This week marks the six-month episode of the podcast, and to celebrate I conducted a live Q&A with listeners and Facebook followers on Facebook Live. That last sentence is only half true, as the real reason this episode is a Q&A is because my shaky wifi in Malaysia scuttled the interview that was planned for this week. But! This is a good opportunity to celebrate the show’s half-anniversary with listeners, so I took questions and comments left on Facebook, my blog and the podcast about travel, historic places and my own life. Enjoy, and I’ll be back next week with an awesome interview about a historic place.

Tips for traveling somewhere during the offseason

One of the first questions I took tonight was from Jen, who asked for advice on traveling during an offseason, largely to avoid crowds. While traveling during an offseason may yield some better deals, you have to be careful to research why it’s the offseason. Sometimes the weather makes the destination difficult to inhabit even for a week or so. Sometimes the local travel patterns mean places are shut down. So even though you booked a good deal, you may not actually get to see the places you want to see because they’re closed for the offseason. One tip is to look at professional photographers, and when they post their shots for clues as to what a place is like at different times of year.

What do travel bloggers do?

One of the questions I received was about what travel bloggers actually do for work. There are a lot of misunderstandings out there about what it means to be a travel blogger, namely that you just get paid to travel. The truth is that sometimes you get paid, but other times you’re traveling in order to pitch stories, or you’re partnering with an organization that will pay for your travel, but then you still have to do work to pay the bills. And there’s a lot of pressure on travel bloggers these days to always be doing something amazing while making videos, podcasts, blog posts and more. But there are a lot of great resources out there to help you if you want to get started!

Is it embarrassing to film in public?

With so many travel bloggers and content creators in general taking to live video, someone asked whether it was embarrassed to film in public. The easy answer is that it’s less embarrassing to do it in a country where the people generally don’t speak English than in an English-speaking country. And as a travel professional, the entire point of me being in a place is to tell the world about it, and generally I’m in places that want the world to visit, so it all works out for everyone.

How to make money as a travel blogger, and more

I got so many great questions while making this video, like how to handle not speaking the language of a country you’re visiting, how to make money as a travel blogger (listen to the episode for all the different ways), and how I pick the places I visit. If there’s one thing I’d like people to take away from the Q&A it’s to have fun while traveling. Sometimes the trips you don’t plan out are the ones that surprise you and become the most memorable. Thank you so much to everyone who joined the Q&A, and I hope to do another soon!

Outline of This Episode

• [2:09] Intro and last night in Malaysia
• [9:28] How do you balance travel and work?
• [12:41] What do travel bloggers do?
• [19:40] What surprised you about traveling full-time?
• [27:28] Do you get a lot of questions in a country where people look different from you?
• [31:26] Is it embarrassing to film in public?
• [41:52] How do you make money?
• [45:29] Why do you travel solo?
• [46:54] Favorite Southeast Asian country you visited

Connect With Stephanie

• stephanie@historyfangirl.com
• https://historyfangirl.com
• Support Stephanie on Patreon

Featuring the song “Places Unseen” by Lee Rosevere. More info and photographs for this episode at:

https://historyfangirl.com/a-very-special-qa/