Seven Questions With Travel Blogger Stephanie Yoder

Today on the RoamRight Travel Blog, we’re starting a brand new feature highlighting many of our fantastic writers. While you may read their articles every day, you may not know a lot about them and so we thought this would be a great way to properly introduce them to you all.

In no particular order, we are starting this series with Stephanie Yoder, the owner and editor of the popular travel blog Twenty-Something Travel. I first met Stephanie at a travel blogging conference more than five years ago, and ever since then have considered her to be one of my best blogging friends. She usually tells people that she’s just a girl who can’t sit still, and that’s true. Since graduating college in 2007 she has either been traveling or planning to travel. She's lived on four continents and visited everywhere from the Great Wall of China to the Great Barrier Reef. She now writes and travels full time, blogging about her adventures on Twenty-Something Travel. Follow Stephanie on Twitter or visit her on Facebook or Google Plus.

Q1. How did you get into travel blogging/writing?

Stephanie: When I was 24, I decided I wanted to quit my job and backpack around the world for a year. While I knew this was a common choice among Europeans and Australians, I didn't know anyone in the United States who was doing this sort of travel in their twenties. I started my blog as a way to write about my trip as well as to encourage other Americans to travel in their twenties. I've always loved to write so I was pretty excited when people actually seemed interested in what I had to say! Things grew from there and I never did end up going back to the rat race.

Q2. What has been your most rewarding travel moment?

Stephanie: It's hard to pick one, but here's one that stands out: Standing on the Great Wall of China, panting from a 5-hour hike. I felt such a sense of achievement, not just from the hiking, but from the fact I had somehow managed to propel myself all the way to China on my own. I felt invincible.

Q3. Have any mishaps happened to you on the road? What was most notable?

Stephanie: When I went to Fiji my plane had to make an emergency landing because "the wings stopped working." It was kind of scary, but then quickly turned annoying as we all had to wait in line for 5 hours to go back through Fijian customs, only to turn around and get back on a new plane hours later!

Q4. Has travel insurance ever helped you out during your travels?

Stephanie: I've been fairly fortunate but my husband is a bit more... unlucky? He's been hospitalized a couple of times in places like Thailand and Ecuador and both times we used travel insurance to help pay the costs.

Q5. What’s your best travel tip you always give people?

Stephanie: That it's normal to feel anxiety or even fear before a big trip. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Getting past that fear and going anyway is the most important and rewarding part of travel. 

Q6. If you could only ever visit one more place in your life, where would it be and why?

Stephanie: Oh my gosh, that is extremely difficult. I would probably choose Italy. Even though I've been there many times, there are so many parts of it I still want to explore. I don't think I could ever get bored of Italy.

Q7. Please share a photo during a recent trip and give us the short backstory.

Stephanie: Here is a shot of me in Barcelona in May. The trip was originally supposed to be a romantic getaway with my husband, but the night before the trip he realized his passport had expired! While he scrambled around back home trying to get an emergency renewal, I went ahead to Spain. I missed him, but I actually had a wonderful time wandering around the city on my own.

Huge thanks to Stephanie not only for answering these questions so honestly, but for contributing to the RoamRight Travel Blog for so long. Check out more of her writing here on the RoamRight blog.

Note: Available plans and coverages may have changed since this blog was published.