“The more I travel, the bigger the world is.” Autumn’s chill is starting to creep in again, which always gets me thinking about my next great escape.  You may have seen Expedia’s latest inspiring ad campaign called “Find Yours” that featured traveler and blogger, Trish Friesen. The campaign is all about the reasons why we travel and her video made me want to meet her to learn a little about what she is all about and get to know the woman of fashion and adventure behind the blog; Trip Styler. Trish started Trip Styler in December 2009 with a desire to encourage people to try different kinds of travel, to new places and new adventures.  She saw people going to the same place over and over, and wanted to share the joys of discovering new locations and experiencing new things.

Trip Styler is a travel lifestyle blog authored by herself three times weekly with 5 monthly contributors each with their own specific travel expertise: fashion, health, traveling with kids, beauty, and music.

I was excited to meet Trish and gush about travel for a bit. Honestly I could probably chat with her all day swapping travel stories and collecting all of her travel tips.

Alexis: I love the video you did with Expedia. How were you chosen to fly back to the place you visited 18 years ago that inspired you so much?

Trish:I started working with Expedia in March 2012 co-hosting their weekly twitter travel chats.  In April I heard about a campaign they wanted to run sharing travel stories, and they asked me to submit my transformative travel story. I remember the day clearly; I had just got home from Tokyo and Thailand tired and half delirious from the time change, and wrote the submission. I guess they liked it because a few weeks later I was on a plane to Mexico with Expedia’s film crew.

How did it feel to be chosen?

It was crazy! I was delighted and awestruck.  It was really my largest honour, not because it is one of the largest travel sites, but because the story I got to share was one that I really care about.  It’s not really what I get to talk about on Trip Styler.

What struck you most about re-visiting San Felipe after 18 years?

So little had changed.  The road was now paved, and there were little Twitter and Facebook logos everywhere on signs, which was so strange.  It was a reminder of how much the world has changed, and yet not at all.  The clinic that we helped build had gotten bigger; wings were added, and there were more resources and facilities.   They originally built the clinic because it was a 3 hour drive between cities and people would literally die on the drive.  It met a real need.  It’s strange, because you go there to help people and to change something and you end up being the one who is helped and changed.

Out of everywhere else in the world, why do you choose Vancouver as your home base?

At one point I was going to move to Munich actually, and I am so glad I stayed.  Aside from that I grew up here, and my family being here, I find wherever I go I come back to YVR and just… exhale.  It really is a world class city in every sense – we are so spoiled!  Where else can you go to the beach and go skiing within ten minutes?  And our food is amazing!  Don’t get me wrong, some of the best individual restauraunts I’ve been to are in other big cites, but the variety and the quality of the majority of our restauraunts is unmatched.  It’s almost hard to find a really bad restauraunt here.

Could you tell me about an amazing place you’ve been?

There is an amazing place called Bonaire.  It is in the Caribbean and the least developed of it, Aruba, and Curaçao, and is outside of the hurricane belt, so it’s not as “dangerous.”  The Sorobon Beach Resort used to be a nudist colony and has duplexes lining the cove on one of two white sand beaches.  There is a mile of knee to waist deep water that feels like a hot tub, it is beautiful!  Here is an amazing beach bar made of old branches with huge Moroccan pillows.  I was sitting there thinking “is this place real?” when a flock of about 30 flamingos flew right overhead as I ordered a beer.  The bartender told me they do that every night around 6:00. I know it would be a place I would go back to for the rest of my life.

For fashionable travel tips, visit Trip Styler here.