S8 E87: The Driving Force Behind Unearth Women with Nikki Vargas

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00] NV: For the people listening to this podcast, there's never going to be an invitation to start, and there's never going to be a clear-cut path to walk. You just do it. If you feel scared to do it, talk to other women who've done it already. You'll see that there was nothing special about them. It just was, drive. That's all it was. It was drive and passion.

[0:00:25] YD: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I'm your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer, writer, storyteller, community builder, podcaster, and entrepreneur, working with publications like National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times, and more. Traveling to interesting places around the world and producing stories that I'm excited about.

Travel Media Lab is my platform for helping you break into the travel media space, where we share insights, tips, advice, and stories from people working in the industry. Happy International Women's Month. Our mission inside this podcast has always been about uplifting women and inspiring more women to go after their own storytelling dreams. In the two years that we've been podcasting, which is hard to believe that it's been two years already, we've had so many incredible women in travel come and share not only their wisdom, but also their fears, wins, struggles, hopes, and dreams with us.

This March, in honor of International Women's Month, I wanted to bring back these conversations some of the most poignant, heartfelt, and inspiring conversations we've ever had in our show. In the next few episodes, you're going to hear from travel photographer and writer, and dear friend, Karthika Gupta, who works with publications Condé Nast Traveler, Thrillist, and more, our former student and circle member, Vanessa Dewson, who's also been published in multiple publications, most recently in TripSavvy, Nikki Vargas, an amazing writer and editor at Fodors Travel, who has a book coming out called Call You When I Land.

Lola Akinmade, a multi-talented powerhouse of a female creator who is just so, so inspiring to me, and whose projects continue pushing the boundaries of travel media space. Last, but very much not so least, Sarah Khan, an accomplished travel writer, editor, and thoughtful traveler, who's currently working with Robb Report.

Take a minute to listen to all of these episodes and also, connect with these amazing women on Instagram. We will have links in the show notes to all of their accounts, so you can go and check out their work. I handpicked every one of these conversations because they impacted me personally when I interviewed these incredible women because I want to celebrate them, and their accomplishments, and also, because I believe that listening to their stories can inspire you, their listeners to go out there and go for the stories, projects, and dreams that you want to pursue as well.

Just a quick note that in some of these episodes, you'll hear us refer to our podcast and platform as Genius Womxn. That used to be our name, but we changed it to Travel Media Lab some time ago to better reflect the mission of our company. 

Happy International Women's Month, and I hope you enjoy these episodes.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:26] YD: So, so excited to welcome Nikki to our show today and really dig into your story and unearth women and everything you have going on. Welcome.

[0:03:39] NV: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[0:03:43] YD: Wonderful. During the pandemic, you started a weekly Unearth Women newsletter and we’ll link to it in the show. One of the recent stories you shared in the newsletter was about the murder of your aunt, Adita, in Colombia. I was curious to know what compelled you to write that story and share it with your newsletter subscribers.

[0:04:10] NV: Yeah. That is an article that I wrote actually a few years back. At the time, I was a travel editor at a publication called Culture Trip. As part of my job, in addition to managing an in-house team and freelancers was to also do original reporting and stories. We had the opportunity to pitch stories to our editor-in-chief and to actually go out and travel in the world to pursue them. At that moment in time, it was 2016 and Colombia was in the process of reaching a peace deal with FARC, for those who are unfamiliar, FARC was a narco-terrorist organization that wreaked a lot of havoc on the country.

I had always grown up with this idea of FARC as the big bad wolf in my family. My family, throughout the years, has fled Colombia for various reasons, but the reasons always seemed to stem from the instability that FARC had created in the country — including me. I was born in Bogota and my family left the country after a bomb went off about a block away from our apartment in Bogota.

I had the idea to take one of these stories, which is these mysterious circumstances surrounding my great aunt's death, and to investigate it a little bit in — context of the country reaching this peace deal with FARC, and ultimately, turning FARC into a political party, which it did through the peace deal. That story to date, I think, is one of the stories I'm the most proud of. It really tested my skill set as a journalist. It tested my skill set as a writer. Not only was it a personal story and it was an emotional experience, but it also was a lot of work as an investigative reporter to go there and to report on the political situation and what was happening, and to marry the two — of this personal story and what was going on in the country into one article that was read well and was clear and engaging.

I started this newsletter during the pandemic as just a way to reach readers that are interested in Unearth Women. I really wanted to bring that story back to life, particularly in light of the protests that are going on in Colombia right now. I shared it recently via my newsletter, and yeah, it's one of those things that I'm just, I’m so proud of, and I'm so proud of the work that went into it and I'm so proud of the result that came out of it. I just wanted to give it new eyeballs and share it with readers that probably didn't know I ever wrote this, because it was written back in 2016.

[0:06:57] YD: Right. I understand. We'll link to the specific story that we're talking about here. For our listeners, definitely go check it out. It's an incredibly well-written story. I think you absolutely should be proud of it, Nikki. At the end of the story, you said that you were no closer to understanding what really happened to your great-aunt. To me, I thought that was just so powerful because it really highlights the complexity of our world, and the in-betweenness and the gray areas that we seem to often want to have conclusions and clear cuts, perhaps outcomes. The world is just not like that, right? I thought that story just illustrated that so powerfully.

[0:07:44] NV: Thank you. Yeah. When the story ended, that was really what I was going for. That — I went to Bogota, and I tried to look into the circumstances around this mysterious death that I had grown up with. There were all these different versions and rumors surrounding it. The more I dug into it and the deeper I got and peeled back these layers, the more complicated it gets because it's not cut and dry. It's not so black and white as what I thought it was growing up, which is FARC is bad and that's it.

In the article, I actually – go to meet an ex-FARC fighter, who at that point in time was going through a reintegration process into society. That really was a powerful moment, because I'm sitting opposite this person that represents all of the misfortune that my family has experienced and that irrevocably changed the courses of so many lives in my family. I'm talking to her and I'm realizing in that moment that what led her to be part of this organization wasn't malice. It wasn't anything more than survival.

She was a little girl who was a child recruit. So many of the FARC fighters are actually, they were women. She joined it for no greater reason than security, a place to sleep, someone to feed her, and that was it. Her life was also irrevocably changed and not for the better by joining this organization. When it ends, there was no other way to end the story than to just throw your hands up in the air and be like, “Well, this is Colombia. It makes no sense. There's no rhyme or reason.”

[0:09:39] YD: Yes. Like so many of [the] challenging situations around the world, right?

[0:09:44] NV: Yeah.

[0:09:45] YD: You have a really amazing resume.

[0:09:49] NV: Thank you.

[0:09:50] YD: Yes. I looked at some of your work in preparation to this conversation. Your stories have appeared in places like Vice and Zagat and other publications. You mentioned working for Culture Trip and you also worked as an editor at Atlas Obscure and other great publications. Your magazine, Unearthed Women has been featured in the New York Times, Good Morning America, and all these other places. I'm curious, did you always know that you wanted to work at this intersection of travel and stories? Or was that something that was a more recent realization?

[0:10:29] NV: I always knew I wanted to write. I've always had a passion and affinity for writing since I was a little girl, keeping journals. It took me a little while to figure out in what capacity I wanted to write. I studied journalism in college. I moved to New York to try to pursue journalism. While I was having that early 20-something New York experience and stumbling around and getting my footing, I kept finding myself being drawn to travel writing and the idea of just the freedom and the adventure that promised.

At the time, I was following all of these travel bloggers and a lot of them were pioneers because at that time travel blogging wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now. Right now, there are so many travel bloggers. But at that point in time, it was still a relatively new space. The idea that someone could make a living as a travel blogger and travel the world was crazy and unheard of. I was following this crop of travel bloggers, like Brooke Saward of World of Wanderlust, who's one of the pioneers. I was really just inspired by it. I just really wanted to pursue that.

I started my own travel blog. At that time, I was having trouble landing a job in New York. I was working in advertising, which wasn't the plan. I was trying to be a journalist and nobody was hiring. To keep building my career in writing, even though I wasn't working on staff at a publication, I figured I would just start travel blogging. That really carried me through a lot of my 20s, because it allowed me to travel the world. It allowed me to see places that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to see, or been able to afford to see. By virtue of just writing I was able to go to Borneo, go to India, and do all of these things.

To answer your question, my style of writing really started to evolve as I got older. What started out as just the typical travel blog of — let me talk about myself and how I feel in the context of this place, the older I got, the more that I got sick of just writing about myself. I wanted to write about real stories that mattered and people's experiences and things that I felt needed a platform. That's really what became the basis for Unearth Women is that that's, I guess, maturing in my writing and that transition from these sort of diary entry type of blog posts about just all focused on my experience and my view, to then turning the spotlight outward and being like, “You know what? I'm much more interested now in hearing what these local people have to say, or what the political situation is in Colombia, or what the presidential election is in France.” These are all stories that are important. That's where I am today with my writing is — it's evolved into this place of much more altruistic writing and giving a platform and voice to other people.

[0:13:42] YD: No, definitely. I love that you bring this up because this is a discussion that I often find myself in, particularly in places like Clubhouse, which I've been speaking and engaging a lot in that platform. People often ask me, what is the difference between a travel blogger and a travel journalist? I think you just put it so nicely, right? It's that focus on your personal experience, somewhere, and your personal perspective, versus uncovering stories of people and places and political situations that exist somewhere.

For me, even though the lines – I feel like the lines are quite blurry in some of this because journalists can be content creators and influencers and bloggers and vice versa. But byand large, that's the way I approach it as well. It's great that you brought this up, too.

[0:14:33] NV: Yeah. I think that is exactly to your point, the lines are definitely blurring. I think right now where we're at as a society is we're at this point where it's almost unacceptable now to move around the world and only look at things through your own eyes. We're getting to this point as a society and as a culture that it's so important to spotlight the other experience, to spotlight people that might not ever have a spotlight, to give a platform to marginalized communities, to lift the voices of people that are discriminated against. People who have blogs, who have social media following, who have these platforms, it's becoming more and more of a responsibility to do that.

I think to your point, those lines continue to blur, whereas I now see travel bloggers today that, they do basically exactly what a travel journalist or travel writer does. They're doing reporting, they're interviewing people on the road, they're telling other people stories, and they rarely talk about themselves and their experiences. To that point, I see travel bloggers that are just like the ones that I saw 10 years ago, which is it's just a personal journey and personal diary of their own evolution in the context of travel. I think both are completely fine. Both are appropriate. I just find in my own personal career that I've outgrown that style of writing.

[0:15:59] YD: You mentioned your career. I'm curious, how does one go from having a job in advertising to then working as an editor and eventually, launching her own travel magazine?

[0:16:11] NV: For me, the bridge really was freelance writing. as I mentioned, I stumbled into advertising accidentally. It never was the plan. It was only meant to be a one-year thing while I was applying for jobs elsewhere. It ended up being four years. I was getting further and further away from what I wanted to do, which was write and edit. Because I couldn't find the job that I wanted, I decided to just create it. It was a very field of dreams mentality, like build it and it will come. I just started freelance writing. I started blogging on the side and I started working hard to really just create a name for myself in that industry.

Advertising, in many ways, helped it, because, for example, one of my first big bylines was for food and wine magazine. That came as a direct result of working with the food and wine sales team, who then put me in touch with the editorial team and were like, “Hey, we have someone who's interested in writing.” Never underestimate, I guess, the connections, even if you're not exactly in the industry you want to be in, there might be an opportunity to bridge over to it. Then eventually, with enough freelance writing under my belt and my blog had gotten to a point where I had worked with brands and I had done some great stories, I felt like I had accumulated enough experience that I could apply for these jobs, and I started to.

I just threw my hat in the ring. I got lucky by landing the travel editor position at Culture Trip, which had just opened its New York office. Once I was an on-staff travel editor, that really opened the doors for me. It's like once you're in, you're in. From there, I was able to move over to Atlas Obscura. From there, I was able to move over to The Infatuation. Really, all of that gave me the skill set needed to launch Unearth Women.

[0:18:15] YD: Yes. I love the story that you just told because I think, or at least that was my experience starting in this industry. I very naively thought that I don't need anybody. I don't need any connections. I can make it on my own. Very quickly, I learned that that's not the case. You do need connections and oftentimes, that can be a way in. When there's no one you know in the industry, when you're trying to break into it and you have no portfolio to speak of, then oftentimes, having that connection can be what makes or breaks it. Because for me, one of my first bylines in a foreign magazine was in a similar way. A bit different story.

I was engaging with them on Instagram, just posting their hashtag and really engaging with their community. They reached out to me to do an Instagram-specific project. Then I mentioned that I'm also interested in writing. They put me in touch with the editorial team. You just never know. If you don't ask, and if you don't reach out, you will never know what the outcome could be.

[0:19:20] NV: Exactly. What I love about both of our stories is, I think that I used to be very concerned, especially when I was in advertising, that I was never going to be able to transition into what I wanted to do. I guess the reason I felt that is because there were people that were going about it in the traditional way. There were people that graduated from journalism school. They got a job as an editorial assistant. They worked their way up to the associate editor. They became a senior editor from there. They moved on with their career. During college, they were interning at different publications. They had sort of followed the book, and I didn't. I was all over the map.

When I left college, I didn't have that ladder climb. I ended up going into a different job entirely and that wasn't the plan. I like to joke that I took the scenic route in my career to get to where I wanted to go because I just went everywhere. I think that's something worth remembering for people listening — that are maybe hoping to do this and feel like they've strayed too far, or they didn't do it the right way.

I don't think there's a right way to do it, because there are people that didn't study journalism, that they graduated and they went out into the world. Then 10 years later, they started a blog. Now here they are. I know people that are writers, bona fide journalists, and on-staff editors, and they were doing something completely unrelated beforehand. I don't think there is a right way to go about entering this industry. I think my biggest advice to anyone is to just start. Just start writing, start pitching, and start reaching out to editors. Just take that first step.

[0:21:05] YD: Oh, I love that, Nikki. I love that so much. That's exactly what I say all the time, too, that taking action and starting is how you're going to get anywhere, really.

[0:21:16] NV: Exactly.

[0:21:17] YD: You're so right. Because no one is going to invite you to become an editor. No editor is going to reach out to you and invite you to be a freelance writer. No one's going to ask you to join this press trip. No one's ever going to come to you. If you just sit there and wait for things to happen, it will never happen. You have to take the initiative. That's really what my entire 20s was. It was just chasing opportunity, like a dog chasing a ball. Some of it worked out and a lot of it didn't. In the end, it got me to where I needed to go.

[0:21:50] YD: Absolutely. I think what you said is so important, that there is no right path, because really – I mean, I didn't have a traditional path into this as well. The only thing I had was just this belief that this is what I want to do. I had this fire that I want to tell stories. I want to travel. I want to uncover different places in the world. That's really all I had. I think if you have that deep belief, that the work that you're trying to do deserves to be out there in the world, that's almost half of the success right there. Having that conviction that what you want to create deserves to exist. Often, that's what you need to start that initial push and to take action, and to make that happen for you. I love that.

In one of your interviews, you have mentioned that the magazine, which we're going to get into the magazine in a bit, too, and the story of that. You mentioned that Unearth Women, first and foremost, is a celebration of women. I just love that so much. That resonates with me a lot, being that we're on a Genius Womxn Podcast. I'm curious to know who are the women that have inspired you in the travel space and maybe even beyond and how did they impact you to arrive at the point of launching the Unearth Women platform.

[0:23:15] NV: Yeah. I mean, so many. Honestly, it's a combination of the women that we all know in the industry, the women that are paving the way, like Monica Raymond, or Vida Robinson. These are women that entered an industry that is historically white, that, historically is male-operated, and has a tendency to marginalize a lot of communities. They saw an opportunity to shake it up and they are. That's obviously very inspiring. Anytime a woman enters a field that the odds are stacked against them and they just start to kick over obstacles one by one. I mean, that's really, really inspiring for me.

The other part, too, is that when you travel, you also meet such incredible women on the road. Again, these are women that a lot of times, their stories aren't told. You would never hear about it because it's such a local story. For example, we had one freelance writer do an article for Unearth Women about a young woman in Belize, who is one of the only drum makers in this region. It ends up that her father was this – he was this well-known, renowned maker of drums for this particular drum that's very – it's very unique to Belizean culture. When her father got too old, she took over the craft.

What's interesting about it is that women don't usually do that. She's the first to do that and the first to make waves by being a woman taking over this predominantly male art. Things like that. These little gems, hidden around the world of women that are both in small and big ways changing the status quo. I think that's really what it comes down to for me is that yes, you have the big, splashy CEO women that are really kicking over obstacles, but you also have women all over the world that are making big changes for women in their local community, whether they're opening the first woman-run restaurant in their town, or they're finding a woman community in a historically male-run society. I mean, all of these stories exist everywhere.

The concept of that ties really closely to what Unearth Women is because, at the end of the day, Unearth Women is rooted in the idea that travelers are uniquely positioned to support and help women wherever they go. The reason being is that as a traveler, as someone with an amount of influence, whether it's just telling friends and family what you did on your trip, or whether it's going on Instagram and telling your followers, you have the ability to both influence how people visit a destination and also influence how people spend money at a destination.

If you're using that influence to point people in the direction of women-run businesses, to point people in the direction of female-run organizations, to shine a light on local women that are doing cool things. That makes a difference. That's the concept of Unearth Women is that it's really just about uplifting women, shining light on women-run organizations and businesses, and showing travelers how to support women when they travel.

[0:26:46] YD: I love it. I love that so much. For our listeners, if you haven't yet, but I'm sure you've heard of the magazine, but definitely go check it out. We're going to link to all the resources in the show notes as well. What you just said really resonated with me, that it's shining a spotlight not only on all of these incredible stars, women CEOs, and such but also on women who are much more accessible to us, who are doing incredible things. I think that in our own way, all of us women are doing incredible things every day and trying to operate in a man's world and pave our own path.

Sometimes that's even more inspiring when you see women like you doing things that. For me, at least a Genius Womxn was always built on that concept. With the lean-in concept, perhaps I'm never going to interview her, because she's not as accessible to most of us listening, right? I will interview amazing women who are just like me, and who are doing incredible things. I think sometimes that's even more powerful, because then you're like, “I can really do this. I see this. I see this in my path.” I love that.

[0:28:03] NV: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's showing that change can happen in both big and small ways. I think so often, and I get like this, too. It can be very easy to feel like, “What's the point? What's the point of doing this? Who's reading it? Who cares? What's the point of pushing this idea up the hill when something like, in a far exists, or travel and leisure exists and they're doing a good job at it, so why does this need to exist?

I think the answer is what you just said. It's the point being is that you can make a change in big and small ways. Even if it's not a global change, like someone who's running Facebook, it can still matter that change. Even if it's just a small community change and inspiring friends and family to support women, or lifting up the voice of a woman in another country who has a great story to tell, or shining light on an organization that people don't know to support, that's still positive change that you're creating. I think that it's worth pursuing that.

[0:29:13] YD: Yes. I couldn't agree more. I think we're not often as aware of the impact that we make on other people. Unless, they share it, perhaps, or tell us. I think that that impact can be huge. Even if it's on a small community of people, that's still an incredible impact that you're making in that community. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

[MESSAGE]

[0:29:40] YD: Hey, friends. I'm interrupting myself here for a quick second to let you know that I've created a brand-new resource just for you. If you're enjoying listening to this podcast and want to start pitching your travel stories, go to geniuswomxn.com/pitch to get access to my private pop-up podcast of three short episodes that reveal the secrets of successful pitching. That's geniuswomxn.com/pitch. Okay, back to this episode.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:30:13] YD: You know, what I want to get into next is a bit of the story of Unearth Women, the magazine. Because, my gosh, it is so difficult to launch a print magazine in today's space. Your story was one of a very meteoric rise with Unearth Women. What I want to hear is some of the challenges that you had to go through launching it.

[0:30:41] NV: It took me a while to get to the point that I can talk about the meteoric rise and the lessons and everything that happened, because at the end of the day, I know they say that business is just business. When it's your own thing and it's your own startup, it's so emotional and it doesn't feel like business. It feels very personal. Yeah, it took me a little while to be able to talk about it. Essentially, Unearth Women, when the idea came to me, at the time, I had just been laid off along with half the editorial staff and the job that I was working at. I was lost. I didn't really know what to do with myself, but I always wanted to have my own publication. That was something that — it was a dream of mine that had existed for years prior. The idea just never coalesced.

Then when I had the idea of Unearth Women, the concept was really to unearth women's stories and that's where the name comes from. The first step I did was I assembled a team of women that I've worked with, that I am close with, that I admire, and who believed in the idea. We set out to launch a Kickstarter and to see if we can actually create a first issue. The Kickstarter, we met our goal, which was great. We had just enough money to pull together a first issue, to sell independently via unearthwomen.com, which by that point we had launched a digital site.

For that first issue, we put Vice Correspondent, Isobel Yeung on the cover, who is someone that I had had the pleasure of knowing and interviewing in the past. We started to pull together this issue that represented everything we wanted our women to be. The magazine is thematic. Each issue centers around a unifying theme. The first issue was centered around the idea of resilience. Each story in the issue was about a woman and tied to the idea of the resilience in women. It turned out beautifully, this issue.

When we printed it, we printed out maybe a couple of hundred copies, like a relatively small batch. We decided to host a launch party here in New York and invite a combination of friends and press and people in the industry to just introduce the concept and get people excited. At that point, we had no plans for a second issue. We hoped to do it, but the money wasn't there. We were just taking everything step by step. We were building the plane as we were flying it.

After that first issue came out, the floodgates opened. We had this incredible meteoric rise because when I look back, it feels like it all happened in a week. Realistically, it was probably maybe three months. In what felt like a week, we went from having this first issue to then being approached by distributors who wanted to sell the issue in stores. Then we went from this independently sold magazine to now having a magazine sold in over 800 Barnes and Noble locations across the country and independent bookstores across Canada and Europe. We got an onslaught of press. We got an article in the New York Times. We were featured in Good Morning America. We were featured in Travel and Leisure.

Seemingly, just everything happened at once. We got an investor who gave us a small investment that allowed us to create future issues. Now, all of a sudden, we had some money to actually keep moving forward. This was a really exciting time in the process because it really felt like there was no way we could possibly fail, because it just felt like all the doors in the world had flung open and everyone was like, “Please, step right in.” We ran with it. We released the second issue. It went international. We were in stores. It was so exciting to see this in stores. We continued to grow. We had the investor. We immediately, when we had issue two go out the door to the printers, we immediately began on issue three. We had a nice photo shoot. Everything, everything was really exciting.

The lesson that I look back on and I realized was that we were moving too fast. The thing about it is that we had almost – I had almost entered a state of like, being manic. It was almost this idea that if I don't keep running, I'm going to lose momentum and drop the ball. I just kept running and running and running, because in the very beginning, that's what worked. We had run without an idea of where we were going. We were putting out a magazine without an idea of where we were going to get the money to do the next issue. It worked. This idea of run hard and run fast, we stuck with.

What ended up happening was that we outspent ourselves. I mean that in every sense of the word. We outspent ourselves emotionally. We outspent ourselves financially. We really just burned the candle on both ends. When issue four was finalized and ready to send to the printers, we just hit a brick wall. The same way that everything took off in a metaphorical way, in the beginning, was the same way that it hit a brick wall. It felt like it all happened at once.

Our printer went out of business. Our distributor went out of business. Our funding dried up. Suddenly, we just had reached the end of the road. It was really hard. At that point in time, we released issue four digitally, because we owed it to the writers, we owed it to the people that were involved. It broke my heart not to be able to print it and to pull it out of bookstores. That was really hard. Looking back, there are a lot of lessons that I process. There are a lot of questions that I ask myself, things like, why was it necessary to expand to 800 Barnes and Noble locations? Looking back, that didn't make sense.

We were a small publication that had deemed following in New York. It would have made sense to maybe expand to a handful of bookstores in New York and maybe in surrounding states, like Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and see how we do before going national, let alone international. In the heat of the moment, I wasn't thinking that. I was thinking, I was just so excited and so overwhelmed and all of the big swings that I took were working. I just kept swinging.

Now where things stand is there's definitely been a period of recovery emotionally, mentally, and financially. Now we're at the point where we're re-evaluating the magazine. We finally were able to print issue four and to finally get those physical copies out the door, which felt so good. We're exploring releasing a brand-new issue later this year. Just doing things at a more thoughtful pace is the lesson learned.

The larger realization was that it took me a long time to realize that just because the magazine had paused, just because we pulled out of bookstores does not mean that Unearth Women had died. That took me a long time to recognize that the mission of Unearth Women Is to tell stories. It doesn't matter if those stories are told in an email, in a podcast, in a physical magazine, or on a website. What matters is that they're being told. Really, at the end of the day, I was the only one that perceived what happened as a failure, and it wasn't. It was a pivot. That happens all the time. There are publications much more well-funded and much more of a legacy brand than Unearth Women that have folded their publications and they still continued to grow. That's where things are today.

[0:39:19] YD: I love this story so much because it just uncovers so many of the struggles that I think creative entrepreneurs, like ourselves, go through. Something that you said about you seeing it as a failure, I think women, in general, are more hardwired to be so hard on themselves and to keep them to such high standards, that I can totally see how it was easy for you to see it as a failure, where, in fact, it was simply a pivot and a growing pain and a lesson. That’s what is really resonating with me — what you said there.

[0:40:00] NV: Absolutely. What you said is right. I do see that a lot in the aftermath of what happened with the magazine. I've connected with other female entrepreneurs. The common denominator seems to be that we are all incredibly harsh on ourselves. You're right. I remember sitting and drafting the email to everyone, readers, subscribers, writers, everyone saying that we were basically putting the magazine on pause and that we weren't going to be able to print issue four. I remember the amount of anxiety I felt in sending that email. I felt like I had let everyone around me down. I was so hard on myself. Really just devastatingly hard on myself.

In the end, when I finally mustered up the courage to send that email, the response was like, “That's fine. Whatever. As long as we still see the story. We saw the website’s up, great.” Maybe there were some responses that were like, “Oh, I loved the magazine so much. But if I can get it digitally, okay.” It's like, at the end of the day, the only person that was living and dying by this physical magazine existing was me, and no one else.

There were people that, yeah, there were people that loved it and loved holding it and loved having it on their coffee table, but they weren't – they didn't spit in my face, because I dared to discontinue printing and move to digital. I think that that's also something, too, that I've been learning, looking back on all of it is that you can really be your own worst enemy in this process. There are just so many things that I wish — if I could go back in time and talk to myself at the beginning of this journey, I wish I could have told myself to just move slowly, be thoughtful, and be mindful. There's nothing wrong with taking a beat to evaluate the next step. No one's expecting you to jump head first and not consider what that move might mean.

So many of the decisions I made early on in Unearth Women were out of fear. Out of fear of missing an opportunity, out of fear of letting people down, out of fear of not being taken seriously, out of fear of falling behind. It was all made out of fear. That is not a good business model.

[0:42:30] YD: No. But you know what? I feel like, a lot of my experiences have shown me that we are operating in such a capitalistic, fear-driven world, that a lot of times we are – there is no other way for us to operate to succeed in that model unless we start breaking out of those stereotypes. That's why I'm excited to have conversations like these, right? Because even this conversation is going to advance some of that a little bit and say, “Hey, there is a different approach to doing work that matters, that is not driven by fear, is not driven by we have to prove quickly the scalability of this, the success of this. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense.” All of that to me is such a capitalistic and actually, male-oriented way to do work that I'm excited that there is a different way and conversations like this are part of it.

[0:43:29] NV: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, everything you said just hit the nail on the head. I think that there is, especially because things move so fast in today's world. I mean, with social media and everything, there is this sense that if you don't act now, if you don't move now if you don't make – if you don't do something at this very minute, you're going to miss your window. That's part of it. Again, going back to fear, it's like, there was such a fear that like, “Oh, my God. We have a good idea here. What if somebody else jumps on this idea and they have more money and more connections than we do? We lose it.”

That was a real thing. I'm not going to lie, it's something that I still struggle with. I still struggle with this comparison that I tend to do with where other people are in their careers and how other people are living their lives on social media. Although I realized, I understand that it's all perception. It's all bullshit. I still struggle with it. I still tend to look at other people and I think, “Oh, my God. I am falling behind. Or I'm not living up to expectation, or I'm letting people down.” It's sad. It's really sad because I see that with everyone I know. People that I admire and people that I consider to be top of their game, redefining the industry, and making strides for women. They suffer from insecurity and imposter syndrome because they're constantly comparing themselves to what others are doing.

[0:45:05] YD: Again, I'm going to say something here that may be a bit, I guess, unorthodox or something, but I have this view and I've only recently started feeling this way. Actually, after starting Genius Womxn and starting on this path, that — that in itself, that comparison game is a way to keep women specifically small and insecure and not advancing to more leadership positions in our world. Because it's almost like in the middle centuries when women banding together and women supporting each other were dangerous. It's witchcraft. We have to protect against that.

I feel like there are some parallels here as well because imagine the world in which every single one of us feels bold, feels supported and feels exactly where she needs to be in this moment of time, what different decisions we would have made if we felt like that all the time? I don't know. It's a different world. It would be a completely different world, I feel like —

[0:46:10] NV: Yeah. I mean, you're absolutely right.

[0:46:12] YD: Thinking about Unearth Women today and the platform and how it's evolved, what kinds of stories are you most excited about publishing and creating for the magazine? Are you open to working with new writers that you haven't worked with before to reach out to you as well?

[0:46:32] NV: Yeah, definitely. I mean, where things are now with Unearth Women, it's a pretty exciting time, because we – so, we have a book coming out. During our meteoric rise, when everything was happening at once, one of the things to happen was that we got a book deal with Penguin Random House. That's super exciting. This is something that we've been working on now for almost two years, and it's coming out in the spring. Basically, this book is, it's a collaborative effort that focuses on the entire thing, the entire platform of Unearth Women, in the sense that it focuses on how to support women on your travels, and how to travel as a woman today.

It takes into consideration some of the things that guidebooks don't necessarily address. Also, it talks about supporting women. It talks about building your own feminist city guide, how to find women-owned businesses, and how to support women-led organizations. The book really brings together all of these voices in the travel industry. Of course, as we know, there's no way to write an all-encompassing how to travel as a woman today type of book, without bringing in the voices of other people.

I have one experience, I can only speak to my experience. But we have women that talk about traveling as part of the LGBTQIA community. We have women talking about traveling as a woman of color. I'm really excited about this book. I am very curious to see where this takes us, because, obviously, this book coming out from Penguin Random House, allows us to reach a whole new audience that we may not be reaching right now. I'm eager to see what doors that opens. Because we have this book coming out, my hope, my goal, and my wish, is to try to release a new issue of Unearth Women later this year to coincide with the release of the book.

The idea being that, if we're going to have this book coming out and people are going to now know about Unearth Women, that when they come to investigate and see what we're about, that we'll have a new issue and we'll have some exciting new content and that there will be things there that are new and fresh for them to enjoy and hopefully, fall in love with the brand.

In a very long-winded way, the answer to your question is, yes, we are currently accepting freelance submissions for the digital site. Also, as we look to release a new issue, at some point during the year, we're going to make an announcement for opening submissions for the next print issue of the magazine. All of that is really in an effort to boost up the Unearth Women brand, the magazine, and the website in preparation for the release of the book.

[0:49:25] YD: Amazing. That's so wonderful to hear. For our listeners, we're going to link to your submission guidelines, too. Take a look at those. They are pretty amazing and very detailed, so you'll get a better idea of what types of stories Nikki and her team are looking for as well. You mentioned your book, you're running Unearth Women platform and you also do your editorial work and other publications. I also learned that you're producing a true crime documentary, which is just amazing.

[0:49:56] NV: This is a really random project. I mean, I guess, I could give you the salesy spin and be like, “Oh, well. I like to tell women's stories.” Here I am telling women's stories in documentary form. This is a completely accidental thing that we – my boyfriend is a documentary filmmaker. To just give you a little bit of context. I guess it's not entirely out of the blue. But during the pandemic, as with everybody else, we've had ample free time on our hands. We were having a conversation with friends one day and the conversation centered around the idea of the Milk Carton Program, which, for those who may not be familiar with, in the 80s in America, there was something called the Milk Carton Program, where when children that disappeared, their missing images were printed on milk cartons.

This obviously predates the Internet. This was at a time when families desperate to find their kids were trying to spread awareness and what better way to spread awareness than to print these images on one of the most ubiquitous items ever, which is milk. This program had a lot of pushback. Some people were really disturbed by the fact that there were missing kid posters on their milk cartons, while they were having cereal. Other people saw the benefit. But largely, it was considered a failure, because not a lot of kids were recovered from it.

All of this is to say that when we were looking into the Milk Carton Program, the idea to do a documentary about it, because surprisingly, there is not a documentary about this came about. We happened to get in touch with some children, now adults that actually were milk carton kids. They had been kidnapped, or they had been abducted and they were found as a direct result of having their face on a milk carton.

What's so interesting is that these stories haven't been told. A lot of these stories are actually of women. This is where we're at now. We're in the very early phases of producing this documentary. We've partnered with Unrealistic Ideas, which is the production company belonging to the actor, Mark Wahlberg. They released a documentary called McMillions, which was nominated for an Emmy. They've come onboard to help us produce this documentary. Yeah. Right now, it's really early days, but I'm really, really excited about this. I've actually been pretty quiet about it. Stay tuned.

At some point, I'm going to fly out of the gates and be like, “This is what I've been working on. I'm so excited because I love true crime.” When I'm not doing Unearth Women stuff, I'm listening to True Crime Podcast. I'm watching true crime docs. I'm obsessed with true crime. This is such an exciting project for me to be working on. I'm just itching to tell everyone about it. It's an exciting thing.

[0:52:54] YD: That's incredible. My question to you is actually, how do you balance all of these different things that you're working on? More specifically, I hear this sometimes that there is this train of thought that you have to do one thing and do it well. I know that a lot of us in this industry are actually drawn to more than one creative project, because I'm like that, too. I have Genius Womxn. I work with publications. I have a travel company. I'm excited when I meet other people who have lots of different things going on. My question is, what would you say to someone who feels drawn to be creating in the world in different ways, but sometimes feels that maybe is looked badly upon? Maybe you need to focus on just one thing to be successful. What would you say to them?

[0:53:44] NV: I think you just have to do what you're passionate about. I mean, at the end of the day, after everything that went down with Unearth Women, after everything that we've all been living through and many are still living through in terms of the pandemic and quarantine, I just want to do what makes me excited, what I feel gets me jumping out of bed in the morning.

The fact is that I don't really balance it, to be honest. Whoever tells you they're balancing everything, I mean, is lying, because there are weeks where I don't touch Unearth Women. I'm not going to let you. There are weeks where I – that entire week, I am working on other projects, I'm doing stuff for the doc, I'm doing a freelance article, whatever it is. I'm right now trying to pitch a second book, so I can hopefully get that in the can. There are weeks where I'm just doing everything but Unearth Women. Then there are weeks where all I'm doing is Unearth Women, and I'm not doing any of the other stuff. I'm okay with that.

I'm okay with just going back to basics in terms of going back to what makes me happy and what makes me passionate. Again, this is coming out of this Unearth Women experience, the magazine, everything, what I really realized is that I just want to go back to passion. Unearth Women started as a passion project. It took off and flew into outer space, because of passion, because I believed it so much and I chased it out of this world that it shot out into the stratosphere and it became what it is. That's so exciting to me.

I want to see where these other things end up. Right now, I'm really passionate about this documentary. I want to see where that takes me. I told you that we have the book coming out. I want to ride the momentum of this book coming out to see if I could get another book deal for another book idea that I've had. From the outside, looking in, it might seem a little scattered. It might seem a little like, “Jesus, how do you sleep at night?” I guess, the short answer to your question is, I sleep fine because I don't worry about balancing.

Whatever the day requires; if I wake up today and today I woke up to a bunch of emails about the docs, so today I'm focusing on the documentary. Tomorrow I'll wake up and it might be a different day. Tomorrow I might wake up and just work on Unearth Women. The day after, I might focus on a freelance article I'm working on for Cosmopolitan right now. There is no balance. I'm just doing what needs to be done on that day.

[0:56:25] YD: Yes, I love that. I love that. I think also, it's perhaps about releasing expectations that something needs to progress at a certain pace because I think that's part of that feeling of pressure that I'm not working on Unearth Women this week. Every week I have to be working on something a little bit to progress it. Maybe if you release that expectation and just to your point, focus on the passion and let things unfold as they are, which is again, I think a more [of] this feminine intuitive approach to doing things, which I just love so much. Then some of that pressure is going to be released. Oh, I love that. That's wonderful.

[0:57:04] NV: Exactly. I think the other thing, too, and this is a big lesson that I would love listeners to take away, is that when you put all of your eggs in one basket, you really live and die by that basket. With Unearth Women, when it was the be all end all, when it was the only thing I was working on, the only thing that was occupying my brain space, it felt like life or death. It really did. Because I was demanding it to pay the bills. I was demanding it to meet the moment. When you put that such intense pressure on a project, particularly one that's young and an infant and it's blossoming – I mean, it's like, if you can picture a flower, a new flower popping out of the dirt and then you just dump a giant bucket of water on it, I mean, you completely drown it.

It's like, you have to let these things grow at their own pace. That's what I do with Unearth Women. I dumped a giant bathtub of water on top of a fledgling flower and it drowned. It's not dead. It's sprouting up again. But the lesson there being that I find, at least for me, when I don't have all my eggs in one basket, when I have other things that I'm working on, that I'm excited about, the pressure is not on one thing to succeed. It's not on one thing to pay the bills. It's not on one thing to be my career.

Right now, I have Unearth Women and that's great, and that's exciting and I love working on it. I also have my freelance writing and I love that, too. I have money from that and I have stories that I'm excited about for that. I have this documentary and that's exciting and I'm excited to see where it takes me. I don't feel like it spreads me thin. If anything, I feel like it keeps me mentally sound and stable, because there are other – there are other irons on the fire here. With the book idea that I have for the second book deal, if it doesn't happen, okay, well, then I have these other things going on.

If Unearth Women hits a quiet streak and nothing's going on over there, well, then I have the doc. If the doc for whatever reason, I don't know if something happens with the doc, but then I have these other things. I find it keeps me sane to know that I don't have to live or die by one idea.

[0:59:31] YD: I love that. I love that so much. That's the approach that I take with my work as well. I can totally relate to that. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us.

[0:59:42] NV: You'll see, too. I mean, look. I've both worked with and interviewed so many people in the travel space. The one thing that I always am impressed by, because I've actually asked this exact question to other women that I've interviewed. How do you do it all? How do you balance it all? At the end of the day, everyone is hustling and everyone is diversifying their projects and revenue streams. That is the biggest thing.

When I used to interview these travel bloggers in my early twenties, and I'd be like, “How? How do you make a living off of this?” I would look for some magical answer. There wasn't one. They diversified their revenue stream. They weren't just travel blogging. They were travel blogging and doing an e-commerce store and freelance writing and waitressing on the side that they just didn't share that on social media. There's so much hustling and diversification of revenue streams here. It makes sense. It makes sense because there are so many creative people in the world today. It's really, really hard to carve out a living off of just one creative endeavor.

[1:00:49] YD: Yes. What I always say, too, is that do whatever it takes, whatever you need to do, to keep building the vision that you have for your own creative life. There is no shame in supporting yourself with all these different things. It doesn't make you less of a creator. It doesn't make you any less valid in this field if you have all these different things going on. I'm really glad that you brought this up.

[1:01:12] NV: Thank you for saying that. I have to just say, thank you for what you just said. Because when I was in my twenties, and I used to feel so guilty and crappy about myself because I was doing other work beyond my passion. Even when I was in advertising and I was trying to be a freelance writer and launch my writing career and get into travel, like editorial jobs, I used to feel like I was wasting my time. I'm not a real writer. I'm not a real editor. I'm not a real journalist, because I have a 9 to 5 job at an advertising firm. I felt crappy about it.

It took me such a long time to realize that it's because of that job, it's because of the regular paycheck and the benefits and the health insurance that I got from that job that I was even able to become a freelance writer and pursue these passions. That's something that I feel like, especially young people who listen to this need to realize that you make your life so much harder when you just throw yourself into whatever it is you're passionate about and expect it to pay your bills and get you health insurance and cover the rent. It may not work that way. That's okay. It's okay to have a 9 to 5, or to bartend, or to do whatever it takes to support yourself while you're building this passion. That's what it means to hustle.

[1:02:42] YD: Yes. Oh, my God. Nikki, I think this is – we need to cut this and put this into every single episode. We have to put this everywhere, so people hear this all the time. That's such an important message.

[1:02:53] NV: I know. I feel like you should just cut this part and make it the trailer. Just like, I need it to be – I need it as my own ringtone because I forget this all the time. This is what it means to hustle.

[1:03:05] YD: Yes. Yes. Same. Same, right? We need this reminder as well, for sure. Oh, my goodness. I feel like, we can go for another hour because there's a lot of good stuff that I still want to ask you and I didn't get to ask you. I think I want to close with these two things. First, I'm curious. I think I mentioned this earlier that a lot of people that listen to the show, they have creative aspirations. They want to do something incredible with the stories that they want to tell, particularly in the travel space. I know from experience that when you first start in this space, it can be so intimidating, because again, maybe you don't have the traditional background, or maybe you don't see a lot of people around you doing what you want to be doing.

Beyond saying just start, which is what we say, right? How do you overcome that fear? What has helped you to make a move and to get going when you're first starting, when you don't have that big portfolio when you don't know anybody in the industry, what would you say to these people?

[1:04:11] NV: Just talking to other people, networking, listening, and having conversations, like what we're having right now. That really helps, because I think that when you're starting out, the people that are at the top of the industry, they feel like gods. They feel like they're so far away and out of reach and that their careers are so enviable, that it just feels like — to draw a line from point A to point B, from where you are to where they are, it feels daunting and it feels impossible. That's really disheartening.

What I find is when you have these conversations, like the ones we're having now, you realize that one, these are just regular people. These are regular women that — a lot of them started out exactly where you're starting out, or maybe even with less. I think, it's easy to look at these people and think, “Oh, they got to where they got, because they have connections, or they have money, or they were in the right place at the right time.” That is true. For a lot of people, that is very true. There are also a lot of people that that's not the case.

I've been approached about Unearth Women and I've had people assume that I have a trust fund and that I must have started Unearth Women because I have a trust fund and I thought, “What the hell? I'm going to use it.” When they find out that I started Unearth Women while unemployed with no savings, they're like, “Oh, that is different.” It's like when you talk to people and you hear their origin story and you hear about where they got to where they are, I think sometimes it makes it feel more accessible. If it feels more accessible, then it feels like you can do it, too. That's really the takeaway from every one of these conversations.

From every woman's travel conference that I've both attended and spoken at, the takeaway is always this. If I can do this, you can do it. That's just what it comes down to. There's nothing that separates the people who are listening to this and me. I don't come from money. I'm an immigrant from Colombia. I didn't go to an Ivy League school. I went to Indiana University. I didn't do some impressive internships at Vogue, or anything. I didn't even climb the ladder of editorial the way that other people do.

I stumbled around New York going from job to job, balancing freelance writing while waitressing tables, until I got into advertising. What I did was I just hustled and I networked and I talked to people that had careers that I wanted. I talked to people that would take the time to mentor me and help me. That is what it took. Yeah, for the people listening to this podcast, there's never going to be an invitation to start. There's never going to be a clear-cut path to walk. You just do it. If you feel scared to do it, talk to other women who’ve done it already. You'll see that there was nothing special about them. It just drive, that’s all it was. It was drive and passion.

[1:07:35] YD: I love it. I love it, Nikki. Yes. Subscribe 100% under everything you said. This is what I talk about every single time on the podcast. This is amazing. I want to close with this question. It's a bit of a big question. how would you start thinking about what does it mean to be a woman who is stepping into her brilliance today?

[1:07:59] NV: I think it means being confident. I think confidence is key. Again, this goes back to where we are as a society and culture. Right now, it's so important to not only have confidence in what you stand for and what you believe. You have to stand behind your idea. That is the biggest thing. Also, to recognize a sense of responsibility, whether it's telling stories that uplift other people, whether it's challenging the status quo of industries that are behind in the times, or whether it's pushing for sustainability, or whatever it is.

I think today, it's all about standing behind your beliefs and having a responsibility to try to shape tomorrow to be better. That to me is the biggest thing that I see right now across all industries is that globally, we're coming out of a very difficult time. It has never been more important to look towards tomorrow and recognize all of our collective responsibility in shaping tomorrow. For every single industry, there's a reckoning happening, including travel, which is what does that look like? For travel, it's a big focus on sustainability and responsible tourism. You see everything from companies to writers to bloggers, trying to figure out what that is, trying to figure out how they change their content and what is their responsibility to that. To answer your question, I think that what it looks like to be a woman today stepping into a field is confidence and its responsibility.

[1:09:40] YD: Yes. I think that the key to that change that you talk about globally is real women. Women have the key.

[1:09:49] NV: Absolutely. I think, again, it goes back to responsibility. We all have a responsibility to lift other women up, to lift women up in other countries where they are suppressed. There's only good that can come out of that. The more awareness you can spread, the more content you can create, the more voices you can lift, and the more people you can interview, whatever is your medium and whatever is your platform, I think you should use it to lift people up because that's so important right now.

[1:10:22] YD: Nikki, thank you so much for this conversation. This has been a pleasure and a joy to talk to you. I think we need to invite you again to our podcast so that we can explore more of these themes in more depth because there's just so much beauty and meaning to uncover in the conversation with you. Thank you so much.

[1:10:43] NV: Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute delight to talk to you. again, I feel like, we could go on for hours, so I am always game to come back on.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[1:10:53] YD: Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. We're bringing back to celebrate the multi-talented women who've come to our show over the years. If so, I want to ask you to please now, take a minute to support our show. You can do that by leaving us a rating, or a review on an Apple Podcast app, or any other app that you're listening this podcast on, or by sharing this episode with your friends, your loved ones, maybe posting about it on social media. It really, really helps us get discovered by more listeners that would find our show helpful. It means so much to me.

I read every single review we get and I take them very seriously, because I want to create a great show for you. If you've been inspired by something you heard today, or in any other episodes of our show, please take just a minute to support it by leaving us your rating or review. This is one of the best ways you can help us out. Thank you so much for listening again and stay tuned for next week.

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