We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andrea Wintergerst a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Andrea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later?

Oh gosh, I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t something that I go over constantly in my head.

I had been playing around with the idea of getting my site up and running, perhaps not in the form it took in the end, more or less from the time I graduated college. I was lucky to have had quite a few experiences that would make for good stories back then, but I never felt 100% ready to jump into it. During a lull in my life after finishing a contract with Disney, I felt I had enough time and was in the right mindset to finally put some love and work into it. Two Forks and a Passport went live in September 2019.

I usually say I wish I had started sooner, when adventures were fresh in my memories and feelings. I would certainly have more content on my page, but there’s also no reason not to revisit past experiences, especially with a different perspective. Perhaps I would have benefitted from jumping on the scene at a time when blogs were more prevalent, but the market might also have been too saturated for me to break into. In short, in reality, starting sooner could have gone either way, so dwelling on it isn’t particularly productive.

On the other hand, had I started later, I would have had more time to work on all the things that I came to learn about later: content calendars, marketing plans, cleaner code for the website itself, and all the other details that I’ve gradually understood. It surely would have meant a lot less of having to go back and fix small mistakes here and there. All in all, it would have been a far smoother experience and I’d likely have a firmer footing, but I don’t regret how I did things.

Looking back, I believe I started at just the right time for me. A little bit later and I wouldn’t have had the impulse and drive to go ahead with it, as I tend to lose both interest and motivation in projects if I don’t act on my ideas almost immediately. The day I decided on the name and put the logo together was the same day I filed the trademark application and bought the domain name, haha.

I’d say to anyone having second thoughts about starting a project, there are things that you can’t foresee and you won’t learn until you’re actually in the midst of it. As long as you feel in the proper frame of mind, and you have a somewhat complete idea of your project and what you’re trying to achieve, just go for it. When it seems like the universe is lining up, it likely is.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Essentially, I’m in Food Tourism. I have a bachelor’s degree in Tourism Management and a master’s degree in Food Tourism. I developed a love for diverse cultures and cuisines when I was young, and decided to pursue an education that would allow me to continue to learn about these subjects. As I worked in the industry and learned more, I began looking for ways to combine that education with my passion for travel, food and photography. Because of this, I have worked in many areas of the tourism and hospitality business, and I move fairly often. This has allowed me to experience and learn from the worlds around me, and I write about them on my blog.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Yes! So many! Especially all of the free resources. I now keep a list of them on my blog so other people who may be interested in a similar path as me can find them a little easier. The most useful ones and which I still use are Pexels for stock photos, Canva for social media stuff, picsart for photo editing, inkscape for drawing vectors, and FontSpace for fonts.

And a tip for anyone starting out: Always, always, always remember to look at the license that comes with the resource you’re using, especially if it’s a freebie! And if you’re in a position where you can donate to the artists who provide these free resources, try to do so.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I want people to open up to the possibility of new experiences. Trying things, meeting people, going places they may have never considered. I wish for them to find beauty in the big things as well as the small, the good and the bad, the known and unknown. To learn to appreciate every aspect of the adventures they go on, especially when things don’t go as planned.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.twoforksandapassport.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twoforksandapassport/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/twoforksandapassport
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/andreawm19/

Image Credits
Andrea Wintergerst