Today we’d like to introduce you to Becky Bates.
Hi Becky, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started blogging about my travels when I took my first international trip at age 18 to meet my then-boyfriend in the Netherlands. My first solo trip was at age 21 to Prague and Vienna (while I was living in the Netherlands), and when I was 23, I spent six weeks traveling alone through New Zealand and Australia. Friends and family back home were shocked when I told them I spent a total of $4,000 on the entire trip, from the airfare to the bus passes to the hostels and food, and I started publicly sharing my tips for how to travel on a budget.
Since then, I’ve become passionate about helping everyone travel the world affordably, but I am most passionate about helping women. I believe traveling alone is the most empowering and enriching service you can do for yourself. Americans don’t embrace the gap year like many other Western world youths do; it’s not part of our workaholic culture. I think it’s essential to carve out time to explore the world, learn about new people and cultures – and learn about yourself in the process.
In the years following my trip “down under,” I started gaining traction as a travel and lifestyle influencer in San Diego. But I had a full plate: I was also freelancing with a PR company alongside my day job as Social Media & Content Manager for Trip.com (formerly Gogobot), a travel startup based out of San Francisco. I worked with many San Diego restaurants and boutiques during this time, and then, because I wasn’t busy enough, I got engaged and started my own home-based fashion and lifestyle boutique to make some extra money for my wedding!
In an effort to juggle all these balls in the air, I quit working with the PR agency at the end of 2018. By the spring of 2019, Trip.com had been acquired by and eventually dissolved by Skyscanner, so I threw myself full-time into my home business, combining fashion, lifestyle, and travel into a retail sales shop and online community. When the pandemic hit a year later, sales plummeted – and so did travel.
It’s been a crazy couple of years, and I often feel like I’ve been bouncing around in different directions as the global landscape changes. But despite the evolution of my business, the mission remains the same: to share my travel stories and empower everyone to explore their own backyards and the world beyond. In these precarious times, I’m cautiously embracing new travel opportunities and the chance to experience and review the restaurants and businesses that are reopening in San Diego.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It’s definitely not been a smooth ride. I was often holding multiple jobs and entrepreneurial endeavors – fulfilling that stereotypical millennial role, I suppose. I am fiercely determined to be self-sufficient, and I am wildly ambitious, so I don’t give up easily. I was essentially all over the place in my 20s, between PR and events, content management, and starting my own business, but I think that’s normal for a young adult. Now that I’m in my 30s, I’ve been able to define and focus more on the direction I want my business to go – only to be thwarted by a global pandemic!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Stranger In This Town is a travel and lifestyle brand offering guides, tips, and advice on how to travel the world safely and affordably. You can find guides on worldwide destinations, solo female and budget travel, as well as insider tips on things to where to eat, stay, and play in San Diego. I’m proud to have visited 30 countries before the age of 30, and I consider myself an expert on efficient budget travel without being penny-pinching frugal!
What was your favorite childhood memory?
A week-long road trip with my grandma to Yosemite National Park and Monterey, California. She got special permission to bring me along with her senior travel community, and I was the youngest on the bus – by about 50 years! It was my first real trip, aside from camping excursions with my parents and sister, and it ignited that passion that ended up carrying me around the world as I got older. On the first morning on the bus, the tour guide had me pass out the group pins to each member. He told me he’d pay me an allowance, and I responded, “How much?” The entire bus roared with laughter, and I earned a bit of a cheeky reputation. 🙂
Contact Info:
- Email: lifestyledbybecky@gmail.com
- Website: www.strangerinthistown.com
- Instagram: thestrangerinthistown
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestrangerinthistown
