Meet Taylor Hubbard of Tay’s Tasty Travels in Inner Loop

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Hubbard.

Taylor, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Tay’s Tasty Travels started because I was curious about the blogging world. My parents were very fortunate enough to have the means and allow me to travel since I was young. Going into high school and even college, I realized I had been to more places than the average person, and had some friends who had never been out of Houston before! When I started being able to pay for my trips myself, social media became more popular and I was posting pictures. People would ask me so many questions about traveling, even down to what I packed and where to start off even planning a trip! After I came home from school, I started cooking more and posting on Snapchat and then I got questions about how to cook ad where to buy fish and other ingredients. I would reply to everyone but then I got more curious about how to just reply one time to all of the questions. I was very hesitant, because I figured it would be a lot of work. My roommate actually helped talk me into moving forward, and here I am today! I post as much as I can, and so far I am getting some great feedback! I have already been asked to do a couple of promotions, and I even got to cover the Black Houston Restaurant week & the Food Truck Fest event back in April of this year! I also have more exciting things coming up that you should stay tuned for!

Has it been a smooth road?
So with anything great, it does not come easy; but if you want it that bad you will not give up! I have had a few struggles. It was hard getting started, and I felt like I wouldn’t get the support I needed or wanted from family and friends, but I couldn’t let that stop me. I do have so much support from them and even strangers! I am still figuring things out, and I know that everything won’t happen overnight, so I have to remind myself to be patient. I wasn’t getting as much traffic (and am still working on it) as I wanted and I tried to create a second InstaGram page separate from my personal one in order to attract a specific audience, but it was a lot to manage and now I have incorporated them together, which I’m still trying to figure out if that was a good idea or not. Other struggles are of course managing my travels and financial stability, along with being in school full-time, working full-time and another “part-time” job that I work every now and then. I can’t always just get up and go as much as I used to when I first started this, and my followers do ask me about my next trip. But over all I have to take the good with the bad, and just ride the waves and bumps along the way. I know everything will work out!

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Tay’s Tasty Travels story. Tell us more about the business.
Tay’s Tasty Travels is your go-to blog for easy recipes, local food attractions, travel advice, experience, food & wine! I cook and post my own recipes along with recipes inspired by other chefs or bloggers and I also try to eat and review some of my favorite restaurants in Houston and where ever I travel too. I wanted give people a different view to the cooking and traveling lifestyle. I wanted to show my readers that cooking and drinking wine isn’t hard or scary! You can make and create dishes in your own way and it doesn’t have to be expensive or over thought to be a great meal. I also wanted to show my readers that you can travel on a budget and go places and see the world. Traveling should be fun and stress free. It is about experiences, culture and enjoying yourself and that is what I wanted to portray. I will be adding new categories to my blog that include travel advice and other things. I think people needed someone who doesn’t boast about how much money they spent on going out the country and eating at the most expensive restaurants, but someone real, with real problems and limits to show that you can still have fun without cashing out. Someone who eats where the locals eat, finding the best deals on flights, hotels/Airbnb and supporting the community. In light of recent tragic events, I am sad to hear about what happened to Anthony Bourdain because he was one of the main influencers for me to create this blog because he understood the people and respected food, culture and experience, and that is exactly what I love about being able to do this!

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Thinking about this industry in the next 5-10 years is sort of tricky. Blogging has kind of always been a thing for a few years since Tumbler and some other sites started, but it has changed over the years and is growing. So I definitely hope to grow and gain more followers and also gain some revenue and partners along the way. I don’t want to be seen as “just another Millennial” traveling everywhere, I want my blog to show purpose. My biggest wish is to have a show on the Food Network and be able to continue to explore the world, find new spices to cook with, try all the grapes used for wine, experience various cultures and appreciate the world around me. I want to also make a difference and maybe incorporate a type of health clinic with home cooked, healthy foods that also teaches people how to cook and make better food choices for longer healthier lives. This ties into my desire for Public Health, that I am studying in school, which may help to also understand why I am so interested in people!

Contact Info:

• Website: Taystastytravels.com
• Email: taystastytravels@gmail.com
• Instagram: @taystastytravels
• Facebook: Facebook.com/taystastytravels

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