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About Anne de Buck & Your Little Black Book
Anne de Buck, founder Your Little Black Book
Welcome to Yourlittleblackbook.me!
Great that you want to know more about Your Little Black Book. On this page, I will tell you all about the creation of the blog and let you get to know me better. Who am I? I am Anne de Buck (1983), I have chronic wanderlust, write travel books and live with my son Manuel and husband in Amsterdam. Your Little Black Book is the platform for everyone who wants to stay updated on the best places in the Netherlands and beyond, but doesn’t have the time (or knowledge or desire) to find it all out themselves.
Via @yourlbb on Instagram, I also share many personal tips and give you a glimpse into my life as an Amsterdammer, travel guide creator, #hotellifelover, entrepreneur, and professional foodie. Whether I’m traveling solo, with my family, or with friends… on Your Little Black Book and my social media channels, you’re in the right place for insightful tips from my taste and with a personal perspective.
Tips that are truly useful for you.
Follow @yourlbb on Instagram
| COLLABORATE? Want to collaborate with Your Little Black Book? Then it’s best to check out the advertising page. There you’ll find all the possibilities described in detail.
Do you have other great ideas you’d like to contact me about? Like an interview in a magazine or newspaper? You can always email me at info@yourlittleblackbook.me. Also, take a look at my press page with all publications about Your Little Black Book.
The Origin of Your Little Black Book…
I often get asked how I started blogging. Well… I’m addicted to traveling and good food, maintain a bohemian lifestyle in the city, and get joy from discovering new places and hotspots. I still get butterflies in my stomach when I walk into a new restaurant or hotel or travel to a destination I’ve never been before. It doesn’t matter what type of destination it is; I always set out with a long list of places I want to visit.
In 2012, alongside my job as a marketing manager at a major magazine publisher, I started Your Little Black Book and @YOURLBB on Instagram. A platform to share my personal tips and experiences about the coolest places in Amsterdam and cities and countries around the world. I also regularly share travel and lifestyle tips that match my personal taste or life stage.
Your Little Black Book was really born out of my own need. I missed a website where I could find an up-to-date overview of everything hot and happening in Amsterdam, but also addresses in the same style for other destinations. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, because today Your Little Black Book has an average of 328,000 unique visitors per month who view over 1 million pages together. Something I could never have dreamed of!
At Your Little Black Book, you can access handpicked shortlists with tips on restaurants, hotels, fun things to do, and special shopping addresses 24/7. Almost all tips are personally tested and sometimes supplemented with the best tips from locals.
Of course, it’s not just about the latest hotspots; every Little Black Book should also include all-time favorites! Those restaurants you keep coming back to because they have exactly what you like and where the service is good. Or the small eateries that are not trendy or polished but simply make excellent food. I sometimes call them lowspots, but that doesn’t really do this category justice. The older I get, the more my interest shifts to these kinds of places, which I mix with dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant or staying in a luxury hotel. For me, that’s exactly the spectrum of tips I’m always looking for for Your Little Black Book. Because let’s face it; only hotspots and French-oriented cuisines can get a bit boring, right?
In addition to writing about Amsterdam, I create city guides and travel guides for destinations around the world. So, if you’re traveling soon, make sure to check if we have already listed the best addresses and tips for you!
The concept is simple and you should be able to trust it blindly: if it’s on Your Little Black Book, we like it and find it good enough.
The Idea Behind Your Little Black Book
If you follow my blog regularly, you will notice that Your Little Black Book has a positive approach and I never negatively address places on the blog. This is because I only want to write about places I really like or that seem worthwhile and want to tip you off about. I cannot emphasize enough that the reviews on Your Little Black Book are based on a N=1 experience. If you want to know what the rest of the Netherlands or a restaurant critic thinks, you can best consult traditional review websites or Dutch newspapers.
Everything I wouldn’t recommend to you DOES NOT appear on the platform. I love a positive approach and would find it a waste of my precious time to write negative reviews. The concept is simple, and you should be able to trust it blindly: if something is on Your Little Black Book, I find it fun and good enough.
If it’s not on there, it could be for two reasons: either I haven’t had time to visit yet, or I don’t have a good feeling about it. Sometimes (though rarely!), we have high expectations when something opens, and it doesn’t meet those expectations. In that case, we remove the blog to keep our Little Black Book as up-to-date as possible.
Turning Your Hobby into Your Job
As much as I love being in Amsterdam, if I’m home for more than four weeks, I start itching to discover something new. From city trips to unwinding in nature, and from skiing to relaxing on a tropical island. I am one of the lucky ones who has been able to turn my hobby into my job.
Since creating city and travel guides is my job, I do a lot of research before I go anywhere. How exactly do I go about it? You can read all about it in my book “Wanderlust” and “Feed Your Wanderlust”! I often get asked how I always manage to find such great spots. It’s a sense of taste that you develop over time, but you also need to have a curious and investigative nature.
On Your Little Black Book, all my personal discoveries come together. From new hotspots to a special brand, and from must-see events to the most beautiful hotels and lodgings that you can book directly. When I travel, you can travel with me via Instagram Stories. Curious about where I’ve been? I used to make a lot of travel vlogs for YouTube about many destinations; now you can find my videos as REELS on Instagram and on TikTok.
The First Professional Lifestyle and Travel Blogger in the Netherlands
How cool is that? Turning your hobby into your job! I built my platform Your Little Black Book from scratch to what it is today. For almost 2 years, I worked on Your Little Black Book during every free moment alongside my full-time job. In 2014, I quit my job to become a full-time entrepreneur. I made that decision while lying on a beach bed! On that trip, I finally had the time to think about the things that truly made me happy in life.
After working for 8 years as a marketing manager and content specialist at publisher Sanoma, I decided to leave my corporate career to pursue my dreams. I think I had a bit of a thirties dilemma… and I am happy to say from experience that quitting my job and taking the plunge was the best decision ever.
When I started Your Little Black Book as a hobby, I never imagined that my site would grow into the largest travel and lifestyle blog in the Netherlands. Thanks to my work as a professional blogger, I have the privilege of working with amazing brands and am hired for my expertise, professionalism, and taste to create travel guides for destinations around the world. These commercial collaborations allow me to run Your Little Black Book successfully and independently for over 12.5 years, keeping a large portion of the content and tips free for my readers and followers. Getting invited to press trips and tasting dinners is the cherry on top, but every entrepreneur knows that freebies don’t pay the bills.
I am therefore very proud of how I – without investors – have turned Your Little Black Book into a real business that continues to lead the market. On the front end, it looks like there’s a whole editorial team, but in reality, I work with a small team of freelancers and still take the lead in the daily growth of the platform after 12.5 years. As a serial entrepreneur, I am a jack of all trades and by doing what I’m good at, I’ve built a successful online business that gives me the freedom to run it from anywhere in the world. In 2022, I took a half-year pre-retirement and traveled the world with my family for six months. The business ideas I came up with during that trip I am now rolling out.
Let’s be honest; in 2012, I was the first to start a blog about hotspots and travel, and now I am one of many. The vast array of city and travel blogs and Instagram accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers has created an idealized image of what professional travel blogging is. Believe me, online entrepreneurship is more than posing in a beautiful dress in a special location abroad or writing a 30-word caption.
YES, it is a dream job. But it is also hard work and staying true to your own dreams rather than focusing on what falls into your lap. I often get asked if I still pay for trips and dinners. And YES, of course, I do, just like anyone else. In fact, booking luxury hotels and dining at special restaurants is the greatest reward I can give myself as an entrepreneur. I am not the type of content creator who only goes for free dinners and only stays in luxury hotels if offered. Traveling and dining out have always been my hobby, and I used to spend my entire salary on it. That is precisely why I started Your Little Black Book. I wanted a place to share all those tips with you, and I still do so with great pleasure nearly 13 years later.
So, What About YOURLBB’s Business Model?
Like other professional bloggers, online magazines, and traditional media, the main revenue model of Your Little Black Book is advertising. Through banners, but especially by creating unique content in collaboration with A-brands from the travel and lifestyle industries. If an article is a collaboration, this is clearly indicated at the bottom of the article (if you would like to know more about this, you can also read my disclaimer).
Together with advertisers, I come up with concepts that fit within the editorial formula of Your Little Black Book. This allows me to naturally share my personal experience with the brand. All collaboration requests I receive are scrutinized to see if they fit Your Little Black Book and if I, personally, stand behind them.
By working with advertisers, I can create space in the editorial office to produce content that is purely editorial, such as the hotspots and lists you often see. The freedom to do what I enjoy and work on Your Little Black Book gives me endless energy.
As an entrepreneur, I am constantly looking for new ways to further expand Your Little Black Book with beautiful content, products, and services that are useful to you as a reader!
Books About Travel and the Lifestyle That Comes With It
If you had told me thirteen years ago that by 2020 I would have written at least four books, I would never have believed it. I still find it special that I can now call myself a ‘published author’. These books can be ordered online at, among others, Bol.com and are sold at concept stores and selected bookstores throughout the Netherlands. Soon, I will also launch my own BOOKSHOP on Your Little Black Book and will start selling my travel guides in digital form.
(2019) Feed Your Wanderlust – Travel Guide for a Bohemian Lifestyle
(2019) Staycation – 22 City Trips in the Netherlands and Belgium
(2016) Wanderlust – Your Urban Travel Style Guide
(2016) De Amsterdam City Guide { sold out }
(2016) The Amsterdam City Guide { sold out }
Collaborate & Contact with Your Little Black Book
Want to collaborate with Your Little Black Book? Then it’s best to take a look at the advertising page. All possibilities are described in detail there.
Do you have other great ideas you’d like to contact me about? Like an interview in a magazine or newspaper or organizing an inspiration workshop on working with influencers, creating content, or social media? You can always email me at info@yourlittleblackbook.me.
DO YOU HAVE TIPS?
Nothing is perfect, and if you have feedback about Your Little Black Book, you can always contact me. For example, if you have a tip or miss certain topics. I’d love to hear from you!
