Today we’d like to introduce you to Petra Udomprasert
Hi Petra, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m a US-based travel blogger from Thailand, specializing in Thailand and South Korea.
Before becoming a blogger, I was an assistant director, a production coordinator, and a director in the show business.
The beginning of my blogging journey actually started from desperation. While working myself to the bone on a TV show, 18 hours a day, back in 2021, I started having symptoms of clinical depression. To avoid it snowballing, I made a decision to put my mental health first and leave the industry after wrapping up that job.
Because my entire life before that was dedicated to filmmaking, I had to figure out very quickly what else I liked. That was when I first realized that the money I earned from film sets, I always used on traveling.
I urgently researched ways to monetize traveling and came upon two things: Instagram and travel blogging. With the money I saved up from the film jobs, I took a handful of digital marketing and blogging courses and started doing both. After several months, it became clear that blogging was my new purpose.
And here we are!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all!
Until today, I still find marketing to be the hardest thing ever. People discount it so much because nobody likes to be “sold” things, but it takes some skills to do solid marketing where it won’t feel like selling. I still take new courses and read more marketing books, constantly updating my older blog posts to better integrate affiliate links into my content.
Another difficult thing that I’ve somewhat gotten over is the inevitable rough patches that come with traveling. The more frequently you travel, the more likely something unpleasant will happen. Your luggage gets lost, you miss a flight, the bus gets canceled, or you end up having to sleep on the floor at the airport for the night. The list goes on.
I find these travel challenges to be very beneficial to building mental strength (lol). When something bad has happened, regardless of how much you scream and cry, it’s already happened and nothing is going to change that. So why not just see it as a fact, relax, deal with it, and move on without losing our heads?
As you know, we’re big fans of Polyglot Petra Travel Blog. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
There are multiple aspects to my business. The blog is the main thing, where I share travel and cultural tips from various destinations to help other travelers connect more deeply with those places and go home feeling more fulfilled. A part of my income comes from the blog. When readers trust my recommendations and they book a hotel or a tour somewhere, I earn a portion of that sale (with no extra cost to them, of course!).
I became nomadic when I started the blog and was never anywhere for longer than a few months. To maintain some degree of normalcy, I had to try and create pieces of home in each place I visited. I do that by connecting; with the culture, with the people, and with the history that has shaped the place.
Because of that, my style of travel is culture-based, allowing me to forge deep connections wherever I go. I sometimes take intensive language courses there so I can better understand their cultures and points of view. Otherwise, I always visit local businesses, venture off to the less-visited places, and commit to eating only the local dishes.
When a reader visits my blog, they’ll always get to read a bit about the history and cultural background of the place they’re researching. This gives meaning to everything they see when they visit and makes their time more worthwhile. I’m quite proud of that.
And thanks to my extreme interest in other cultures, I speak 5 languages and counting; Thai, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean (hence, polyglot). Sharing phrases in those languages, tailored to travel, is part of the tips I provide to help people travel more easily.
As another part of my mission to make cultural travel more accessible, I offer travel planning services to take the logistical stress off my clients’ shoulders so they have more energy left to enjoy the journey.
You can have a short 30-minute call with me to get any of your burning questions answered before you can start planning. For those who know exactly how they like to spend time on their trips, but would like insights on the best hotels, best restaurants, or best attractions, they can order a list of curated recommendations from me. Lastly, for those who really, REALLY, hate planning, they can tell me what they want to do and see, and I design an itinerary for them!
How do you think about luck?
One massive bad luck back in 2022 has definitely shaped a major part of my business today. I was planning to go to Spain and France for the latter half of the year to improve my Spanish and learn French. To enter Europe on a Thai passport, I needed a visa.
After having prepared all the necessary documents, I went on the Spanish consulate website as early as they’d let me only to find that they had ZERO open appointments for the next 3 months. The bottom line? I couldn’t apply for a visa in time for the trip, let alone wait for its result.
Devastated, I canceled the bookings I had made there (losing some money…) and thought of a visa-free country I could visit instead, I was NOT going to try and get another visa that year. I was traumatized. (lol) That was when South Korea came to mind.
It was a country I’d been familiar with since age 13 (hello, teenage K-Pop days), and it had been a while since I last visited. So I decided to sign up for an intensive language course to brush up on my rusty Korean. I stayed there for 2 months and started writing blog posts on Seoul.
Today, my content on South Korea is the most popular across the board. I’d even say that bad luck was good luck in disguise.
Pricing:
- Travel Consultation Call: Starts at $35
- Curated Recommendations: Starts at $25
- Custom Itinerary: Starts at $25 per day planned
Contact Info:
- Website: https://polyglotpetra.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/polyglotpetra
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/polyglotpetra
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/polyglotpetra/
- Other: https://www.thatch.co/@polyglotpetra
