Q&A with Stephanie Yoder: On life as a twenty-something on the road

As part of our goal to make life easier for bus travelers, we keep in touch with travelers who have had firsthand experiences wandering the world. Last time, we featured Lee Abbamonte. Today, we’re happy to feature Stephanie Yoder from Twenty-Something Travel.

Stephanie Yoder, a full-time freelance travel writer that hails from the United States (which is why she is our US travel expert this month!), got her start in the field after quitting her day job in 2010. She has since traveled and lived in countries across Asia, South America, and Europe. Through her blog, which caters to twenty-somethings who want to embark on a similar journey, Stephanie provides plenty of resources, along with proving that anyone can travel! She takes some time to chat with us on all this and more.

1. What’s the ultimate piece of advice you have for Gen Y 20-year-olds about to embark on a trip around the world?
Don’t make too many rigid plans. Even if you think you’re going to stick to the itinerary you’ve set out for yourself, you probably won’t. You’ll love some place and want to stay, you’ll hate somewhere and want to move on, you’ll meet interesting people and get lead off the path. It’s all part of the great travel experience, so give yourself room to be open to it.

2. Do you think there’s been a change in twenty-something travel since you started your blog five years ago? If so, what is the shift?
I like to think more people have become open to the idea of taking time off to travel. I think the crazy economic shifts over the past 10 years have taught us that nothing is a sure bet, and that it’s worth taking a risk once in awhile.

3. While on the road yourself, you met and married a travel blogger! How do you both strike a balance between your relationship & blogging and do you ever work on projects together?
We used to work on a lot of projects together, but now we find we really work much better alongside each other, but not collaborating. We are really good at sitting in the same room and ignoring each other for five or six hours while we work, it’s kind of wonderful. Things have definitely shifted over time as well. When we met, he was a much more popular blogger and I was just starting out. Now I have a much more popular blog and he is mostly working on other things.

4. You’re also a founding member of the Professional Travel Bloggers Association and one of its missions is to “legitimize travel blogging as a business.” We previously featured one of the founding members, Michael Hodson, on our blog! What advice do you have for those who want to get into the travel writing business?
I think the PTBA is such a great idea (Michael has a lot of great ideas) because it forces both the industry and bloggers themselves to be taken seriously. As for those who want to get into travel blogging, my primary advice is to think really seriously about what it is you hope to get out of this career path. It’s really competitive, and punishing in the sense that there is no structure, there are no guarantees, and the pay hasn’t caught up with the level of work. If you are in it for free trips you are going to burn out very fast. For me, it’s been worthwhile because I love writing, I love thinking creatively and I love sharing my enthusiasm with the world.

5. At Busbud, our mission is to make bus travel information easy to find so that travelers can make better travel decisions. What do you think about this mission and do you think this type of service would benefit the travel community?
I think it’s a great idea! I have struggled many times while traveling, trying to figure out transportation schedules that are complicated or obscure. Having a central resource would make life so much easier.

6. Do you have a memorable bus story to share with our readers?
I’ve taken a lot of buses in my travels. The most memorable was probably this insane night bus from Vietnam to Laos. It was mega-shady but there wasn’t any other way to get where I wanted to go. The bus crew (for some reason there were like five big burly Vietnamese guys running the bus) were definitely running some sort of smuggling operation. They would make all these middle of the night stops and shift stuff around under the bus. When we got off at a rest break I caught a glimpse of their cargo: It was several large pallets of two-liter bottles of Coca Cola!

7. What an experience! Has this changed the way you feel about taking buses and do you still rely on them as an option to get around?
I would say, no! I have taken buses (and night buses) all over South East Asia, Europe, and South America without any real danger. Oftentimes, they are not just the cheapest option, but the only option! Plus you end up with some interesting stories, which makes it all worthwhile.

Thanks, Stephanie!

You can follow Stephanie’s adventures on her blog, as well as on Facebook & Twitter.

Photos by Stephanie Yoder at Twenty-Something Travel