Syracuse native prioritizes local business, community through travel blog

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When Danielle Benjamin moved to Australia to generate her master’s degree in 2010, she essential a way to retain her spouse and children and buddies up-to-date on her travels. Alternatively of a substantial group chat or prolonged email thread, Benjamin started a site.

Right after she finished her degree and returned to the U.S., Benjamin began doing the job at Syracuse College in global instruction. Her pupils usually came to SU from important intercontinental metropolitan areas, and commenced out wondering that there was absolutely nothing to do in the campus spot. But Benjamin, a Syracuse native, desired to repair that misunderstanding. In buy to establish her network of neighborhood things to do, occasions and issues to do, Benjamin returned to blogging.

“Don’t say there is nothing at all to do,” Benjamin reported. “There’s so substantially to do in the spot, and no subject what you like, you can constantly uncover a little something.”

Benjamin’s web site, Wandercuse, focuses on vacation, food stuff and actions in the central and upstate New York areas, with a unique emphasis on Syracuse. With Wandercuse, Benjamin attempts to share her passion for regional activities and businesses with her audience.

Various years in the past, Benjamin resolved to convert Wandercuse into a business enterprise. Because the starting of the COVID-19 pandemic, Benjamin has transitioned to getting self-employed, performing on equally her website and on freelance producing and social media work.

“Part of the motive I needed to transform it into a organization is I discovered out how substantially I really like to do it,” Benjamin reported. “I like sharing tales. I appreciate learning extra about the neighborhood history. I appreciate attempting new places, assembly new men and women and sharing the stories, both regionally and I will occasionally throw in items that are not in Syracuse.”

The blog’s concentrate on the central New York area arrived collectively in a natural way, Benjamin mentioned. Throughout the pandemic, she preferred to display that there have been outside things to do folks could engage in locally. She noticed her nearby posts been given additional engagement and bought content strategies from regional tourism boards.

When Benjamin travels both of those domestically and internationally, she’ll usually write website posts and vacation guides about her places. Ultimately, though, her favorite content material centers on community tourism.

“I’m super passionate about upstate New York, as silly as that could seem,” Benjamin reported. “But I really like where by I’m from, and I believe there’s so a lot to do about there that folks do not always comprehend.”

However Benjamin earns cash by affiliate money, advertisement income and sponsored posts with her website, she wished a income stream that gave her far more manage and involvement. That goal led her to create the Wandercuse Passport — a plastic $20 “punchcard” that presents one-time discounted codes at 18 community organizations and pursuits during the 2023 calendar calendar year.

Benjamin hoped that the passport, which functions a selection of destinations from a chocolate shop to the Erie Canal Museum, would aid to advertise and travel interaction with regional organizations. When she established out to create the program, she’d already founded interactions with numerous community organization homeowners by way of blog site articles she’d beforehand designed. Each organizations she had and hadn’t worked with had been keen to get involved and saw how mutually useful it could be, she reported.

Following the success of her Syracuse-primarily based blog site Wandercuse, Danielle Benjamin developed the Wandercuse passport. The card delivers 1-time discounted codes for area firms and actions for the duration of 2023. Meghan Hendricks | Picture Editor

When Benjamin 1st approached Sarah Simiele, proprietor of local cheese shop The Curd Nerd, Simiele realized she wished to get associated with the passport. Due to the fact joining, Simiele’s seen new buyers coming in simply because of the passport card. Carissa Monahan, co-proprietor and operator of nearby craft beer retail store Branching Out Bottle Shop, shared Simiele’s exhilaration for how the task could assist area firms,

“After opening a smaller enterprise, it has truly been clear how several little businesses there are, but how usually they get overshadowed by more substantial companies,” Monahan claimed.

The passport gains much more than just nearby enterprises and Benjamin’s web site. With each buy of the card, Benjamin donates 10% of the revenue to the American Foundation for Suicide Avoidance.

Benjamin has big plans for the future of the passport. She’s internet hosting a start bash in early Might, and is presently performing on specific price reduction offers for cardholders so the passport continues to interact the community even following a man or woman has utilised all the special discounts. Benjamin hopes to go on supplying a new Wandercuse passport every single year.

“I really think the greatest way to produce a organization group that you want to be a element of is just to assist a increasing business enterprise group,” Simiele mentioned. “None of us in Syracuse, as tiny corporations, are carrying out very well if any of us are not performing very well.”

Revealed on April 13, 2023 at 12:06 am

Make contact with Abby: [email protected] | @abbyvp08