Season 6 Trailer

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[00:00:11] YD: Welcome back to season six of our podcast, everyone. My name is Yulia Denisyuk. I'm an award-winning travel photographer, writer, storyteller, community builder, podcaster and entrepreneur working with publications like National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet and more. As of this year, I'm also an NFT artist, selling my work and building communities inside the metaverse.

Today, I'm thrilled to welcome you into the new season of our podcast, a season in which we'll share with you beautiful conversations with our amazing guests and insights from my years of experience inside Travel Media. Our mission with this podcast and everything else we're doing inside Travel Media Lab is to help storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. This is a podcast for photographers, writers, bloggers, creators and storytellers who love travel and want to publish their travel stories. We also have a special focus on discussing women's issues inside travel media, like dealing with self-doubt, impostor syndrome, life-work balance and more. 

I want to make clear today that these issues are humanity's issues too. I first heard dear Beth Santos, CEO of the Wanderful platform speak about it in this context, So I want to make sure this credit goes to her. I want to invite everyone who wants to be an ally of women and underrepresented voices in trouble and beyond to come in, listen to a few of our episodes and join us on this journey. Because when women thrive, we all thrive and that's a fact. On this podcast, we host in-depth conversations with some of the most incredible women in travel out there. We also share my expertise from years of working in this field, with publications like National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler and others. I'm going on assignments to places like Mongolia, Rwanda, Austria and California. We do all that with the hopes of inspiring you, our dear listeners to take action on your own goals, reach out to editors, reach out to publications' page and publish your stories. And finally, see the goals and dreams you've had for yourself come to fruition.

Here's why I know, I absolutely know that all of that is within reach for you. I'm not the only one who's been able to get published and get all these dream assignments. Our community members are doing that right now. What I teach inside our membership and our introduction to travel journalism program, and what I share on this podcast has already helped our students get published in places again, like Condé Nast Traveler, like Time Magazine and many more, and you can get there as well. 

In this season, you hear from incredible voices from within the travel media industry like travel writer, Jessica Poitevien, who's writing for Travel and Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic and others.

[00:03:14] JP: The moral of the story with my long-winding road is that you don't have to have everything figured out to get started. When you take the first step, then the second step will become clearer. When you take the second step, and the third step will become clearer. I was looking so far into the distance, and trying to figure out my entire life trajectory, that it was paralyzing me from making any decisions in the present. That's something that every once awhile, I still have to remind myself, "You got to stay flexible. You got to see how things go." That was probably the biggest lesson that I learned throughout this long-winding road to where I am now.

[00:03:53] YD: We will also hear from Beth Santos, who I mentioned before, who runs Wanderful community and is an advocate of inclusion in travel and beyond.

[00:04:03] BS: We want everybody to be coming to wits because we believe that issues of amplifying women, and people of color and other underrepresented communities should be an issue that all of us are fighting to resolve and not just some of us. Men should be as much part of that conversation of what do we need to be doing, and how can we help and how can we fix this as the people who are affected by it should be.

[00:04:30] YD: I also plan on bringing you episodes in which I'll share with your thoughts on the gear I use for assignments and the steps you can take right now to get started inside travel media. As we get going on this new season of our Travel Media Lab podcast, we're more determined than ever before to build a collaborative supportive space inside Travel Media to help you publish your travel stories, a space where you feel inspired, nourished and encouraged to start telling stories you've always wanted to tell and to find your name in the pages of all the publications you've always wanted to be in. We'll guide you along the way with practical insights, interviews with our guests and some very special treats for our dear listeners.

I started Travel Media Lab after years of trial and error where I was building my travel journalism career mostly by myself without any support. Publishing your travel stories doesn't really have to be lonely, or scary or overwhelming. If travel and storytelling are your passions, if you have big dreams of working with sound the top publications out there, our platform is here for you to provide clarity, knowledge and next steps for you to carve out your own path in this space. We have a program called Introduction to Travel Journalism that will give you the base knowledge you need to advance in this industry. We also have a membership called The Circle for women in travel media and their supporters who are looking for community and ongoing support.

You can find more information about both including some wonderful things our students and circle members have said about working with us on our website at travelmedialab.com. We've planned a lot of incredible episodes for you this season and I can't wait to share all of them with you. I hope you'll join us this summer as we celebrate all the amazing women in the travel media space and take the bold steps to go after our own storytelling goals. Thank you so much for listening to the Travel Media Lab podcast and for giving yourself this space for your creative goals to take shape. I will see you next week with our first episode of the season and interview with Jessica Poitevien. Onwards my friends.

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