Sep 2011

In this month's Industry Interview we chat to Stephanie Yoder, a freelance travel writer and founder of the popular travel blog Twenty-Something Travel. She is a non-9-to-5 enthusiast, a self-described "Girl who can't sit still" and on a mission to encourage others to launch their own international adventures. On a smaller note, I think she's got one of the best blog headers going!

Steph and a cute panda

What is Twenty-Something Travel?

There is this idea, particularly in the United States where I'm from, that you need to go to school, get a job, start a family, and then maybe when you are older you'll have time to travel. I think that's really a shame because in many ways your 20s are the ideal time to see the world: you have more energy, less responsibilities, and the lessons you learn while travelling can stick with you your entire life. I created my website with the goal of encouraging other young people to get out and see the world.

What inspires you to travel? What have been some of your most memorable experiences and destinations?

For me the most important part of travel is constantly learning and discovering new sights, foods and ideas. As a result, many of my favourite destinations were places that I knew very little about going in. Places like Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cambodia.

Vietnam was one country where I felt like I was constantly encountering new things. The country is so big and crowded and frenetic; there were always people to meet, weird shops to discover and new amazingly delicious street foods to try. I spent five weeks there and I was exhausted often, but bored absolutely never.

A shot from Vietnam

According to your blog, London is your favourite city – what is it about it that you love?

I love to travel, but I also honestly believe that there is enough going on inside of London to keep me busy for my entire life. I lived in London for a while in my early 20s and just fell in love completely. It's a huge city with massive amounts of history and culture. I'm also a huge book nerd so I love it's many literary associations. There is always something going on, something to do, some new little corner to explore. In all my travels I've never found another city that gets my imagination and sense of romance racing the same way. I love it and I miss it everyday.

What words of encouragement would you give to people wanting to do a big trip but are a little hesitant?

The absolute hardest part of executing a big trip is actually making the decision to do it. It's such a big mental block and a lot of people struggle with the choice. Once you actually commit to making it happen, the rest falls into place fairly easily.

It can be really daunting to upend your life - but hey you've only got one chance to live.
I've never met anyone who has regretted taking time off to travel, but I've met plenty of people who wish they had.

I've never met anyone who has regretted taking time off to travel, but I've met plenty of people who wish they had.

You often journey solo: what advice do you have for young female travellers?

The idea of travelling alone is so much more scary than the reality. Even now before I set off somewhere on my own I get kind of nervous, but then once I push off I'm so glad I did. Travelling alone gives you so much freedom: you don't need to take anyone else's needs into account when deciding where to go, what to have for lunch, whether to nap all afternoon. It's very liberating and, as long as you possess basic common sense, much less dangerous than the media would have you think.

Travelling solo at the Forbidden City in Beijing

You've been referred to as an upcoming travel blogger to watch – what factors have contributed to your success and what's or more importantly where's next?
I just celebrated my two year blogaversary (yes, I made the term up), and nobody is more shocked than me at the amount of attention my blog as gotten. I am first and foremost a writer so I am really grateful that I can use my blog as a platform to share my thoughts. I write a lot about my personal experiences and emotions, but I try to connect them with the same universal travel truths that everyone experiences. I think as a result a lot of people feel like they can identify with what I have to say.

Right now there is so much going on! I'm home in the United States for the Summer working on some projects and writing. I've launched a second site called Everywhere Connection, with my boyfriend (who is also a travel blogger) and I'm working on some other still-to-be-announced projects. In the fall I will be headed to Central and South America for the first time - exciting!

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Check out our other posts in the Industry Interview series:

• Industry Interview with Igor Bratnikov from GreenXC
• Industry Interview with Gary Arndt of Everything Everywhere
• Industry Interview with Darren Cronian of Travel Rants
• Industry Interview with Sue Gough Henly

Tammi's Trip Map

In this month's Talking Travel series, we had the pleasure of chatting to Tammi Jonas aka tammois. Tammi is a travelling mother, a studious traveller and a well-travelled cultural theorist from Melbourne, Australia. As well as working on a PhD on the role of food in cosmopolitan, sustainable societies, she and her husband have just purchased a farm near Daylesford, Victoria, where they intend to farm free-range pigs and advocate for sustainable, ethical agriculture and a low-consumption lifestyle (which helps fund their incessant travels). To give you another insight into Tammi, her email signature reads: "I awake each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savour the world. This makes it hard to plan my day." ~ E. B. White

Tammi and her partner Stuart at Canyonlands National Park in the US

You're a few months in to what's been dubbed 'RoadTripUSA', tell us more about this? Including info about the shipping container!

RoadTripUSA is one of those things I guess people now refer to as an item on a 'bucket list' – we've wanted to drive across the States (and Australia) with our brood for a while, and a mystical alignment of events led to our current adventure:

1) We were evicted from our rental in Melbourne so the landlord could renovate;
2) Stuart and I had solar and food and ag conferences to attend in the US in May and June;
3) We said, 'what the hell', booked flights, bought a 1977 GMC motorhome on Craigslist, and commenced planning for RoadTripUSA;
4) We bought a farm near Daylesford, Victoria a fortnight before we flew to San Francisco;
5) We bought a 40-foot shipping container, packed all our worldly belongings into it and dropped it off at the farm a few days before we flew.

The trip was all about spending a solid few months on our own as a family exploring and discovering America up close. We wanted history, culture and nature, and we wanted to learn how they vary from coast to coast. RoadTripUSA has hugely exceeded all our expectations for family fun, learning and adventure, as you can read on the Crikey Back in a Bit travel blog.

The shipping container we bought will be converted into our bedroom/study/bath to supplement the existing three small bedrooms in the farmhouse as soon as we move onto the farm. Stuart's just ordered windows from a supplier in China (good to have a man with a useful skillset - he is importing things directly from China at a quarter of the cost we'd pay in Oz, plus the ability to then build us a home!), and we hope to be in it within six weeks of moving onto the property.

The 'RockVan' courtesy of Craigslist

What do you hope to have learnt by the end of your trip?

One of the things I like to learn on every trip is just how little I know about the world. Even though I'm a west-coast American who migrated to Australia 20 years ago, I have loads to learn about this complicated, confounding and beautiful country full of people who floor me with their constant acts of personal generosity yet who are collectively individualist to the detriment of the greater good, in my humble opinion.

Travel helps me better understand my own contradictions as well as others, and so hopefully serve as a sort of cultural translator at times – a latter-day Atticus Finch who probably just irritates the crap out of everyone with my 'it's just their way, Scout' attitude about difference as I experience it.

This trip in particular though is intended to help my children understand the American side of their heritage better, and to give Stuart and I insight into the 'rebel farming' movement, including real knowledge about raising pasture pigs and running a small family farm.

You're travelling with your partner and three children, what advice do you have for families on the road?

We've travelled with our kids since they were bubs – I remember flying to Europe with all three of them when they were four, three and three months old. People said, 'how do you cope?' My response was always, 'I'd rather they have a tantrum somewhere new and interesting than at home in the lounge room.' We only had one 'international incident' on a flight from London to Paris that challenged that view.

I guess the most important things we've learned from travelling with little kids are to be flexible, manage our expectations, help them predict what will be happening in the days ahead, and when all else fails, say yes to pancakes. As for expectations – in Paris we had this silly idea that we'd revisit and recapture our youthful experience of falling in love in Paris – yeah, right, 'cos that was going to happen with three kids aged four and under! So instead of long days at galleries, we plan a couple hours, and instead of lots of cafes, we picnic in parks more. When they were very small (they're 11, 10 and seven now), I'd make pre-trip scrapbooks with them – we'd cut or print out photos from the internet of places we'd be going, people we'd be seeing, foods we'd be likely to eat, etc, and make up a timeline (even if rough) so they could see at each stage what to expect next. I knew it was working when we walked into our courtyard apartment in Paris for the first time and Oscar exclaimed, 'this is it!'.

The ages they're at now, I think the most important thing we have to remind ourselves is that they still need play time. If they don't get a couple hours of adult-intervention/direction-free time each day, they're more likely to resist our attempts to expose them to culture or go for long hikes. Their play time also gives us time on our own (sort of), which means that even after two months 24/7 together in the RockVan, we still love each others' company. ;-)

The non-troublesome trio

You're currently doing a PhD on the role of food in a cosmopolitan, sustainable society – what role does travel play in your research?

I've had the privilege to travel a fair bit for my research – to both Vietnam and Italy for fieldwork, and to India, Finland and the US as well as domestically in Australia to give conference papers. I've had to self-fund a lot of it as universities keep decreasing funding to research students (and even tenured academics, actually), but as I've always valued travel enormously I certainly haven't regretted the money spent.

Before I commenced this PhD Stuart and I had been keeping a 'food diary' when we travelled for a number of years – when I'm too busy to keep a 'proper' journal of my travels, I simply note down what I eat each day. It's an incredible mnemonic – I know exactly what I ate the day I met Stuart in London – mushies on toast.

So my research has simply honed a travel technique I'd been using for a long time – but it really has sharpened my insights into what I'm eating, why, and how it's affecting me and everyone I'm with. I love what my PhD has given me personally, especially when travelling!

It's hard to ignore the impact of food in your life, why are you so passionate about it?

Food is central to everything. One of my greatest pleasures is simply to cook and feed others. To do so, I am conscious of my connection to so many people, places, and animals – it helps ground me and understand my part in the world, as well as simply providing an intensely pleasurable creative outlet.

I figure if everyone was more knowledgable about and connected to food – where it's produced, by whom, and to what effect on the local environment and economy, as well as how it's prepared and consumed, again, by whom, under what conditions, to what cultural norms, with whom and why, everything would really be okay. Until everyone 'gets it', but especially those with the economic, political, social and cultural power to do something about it, we will still have obesity epidemics, hunger, and famine, often in the same country at one time. And we will watch our soils die before us as agricultural workers are poisoned and impoverished. And the wealthiest nations in the world such as America will continue to dive on 'happiness' ratings, at least partially because we've outsourced the things we need (to do) daily, such as cook, eat, and spend time with our families and friends.

Where's your favourite place in the world?

Wherever I am at the moment.

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Check out these recent interviews in the Talking Travel series:

• Talking Travel with Bill Lehane
• Talking Travel with Inspiring Travellers (JohnAndrea)
• Talking Travel with Andre Frieden
• Talking Travel with Vagamos
• Talking Travel with Tracey (TTG)

You might have seen us posting updates on Twitter or in our monthly newsletter about something called Travel Massive.

We wanted to shed a little more light about Travel Massive by posting more here. Travel Massive is a global initiative to connect people in the travel industry locally. It brings travel bloggers, brands, startups and socially engaged travellers together by way of a free monthly meetup in various cities.

It was started in Sydney in 2009 by Alicia Smith and Ian Cumming after they tweeted an open invite to meet other travel-focused people in the area. Over the summer, the monthly meetup grew rapidly with a steady stream of travel entrepreneurs, travel bloggers, travel photographers, brand managers, and passionate travellers all meeting for drinks and networking in Sydney's backpacker bars.

Today Travel Massive has spread to over 12 cities around the globe. A full list of locations is available here.

Melbourne Travel Massive Christmas meetup. Photo credit to Tom Howard.

Travel Massive also draws support from some large online travel companies, including World Nomads, Flight Centre, Intreprid Travel, as well as media partners Tnooz.com and Web In Travel.

An early Sydney Travel Massive meetup. Photo credit to Ian Cumming

• If you happen to be in Melbourne on 20 September, there's the opportunity to meet cofounder Peter. Event details here.

• We're also organising the first Berlin event along with Pocket Village on 15 September. More here.

So, if you're in interested in travel and the travel industry, try and get along to a #travelmassive!

Our 2011 Community Survey is now complete and we have some interesting information about TP members we'd like to share with you.

First of all, congrats to Holly Clark (soupatrvlr) for being the randomly-selected winner of the iPod Touch! We think they're the perfect device to use while travelling and complement a brick phone nicely.

Image: Holly snapping a quick set-up pic

So, the first questions we asked were around "What kind of traveller are you?"

• 'Backpacker' was the most common response for type with 27% of you selecting it. This was followed by 'budget', 'mid-range' and the oh-so-cool 'I can't be categorised'!

• Nearly half of you liked having someone along while travelling, but just shy of the same weren't bothered either way.

• When it came to how often you travel, a whopping 61% replied a few times per year. The second largest response was once per year. Close to 10% were constantly travelling. What a life!

• In terms of dream destination, this was extremely varied but New Zealand, Bhutan and Switzerland got the most amount of repeated votes.

Image: What the dream destination pie chart looked like!

When it came to travel issues, we have quite a bit to report:

• Terrorism, natural disasters, infectious disease and special events were items most likely to influence your travel plans.

• When it came to considering the environment, the largest majority tried to limit air travel but there still a few who answered they didn't take it into account.

• In regards to how much of your travel you planned online, over half answered '75-100%'. Another quarter answered '50-75%'. We certainly have web lovers on our hands!

• 55% of you spent USD$1000-$5000 on travel a year, while almost 30% spent $5000-$15000. One person answered they spent more than $30,000 per year!

• And now for the most surprising part. We commonly hear digital media experts predict the death of the travel guide book but over half of you still buy one and take it with you!

We then wrapped up with some questions regarding the site and areas we can improve. Thanks so much for your responses – we're taking a look at all the feedback to see what we can do.

Overall, it's great to see you're loving the travel guides, blogging tools, photography, forums, trip mapping, helpers and accommodation. We're also flattered that 60% of you think Travellerspoint is up there with the best travel sites on the net!

Thanks again for taking part and we're looking forward to launching some fantastic new features and products (such as our mobile app) shortly.

~ The TP team