What is Trippin' Southern Style?
Hey y’all! First post of 2021, woot woot! If you’re one of our lovely blog subscribers or avid Trippin’ readers then you probably noticed we took a month off in January 2021. December 2020 ended with some unexpected health complications and a recovery month was needed for everyone.
But here we are, back and ready to take on 2021! Let us know in the comments what your plans are for this year! We have some unbelievable trips lined up for this year and we’re so excited to take you along!
Before we dive back into our travel content, we wanted to start our 2021 posting with a little introduction, because we know newbies pop onto the blog every now and then, and we haven’t introduced ourselves since one of our first posts. YIKES!
If you stumble on the blog, you can ALWAYS ask us questions in the comments or DM us on social media, but in this post we’ll be answering some of our most common questions we get while we’re on the road.
Joanie and Jenni in the ElCrow Photography studio in Jacksonville, Illinois (photo by Cory)
Who’s writing these blog posts?
All of the posts on this site are written by us, Joanie and Jenni, a mother-daughter team! Joanie, the momma, is responsible for all of the stunning photography that you see in the posts. Jenni, the daughter, does most of the videography and writing for the blog posts.
We’re a pretty awesome team, so you’re getting bits and pieces of both of us in every post that you read. If you ever have specific questions for either of us, just let us know in your comments and we’ll make sure we answer accordingly!
To give you a little more insight into WHO we are… Joanie is passionate about people. Everyone who meets her is immediately comfortable opening up about their life story, and it’s such an awesome thing to watch. Jenni is a little quieter, but she’s passionate about sharing stories of all kinds and in all forms.
Joanie and Jenni at Blue Mountain Mist in Sevierville, Tennessee
How long have you been doing this?
Joanie’s husband (Jenni’s dad) was in the Air Force, so we’ve been traveling since forever. In 2014 Joanie had the vision for a company that shared positive and uplifting stories from around the world. We have that now in our app, Positive Note Network. You can download it on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, IOS, and it’s coming soon for Android. The journey of creating PNN caused us to stumble into travel.
We started traveling to interview authors and musicians, and soon realized that there was something so special in the travel itself. In 2018 we took our first two ‘travel blogging’ trips to Winter Garden, FL and Greenville, SC. This got us excited about the possibility of doing this full time. Then, in 2019, we traveled to Europe on a Viking Cruise, started this blog, and now here we are, doing this full time.
Joanie and Jenni at Hersheypark in Pennsylvania
How do you plan your trips?
Generally trip planning starts with somewhere we’ve been wanting to visit. For example, this year we wanted to go to New England, since we’ve never been to any of those states before. Once we’ve nailed down the general area, we look for bed and breakfasts (or boutique hotels) near the city we want to visit or, in the case of New England, in the state we want to visit.
Our PR rep reaches out to these B&Bs and ask if they’d like to host us in exchange for our posts and videos about their property. Once we have a B&B onboard for every spot on the trip, we reach out to restaurants, the town we’ll be in, and local attractions and build out the trip.
In some cases we reach out to a small town and they create a full itinerary for us. This includes meals and attractions. That’s incredible for us, because then we’re sure that we’re seeing things that people will be interested in when they come to the area. Otherwise we’re kind of running blind. Some examples of trips where itineraries were planned are our trips to Durham, North Carolina; Jacksonville, Illinois; and Stanford, Kentucky.
Joanie and Jenni in Durham, North Carolina on their tour with Discover Durham
What has been your favorite trip?
This is one of the hardest questions we get, and we get it all of the time! We’ve been on so many incredible trips that choosing a favorite is next to impossible. However, in the US, our favorite trip is probably the trip we took to Jacksonville, Illinois. Gwenn, owner of Blessings on State, and the Jacksonville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau planned the most incredible trip for us. We were on the move from morning until night getting the full Jacksonville experience. We are so grateful for the people of Jacksonville and that trip.
As far as international trips, our favorite was the Rhine Getaway that we took with Viking Cruises. It was such a beautiful trip and we met some of the most incredible people while we were on the Viking Alruna.
As far as favorite state or country. I’m not sure we have a favorite state, but we love the Smokey mountain area of Georgia. Our favorite country is Switzerland, no questions asked.
Joanie and Jenni with Gwenn (owner of Blessings on State) and the mayor of Jacksonville, Illinois
Joanie and Jenni in Strasbourg, France on the Rhine Getaway
If there’s anything we didn’t answer that you’re interesting in knowing, please leave a comment below! We’re pretty open about anything and everything, so just go wild, y’all.
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