Meet Asya Olson | Travel Blogger and Photographer from California

We had the good fortune of connecting with Asya Olson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Asya, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
Sometimes I think that I risk too often but it always pays off at the end.

I started by hitchhiking across the countries as a teenager. That didn’t look like the best choice for my relatives, but it taught me what travel and freedom of choices is.

Later I decided to move to the city of my dreams and did it in 5 days after my decision. Of course, it was a risk to do it so fast, but it opened up so many opportunities. Now I think it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Fast forward to now, just this month I decided to leave my 9-5 job to grow my own business and pursue my dreams full time. Wish me luck!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
When people talk about me they say “Asya and her hidden gems”. I believe this is what sets me apart from others – my love to exploring the most unknown places and unique activities.

Honestly, it was a long way. I started as a hobbyist photographer with the only one goal in mind – to take better pictures. With time I realized that this is not my main goal, the main one is to be helpful to my community. This realization helped me to change attitude to my hobby, turn it into a business, create useful digital products and work on making other helpful products and articles. Now I’m listening to my audience and create what they want to see the most.

I recently launched a custom California Map to help people explore our beautiful state. It has lots of unique local destination to make your vacation more fun, and I keep perfecting it.

I am also currently working on a Travel Photography class that I’m planning to launch this year.

In addition to that I love helping my favorite brands with promoting their products and services.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For a week-long trip we would visit some popular places as long as hidden gems in the city, and then would go explore SoCal nature.

On the first day let’s grab some coffee and breakfast at Better Buzz or Communal Coffee and head to Balboa Park for a day. For dinner we would go to Mister A’s to watch airplanes flying above the city.

Then I’d invite my friend to a road trip to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It is especially pretty early spring during super bloom. We’d check out Fonts Point, my favorite The Slot and all the wildflowers views.

After coming back I would drive my friend around some city hidden gems. Caves, beautiful bridges, hidden swings – that would be enough more than for 1 day! Many of them are located at La Jolla, so we would spend there a day.

We’d also checkout unique speakeasies like Mothership and Raised by Wolves during evenings.

Carlsbad Flower Fields are must see during spring too so we would definitely drive there on one of the days.

Let’s spend last day at Coronado, it has a lot to do!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I am absolutely grateful to my husband Ben for his ongoing support. He really believes in me and my success even though sometimes my actions may look way too risky.

I am also happy that I met my business coach Naomi last year. She taught me so much about building my own company and grow it.

Special thanks to all my friends who are always here to talk, to help and to go on an adventure.

Website: https://asyaolson.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asyatravels/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asyaolson/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@asyatravels

Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@asyatravels

Image Credits
Ben Olson, Lina Irwanto, Sabina Hordienko