HERStory: Lindsay Tigar, travel and lifestyle journalist
Introducing HERStory, highlighting the many inspiring clients from DevelopHER designs. Here, founder and lead developer, Jess Tatham, talks career, life and more with women you definitely want to know more about. This week, we’re chatting with travel and lifestyle journalist, Lindsay Tigar, who hired DevelopHER to relaunch and rebrand her portfolio site.
I love to read. While I definitely wish I had more time these days to sit back and indulge in more books, I try my best to take time to catch up on news, read inspiring stories, and my personal favorite: travel guides. My addiction also stems to traveling. As the daughter of two nomads who took myself and my siblings around the world our whole childhoods, exploring new cities and countries is an integral part of who I am as a person, woman and professional. That’s why I was so excited to work with travel and lifestyle journalist, Lindsay Tigar.
She writes everything from hotel reviews and restaurant guides to local immersion features and first-person narratives. Her work has appeared on a slew of publications—from Travel & Leisure and Vogue to USA Today and beyond. Over the past year, we’ve grown to become close friends, making her website feel even more personal to me as we transformed her brand. I finally snagged some of her time to chat about where she is in the world, what’s next and what she loves about her new site LindsayTigar.com:
JT: Some would say your career is a dream career—traveling and writing about everything you experience. How is it, really?
LT: Sometimes, it does feel like a dream! I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid and even landed my first internship at 15. It took a long time to build my career and earn the respect of clients, but nowadays, it is continuing to grow. While–of course!—writing about traveling is a privilege and something I’d do for free, I think few people realize how much research and time goes into pieces. Not only do you have to describe a destination for seasoned travelers, but for beginners, too. And every angle is different, depending on the story—sometimes I’m catering to honeymooners, other times I’m writing for solo female trekkers. And since I travel full-time while writing, it is hard to manage priorities and actually stick to deadline, but I usually make it work.
JT: Where are you now?
LT: Right now, I’m in Bogota, Colombia. It is a beautiful city with a diverse background and plenty of pretty views. Though it is a tad chillier than I’d prefer, the entrepreneurial and digital nomad community is great here.
JT: How has traveling changed your business?
LT: I’ve been lucky that traveling has actually grown my business. It is a great opportunity when you can arrive in a country, email your editor and say ‘Hey, I’m in Portugal for a month—what type of stories do you need?’ While I do continue to travel up to 3 to 4 months a year in the future, I’ll have a home base starting in 2019. That’s when I’ll really apply what I’ve learned over the past year to build my brand: flexibility, hustle, professionalism and of course, compassion. Each of those has equally contributed to my success, and I wake up every damn day thankful to get paid to do what I love.
JT: When you first came to me about your portfolio site, you felt it was lacking something. How does your new site compare?
LT: I hired a web developer two years ago to transform my site and when she delivered the final product, I was so disappointed, since it was missing many of the elements I wanted. I went in and hacked something myself, which was fine in the beginning of my career but I quickly outgrew it. Since I quit my full-time job to be a solopreneur a year ago, I knew I needed to really invest in both my business and my brand, which is where you came in! I love how my new site really illustrates in a professional, polished and inspiring way the essence of travel journalism. It is 100 percent me, and I’m so proud to share it far and wide. Thanks Jess 🙂
Take a look at her new site here!
JT: At DevelopHER, we want to help supercharge female entrepreneurs like yourself. One way is by sharing your stories and your advice. What would you say to aspiring writers who want to build a career?
LT: Write, write, write. And then write some more. Even for free, if you have to. Though I’m one of the lucky ones who has always known what she wanted to be when she ‘grew up’, the way I built my clients was through tons of writing. I actually started a dating blog when I was 21 years old that ended up being a success. But the further I ingrained myself into the community, the less I wanted to write about my personal love life. I slowly inched my way over to travel over several years, building respect with each new clip. But I wrote for ten years before anyway ‘paid’ me for stories, meaning by the time I was ready to go full-force into freelancing, I had 100s of examples. Those getting started should definitely start a blog, pitch wide and far, attend networking sessions and join any writing Facebook group they can find. And one trick I’ve kept throughout my career is confidence: my first journalism professor made us say ‘I am a writer’ on our first day—long before we were trained professionals. The more secure you are in your skills, the more likely someone will hire you. And okay: dream big, but work harder: You’ll never know where it will take you.
