.com