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

Mavis, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I took my first international trip to Mexico in 2017 and after 24 hours I just knew I wanted to travel the world. I became the girl that was ready to book a trip at any moment. Where’s Mavis? Oh she must be traveling again. After a few trips people really started to ask questions. How do you travel so much? How do you afford all these vacations? At that moment I wanted to show people how I travel and how easy it was to just pick where you want to go and just do it. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a travel content creator, to show people how to travel, to show them there’s so much more out there than your hometown, and to even travel on a budget

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Mavis, I’m 28 years old living in Upstate NY and i love to travel. I would say I got into traveling once I got to college. I started at Corning Community College then transferred to Binghamton University where I got my bachelors in Sociology. I met so many people from different parts of the world and that really sparked my interest in traveling. Even had roommates from India and Turkey. I started small with visiting neighboring states and then got into longer road trips. My favorite road trip was driving from Arizona all the way to New York. My friend and I stopped at every state sign we saw and took a picture. One of my nicknames is Mavy and I created “Mavy on the Move” because I’m always on the move. As a content creator, I want people to see where I’m going, how I got there, how much I spent to go to that destination, what will I be doing there and etc. a service I would like to provide in the future is selling travel guides. Also would like to help people plan an itinerary out for their trip. I also have a 3 year old daughter and I’m proud that even though I became a mother I’m still able to travel and do what I love the most. I remember when I first announced that I was pregnant one of the first things I was told is “you’re not going to be able to travel once you have a kid” that really pushed me to become a travel content creator even more. I wanted to show people the world doesn’t stop just because you have a kid. I want my followers to know that it’s still possible to travel and start a family. My daughter has been to a few states and I even show how to travel with a baby. I’ve been to 3 new countries since having her. I also want my followers to know that you don’t have to be rich to travel and you don’t have to wait until you’re older and established to start traveling you can start now!

How did you build your audience on social media?

I already have a personal instagram page and decided I wanted to make another one dedicated to my travels. I made the page and told my friends the plans I had for this page. I made my first post and without asking my friends shared the post letting everyone know they should follow my traveling page. My audience is not where I want it to be yet but it’s still growing everyday. My advice for people starting to build their social media presence is to not give up, just keep going even if it seems like no one is watching. I know it may be hard being consistent because I struggle with that too but I remember I love to travel and someone out there also wants to start traveling more or even wants to know how they can start traveling so I continue to post my content in hopes that I’m helping someone start their travel journey

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is for people to reach out to me letting me know they really enjoyed learning about the country or state I visited which inspires them to book that same trip, following along my itinerary I did. I think that’s what keeps me going is someone out there enjoys watching my trips and wants to see for themselves what I experienced.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mavyonthemove
• Facebook: Mavy on the Move
• Other: Tiktok: @mavyonthemove