Tanya Badillo (00:00):

I just thought there’s not enough Spanish speaking creators living in the US and I thought that would make me stand out. There’s a lot of, for brands, an industry that they’re not seeing or a target or a niche of all the US Hispanic that are here, that they also like the outdoors, that they also spend money. I’m trying to break the bridge between cultures in a way or to be the bridge.

Ross Borden (00:25):

This is creator, the podcast from Matador Network. I’m your host Ross Borden, and I believe creators are the future of all global advertising. So join me as I sit down with top creators to hear about how they got started, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the tips you need to become a full-time creator. Alright, we’re back with another episode of Creator the podcast. Today we have Tanya Badillo. So Tanya is an outdoor influencer, travel creator, adventure creator. I noticed that a lot of it was in Spanish. Luckily I speak some Spanish, but that was a cool thing that was really unique. And then I mean really you go some incredible places. So we got a lot to talk about today. Tanya, welcome and please introduce yourself.

Tanya Badillo (01:12):

Thank you so much, Ross for having me here. It’s a pleasure. This is my first ever podcast in English, so I’m excited that the Latino community is being featured in podcasts like yours. So thank you so much for the opportunity. My name is Tanya, Tanya Adirio, and I’m currently based in Washington, but I travel all over and I grew up most of my time in Mexico, so I just decided to keep posting in Spanish even though I live in the US since a lot of Spanish speaking, there’s a ton of Spanish speaking people in the US and in general all over the world

Ross Borden (01:51):

Who love travel and outdoors. I feel like there’s a massive audience to be reached. So you grew up in Mexico, you’re living in the US now you describe yourself to me as a nomad. Tell us a little bit about your background and then we’ll get into the stuff about becoming a creator.

Tanya Badillo (02:10):

So I was born in Texas in a place called Waco and literally when I was four months old, my parents moved to Mexico and yeah, I’ve lived all my life there, but we traveled a lot as well. Since my dad is a scientist, I decided to study my high school far from my family in a very good high school that I got a scholarship to. So basically I’ve been living alone since I was 15 and using my studies to travel since I discovered my passion for traveling that I did a exchange program in Canada. I studied a master’s in the uk and then I did a graduate program that took me to Costa Rica. So basically I did a lot of studies in order to focus on my main goal and my passion is traveling.

Ross Borden (03:02):

What were you studying? I’m curious, what did you study in the UK and Costa Rica and get your degrees in?

Tanya Badillo (03:07):

So my bachelor is in geophysics engineering. Then my master is in petroleum exploration, just science in the uk. And what got me an internship in Costa Rica was a energy management program. Wow,

Ross Borden (03:26):

Interesting. So energy and resources, exploration that in itself could be a travel job right there.

Tanya Badillo (03:33):

I made travel part of my lifestyle. So basically even before content creation, just I don’t know anything else or it’s just so normal for me what I do like traveling and content or exploring nature. It’s always been part of my life since I was very young because also my dad was just a scientist, so we were going to different places and being out there in nature and I was going when I was super young with him to do the field work and we had to be sometimes a couple of days up to weeks in certain places to do the field work and

Ross Borden (04:12):

Sure. Sounds like a very interesting life so far. It sort of travels in your DNA and also in your upbringing with your dad and your studies as well. So we ask a lot of, pretty much everyone who comes on the show. Are you full-time creator? Are you still pursuing the formal career that you started and did your studies for?

Tanya Badillo (04:35):

I decided that being in the oil industry, oil and gas industry, it really takes a lot of years, a lot of commitment and literally climbing the corporate ladder. So I decided not to pursue at some point I just decided that it was going to take me ages to do a career in Mexico from where I studied. And when I was around 2022, I decided to quit my job in Mexico and to move to the US or pursue a career in the US because I also started researching that being a content creator could be a full-time job if I wanted to. So with that in mind, having had different road trips to the US before that or while I was doing this job, I decided that I was going to take the leap and move to the US after not having lived there for all my life and just start from scratch.

(05:28):

And I got a job that was remote, that is remote, I’m still in this job and it’s allowed me to have a lot of freedom to continue doing content creation. And actually when I moved to the US I decided that I was going to get a job that was going to help me achieve my dreams at the same time. So the only reason that I got this job was to be able to understand the system of a new country. I have never paid taxes here. I didn’t a credit score, I literally started from zero. I didn’t have an id. It was a challenge for sure, but I’m very happy I took the leap because it was in that moment where I started seeing content creation as a business because I feel the US is much more advanced in terms of the influencer marketing industry as a whole than other countries. So people here take it seriously. Photography, it’s been taken seriously. There’s a lot of regulations, lots of things that I had to learn and I just am very happy that I decided to do that. But no, just to answer your question, I still have my day job and I do content creation on the side as well as other gigs just to do to keep myself.

Ross Borden (06:41):

That’s awesome. I mean that’s great and that hybrid life of career and content creator career is obviously working really well for you. So congrats on the move to the US and starting from nothing and figuring out how to navigate all of that stuff. And so let’s talk about your career as a content creator. Did you have a platform just for fun and then you’re like, whoa, I’m getting tons of followers? Or were you from the very beginning kind of strategic and building an audience and doing this on a regular basis?

Tanya Badillo (07:17):

I remember back in 2019, I had around 4,000 followers. I did a big trip with a friend of mine to Peru with the two weeks of backpacking in Peru and I was like, oh my God. I started taking it seriously there. And just during COVID, that’s when everybody was stuck at home. I had a lot of footage, I had this challenge with a friend and we were kind of pushing each other to see who would reach 10 K first and just being consistent at it and trying to growing with the algorithm because before it was just photos or epic photos of you in nature surrounded by the greatness of being out there in places that are so magical and you’re so small. And I was just hunting for that as much as I could. I was allot into mountaineering. I have climbed pico, so I was basically making as much as I could have every weekend and free time that I had.

Ross Borden (08:22):

Yeah, it sounds like very adventurous life. Pico de awa is definitely on my list. I haven’t made it there yet. So I have to ask you this, you are from Mexican descent, grew up in Mexico, adventurer. I feel like, and this is kind of a tangent, but I have to ask you because I feel like so many Americans just go to the same places in Mexico, usually beach or whatever. From all the places you’ve been in Mexico and all that you know about the country, what are your favorite destinations or I would say even in nature and adventure destinations in Mexico,

Tanya Badillo (09:00):

There’s a state, I don’t know if you have been, but it’s called Chappa, it’s in the south of Mexico. I don’t know if you know about a place that it’s called a tempo. It’s one of the most magical places I’ve been. And Chappa, it’s full of waterfalls, just breathtaking landscapes, jungle lagoons, I don’t know. Everywhere in Mexico I just need three states or four states to finish exploring all the states in Mexico. But I guess it just depends on what you want. We have everything. We have desert, we have places where it snows like breathtaking mountains in New Orleans, close to pot Chico. There’s magical climbing, rock climbing, paradise. If you’re into that, I dunno, I guess you just have to tell me what type of travel you like and then I can tell you this one, but adventure travel like me, Chappa, Oaxaca, ion Baja, California. Even if you want something more unexplored, RO and Yucatan just depends on what you,

Ross Borden (10:06):

It’s endless, right? Mexico is so massive and there’s so much to explore. So every time, I’ve never been to chias, but I’ve researched a trip to CHIAS multiple times because I’m dying to go. Do you do a trip there? I know you run your own trips.

Tanya Badillo (10:19):

You do? Yeah, I have done those trips there, yeah.

Ross Borden (10:22):

Okay, awesome. So tell us about that. I think 90% of people that we talk to make 90% of their money probably from brand deals. What about running trips? I’ve seen a lot of creators start to do this and I can’t tell the varying levels of if it’s really bringing in money, if it’s too small batch. And you’ve obviously, I would imagine most of them go on the trips themselves, run the trips, they’re the sort of face of it, they’re promoting it. Tell us about that experience. How did you decide to start running trips on your own? Did you partner with a company or are you doing everything by yourself? And then how’s it been going for you?

Tanya Badillo (11:03):

So I partner with a friend, the one that I went to Peru with, since she’s super structured, she loves all planning, all the logistics, and I’m more of a friendly salesperson. Naturally. I just like talking to people. I’m quite extrovert. So we partner and we created wild latitude and we do unconventional trips in a way. They’re not the common trip that you find on every website or they’re very curator or very adventurous as well. We went to Theor, we found a local company there that they were kind of crafting the itinerary that I wanted to go. So we’re basically doing all the work. I guess it could be a business if you are running the same route a lot of times. But

(11:58):

For me in particular that I have two jobs now, like my day job and full-time well and content creation. This is a third income source, but it also requires a lot of effort of getting there or finding all the routes and then preparing all this stuff to sell it, talking to all the potential club buyers and then going to a trip, making sure everybody has a great time. Then doing the follow up. And I think it just takes a lot of more time. For me, it’s still in the process of becoming a successful business or something that is more profitable in terms of profit, but I take a lot of, for me, I’m just so happy of having experienced it with other people. I just love that and I do it for the pleasure of sharing that experience with others and seeing how happy they are of discovering a new place of pushing themselves to the limits that they didn’t know they could go or pass beyond that, because we did a trip to Cordera WA watch. We have done Guatemala, hiking, lots of adventure in Ecuador. We jumped off a of a mountain 70 meters into a cliff. So it’s just very, very kind of extreme or people that love more things that are not that popular. We went to Patagonia this year in March.

Ross Borden (13:25):

I saw the photos of Patagonia looks insane. I mean Patagonia, the one time that I went there, I was just blown away by the scale and the size of that place. Just insane. So I’m curious though, and I hear you on being fulfilled by the interpersonal connections and getting people out of their comfort zone. It’s so much of being a creator is digital and you don’t actually get to talk to or eat with or tell stories with people in person. It’s all through the platforms. So I totally understand that that would be really fulfilling. Are most of the guests that you guys have welcomed on these trips, are they Americans or are they Mexican nationals? And I want to talk about language in a minute, but where are they from typically the people who engage with you on these

Tanya Badillo (14:23):

Trips? Most of them are from Mexico, but we have had people that are from the United States, normally Spanish speaking people that live in the us but they just go to our trips as well. Or a lot of people that speak Spanish follow me, but also I’m non Spanish speakers. But yeah, so I guess it’s more for the Latin community in a way.

Ross Borden (14:51):

Well, I’m going to look into a trip. I want to practice my Spanish and check out Empo with you, and that sounds epic.

Tanya Badillo (14:58):

That would be amazing to have you. And yeah, just we are thinking of doing it at the beginning of next year, the end of this year. So yeah, it just gave me everything that

Ross Borden (15:09):

Be good timing to do

Tanya Badillo (15:09):

It.

Ross Borden (15:11):

So let’s get back to your decision. I mean, I don’t know if it was a black and white decision, but it seems like most of your content that I’ve seen is in Spanish. The subtitles are in Spanish. Why, I mean, you speak perfect English, obviously you speak perfect Spanish. I think you speak a couple other languages too, but what drove the decision to focus on Spanish language for your content?

Tanya Badillo (15:37):

To be honest, it was a hard decision because I knew that I had this dream of moving to the US and I was thinking like, oh, should I switch to English or should I be posting bilingual doing all the work of putting in Spanish and in English? And it just struck to me the fact that there’s a lot of travel adventure creators in English already. And I just wanted to be faithful to my following that I grew up in Mexico in the beginning of my path and I just decided to stick with Spanish because there’s a lot of Spanish speaking persons in the US I guess. I don’t know, it’s like the second official language in a way of how many people that speak English here. And I just thought there’s not enough Spanish speaking creators living in the US and I thought that could be not a benefit, but that it could be something that would make me stand out if I wanted to start doing things.

(16:46):

It’s been interesting. I’m trying to get more into how to also sell that to brands, but I have had a couple of collaborations with tourism boards that want to bring Mexicans to the US or promote that. And I guess it’s kind of like advantage, but it’s not that, I guess I’m not in the same level as content creators that just post in English all the time if I want to get full-time partnerships, which I’m trying to do. So. But I guess it’s getting there, I feel as time goes by where just being all more inclusive of everyone or there’s not a lot of bridge, I guess I’m trying to break the bridge between cultures in a way or to be the bridge for people.

Ross Borden (17:34):

Yeah, I love it. And I honestly think it’s a savvy business decision. Two, we are talking to all the big agencies brands nonstop, and it’s crazy how frequently, and I would say increasing frequency of people either targeting Mexican nationals or US Hispanic, obviously massive demographic that huge brands have budget carved out for. So

Tanya Badillo (18:05):

We’ve

Ross Borden (18:05):

Done Spanish language stuff for Amtrak, we’ve done Spanish language stuff for a whole number of DMO tourism boards

Tanya Badillo (18:14):

Who

Ross Borden (18:14):

Are focused on Mexico. And then we’ve had a couple huge brands recently reach out and express interest in US Hispanic content, audience content in Spanish. So I think there’s going to be tons of increasing amount of opportunity in that space.

Tanya Badillo (18:33):

And I feel that something that you brought up, there’s a lot of, for brands, an industry that they’re not seeing or a target or an niche of all the US Hispanic that are here, that they also like the outdoors, that they also spend money on brands and they want to know where to go or to recommend. So I feel of course I’m Hispanic, I’m not going to be just coming to the US and trying to be somebody that I’m not. And I guess it was just the decision to be the most authentic that I could be and just continue. I can speak in English or I can create content for brands if they wanted to meet in English as well. And yeah, I could, but I feel I’m posting for the Spanish speakers that are just bored or don’t want be translating all the time, the content that they see in a way, or I guess I just did it for that reason.

Ross Borden (19:28):

Awesome. Well, congrats on everything. It’s been great chatting. I have one question that I ask almost everyone who comes on the show, and it sounds like you’ll have an interesting answer because you’ve traveled all over the place. If your passport only worked in three countries in the whole world, you could only live or visit three countries. What would those three countries be?

Tanya Badillo (19:53):

I guess us, Mexico and Brazil,

Ross Borden (19:58):

US Mexico, Brazil. Good combo. All right. I like it. So Tanya, for those who don’t follow you, can you tell us where to find you, where people can follow your content and check out your trips and your guides online?

Tanya Badillo (20:09):

Yeah, my Instagram handle is Tanya, T-A-N-Y-A, Bardi, B-A-D-I-L-L-O. And yeah, you can find me there also on TikTok, on YouTube, and that’s my website as well.

Ross Borden (20:24):

Awesome. Thanks for coming on the show.

Tanya Badillo (20:26):

Thank you so much for us

Ross Borden (20:29):

Creator. The podcast is produced by Matador Network. We are leading global travel publisher focused on travel and adventure. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe. Every week I interview a new top creator. New episodes are released every Tuesday on YouTube, apple podcasts, Spotify and everywhere podcasts are found. Thanks for listening.