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  • About me
  • Content creation services
    • Brand partnerships and advertising
    • User generated content
    • Social media management
    • Words for your website
  • My travel blogs
  • thoughts on blogging
  • Contact

Hi! I’m Claire Hall, a copywriter and digital content creator ready to help boost your profile online

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My recent travels

tinboxtraveller

Mid-life mum sharing adventures big ✈️ & small 🌱, places I 💚 & unpolished moments
I’m also @omanwanderlustcom @devonwithkids @travinfluence More👇

This week I called out an AI ‘creator’ and also go This week I called out an AI ‘creator’ and also got accused of being a bot myself. You couldn’t make it up! 🤣 

Hi! I’m Claire, a 46-year-old mum of two who has been blogging for nearly 15 years. It’s been a wild ride with more plot twists than The Sheep Detectives. 

What began as a little project to keep me writing after redundancy grew into an award-winning travel blog. Thanks to the community I grew around it, my family and I were invited on trips across the UK and into Europe. I was even asked onboard cruises and spoke about my family’s adventures at the NEC. 

They were good and hectic times with two small kids, me back in a part-time PR job and my military husband away for months at a time. I turned down more opportunities than I was offered. But by 2018 there were enough paid campaigns around for me to hand in my notice and go fully self-employed.

Roll forward a decade and paid gigs for website bloggers dried up. Marketing budgets moved to Instagram, YouTube and TikTok content creators. Luckily, people were still searching Google for answers to their travel questions, and independent blogs like mine could stay profitable thanks to advertising, affiliate partnerships and selling products.

Then came wave after wave of Google updates. This hit a lot of blogs hard as their posts dropped down search results - fewer eyeballs meant lost income. My blogs fared better, possibly because I’ve always majored in personal experiences, which Google said it loved. But the blogging industry was rattled.

For those of us still in the game, the current challenge is the AI juggernaut. It’s not just ploughing through human-made content, it’s circling back and feasting on the roadkill.

And while Claude, Chat and Gemini take the credit for helping people craft holiday itineraries, the real people behind the data they’ve sifted are wondering why they bother.

I vented about this earlier in the week after coming across yet another travel website that had been fully Al-generated. Thankfully, it doesn’t take a supersleuth to spot this kind of slop…yet. 

Continued in comments because I’ve not got time to design the carousel today…
The way some people use AI-generated content like The way some people use AI-generated content like it has no consequences gives me the ick.

Don’t let it distract you from real voices and real creativity. The more slop consumed the fewer bloggers, creators, photographers there will be to share real places and experiences. 

If you want to protect originally and human creativity, do these things today: 

✅ Visit genuine creator websites - they aren’t afraid to share their faces

✅ Like their social media posts

✅ Recommend them to your friends 

✅ Sign up to their newsletters

✅ Don’t engage with AI content 

Where do you stand on AI-generated content?
Oman is an oasis of calm in an ongoing storm. It w Oman is an oasis of calm in an ongoing storm. It was good to see that recognised during Sultan Haitham bin Tariq bin Said’s State Visit to the UK. 

This week he dined with King Charles at Windsor Castle and met with PM Andy Burnham in Downing Street. Trade deals were done and longstanding relationships solidified.

So what? When there’s so much heavy news coming out of the Middle East, I want to put a marker on the calendar for when dialogue notched up a win.

📸 I can’t share any of the fabulous State Dinner pictures or video clips here, so this is us just before we crossed Oman’s Wahiba Sands desert in February 2025.

It was our last big adventure in Oman and one that we hope we can repeat 🤞
Briefly back in our happy place to kick off half t Briefly back in our happy place to kick off half term 🥰

It’s been a loooong seven weeks since the start of school, with new routines and new experiences for the whole family. The girls’ main request for this school holiday is to chill, which is just as well as both Mr Box and I will be working.

Follow for a very average October half term 🤣

Blackpool Sands | South Devon
Bath’s honey coloured townhouses and sweeping Geor Bath’s honey coloured townhouses and sweeping Georgian crescents of are more famous for inspiring Jane Austen’s books. Yet here we are, a few doors down from a chap fitted out like dashing Mr Darcy, at Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein.

It’s the first museum dedicated to the 19th Century English author who, at the age of 19, arrived in Bath with a fiendish idea.

Despite her delicate age, it was a dark time for Mary; running away from scandal, fighting for the attention of poet Percy Shelley with whom she had a child, and coping with the death of her half sister. 

Frankenstein channeled her emotions, coming to life between September 1816 and May 1817.

The House of Frankenstein showcases her inspiration, the challenges she faced in her own less than conventional life, and the impact her work continues to have centuries later.

Do you need to be a have read the book to enjoy it? 

No. The monster is so keenly woven into modern literature, film and culture that few people would be unfamiliar with Shelley’s creation.

What you do need to prepare for is an unapologetically graphic and delightfully gory journey into the mind of Shelley. 

The museum is decked out like a premium house of horrors (think film studio rather than funfair) with spine-tingling sound effects, severed body parts in jars and interactive science experiments. 

For the brave you, can also visit the basement for a creepy walk-through experience with live actors ready to make you jump.

I’ve written more about our experience over on the Tin Box Traveller website. It would make the perfect October half term experience for horror fans.

Looking for something a bit more gentle? The Jane Austen Centre and the delectable Mr Darcy are ready to welcome you a few doors down.
⏰ Five hours in Bath - short on time? Save this! ⏰ Five hours in Bath - short on time? Save this!

I’ll be honest and say up front that we had hoped for more time in Bath. But due to our last minute decision to go (we just missed a bus) and train delays, five hours is what we got.

Luckily, I know Bath better than I do Oxford, which we visited last weekend!

Here’s what we squeezed into this mini adventure:

🚣 Admiring the iconic weir and boutique shops of Pulteney Bridge. It was awesome to see @salcombedairy representing Devon in Somerset

🍽️ Lunch at @chezdominique - £24 for two courses

🛍️ Browsing Guildhall Market where we spotted lanterns that reminded us of the souqs in Oman (can’t lie, I felt a bit teary when I saw them)

📚 Mary Shelley’s @houseoffrankenstein_bath museum, which tells the story of her life and how her most famous character has inspired literature, film and culture. Not somewhere I’d be confident to take the kids, but we loved it

🏠 The Royal Crescent - Bath’s iconic 18th Century town house arc 

🥂 Bath was buuussssy! So we completed our day trip by crossing over Halfpenny Bridge to quieter, but still just as pretty Widcombe, for a drink at The Ram before our train home

We didn’t have time on this occasion, but other places I can recommend from our previous visits:

🏛️ The Roman Baths

🔔 Bath Abbey and a climb up to the roof for views across the city 

🇺🇸 The American Museum & Gardens 

Save this for your next mini adventure in Somerset
So what does Dragon Hill have to do with a dragon, So what does Dragon Hill have to do with a dragon, pagan rituals and a German spy? 

🐉 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Myth - the white scar on top of the hill is said be where the dragon’s blood was spilt

🩸🗡️ Theory - the white scar is believed to have been caused by fires used in pagan rituals or even sacrifices

🇩🇪💣 Fact - it’s true. German scientist Klaus Fuchs used the hill for clandestine meetings with the Russian secret service during which he revealed details of the Manhattan Project. 

Most people come to White Horse Hill to see the 3,000-year-old chalk horse or the ruins of the medieval Uffington Castle. 

Dragon Hill also deserves a spot on your walk route. 

Parking: there’s a National Trust car park (SN7 7QJ) which is free for members. Non- members can use Just Park or pay at the machine. Follow the sign-posted footpaths and stay outside of the fenced areas protecting the White Horse from damage.
We took a trip into Oxford yesterday. If you’re ex We took a trip into Oxford yesterday. If you’re expecting tips on things to do and hidden gems, I’m going to disappoint you. I mean…look at Mr Tin Box’s face 🤣

It was only when we arrived that he announced this was his first ever visit (I’ve previously only been with our girls while he’s been a work). If I had known, I’d have been more prepared. 

To be fair, this was a very last minute day trip and we will have more opportunities to explore. 

So, Oxford experts, I need your recommendations! 

I’ve been to the Natural History Museum with the kids and we did have a lovely and very good value brunch at Taylor’s in the Covered Market. 

What should be on our list for next time?
A self proclaimed hidden gem of Oxfordshire, @busc A self proclaimed hidden gem of Oxfordshire, @buscot_park and House, is not so much hidden as it is allusive.

It’s 20 minutes from where we live, so an obvious choice for a walk. But fitting in a visit isn’t easy as it’s only open from 2pm to 6pm for six months of the year.

Was it worth it? Yes, totally. We went for a mid-afternoon wander and got so much more. 

We had no expectations as we stepped inside Buscot House - the National Trust website is extremely light on information. But our interest was immediately piqued by an Omani Khanjar (a ceremonial knife) that we saw displayed in The Dutch Room. Pictures inside can only be taken for personal use, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

The 18th Century house and gardens are packed with carefully curated treasures, from the Rossetti, Gainsborough and Burne-Jones artwork hanging inside to the Italian water garden, obelisk and lake compete with fresh water muscles and enormous fish.

Buscot is still lived in, hence the limited opening times, and this gives it a homely feel compared to some National Trust places. You can see a smattering of family photos in between the art and the swimming pool is obviously still very much in use.

Allow at least a few hours to look around. Check the Buscot Estate before you visit as the house opening times vary throughout the week. 

If you’re in the area, you have until the end of September to visit. Or add this to your 2027 bucket list. Buscot reopens in April.

I can recommend combining Buscot with a walk at Coleshill National Trust, which is a short drive away. The cafe there, Blakes Kitchen, is a super popular stop for brunch, lunch or delicious bakes.
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