Travelling the world as an African Woman: A conversation with Tania from Kongo Travels [Part 2]

Meet Tania Mukwamu. She is the founder of the travel blog Kongo Travels. As you will see from this interview, Tania is a multi-passionate and multi-hyphenated woman who juggles motherhood, entrepreneurship ventures, and frequent travels. I had a chat with her shortly before Christmas 2020. We discussed her passion for traveling, her earliest travel memories and her dream destinations. She also shared a few tips for discovering the world on a budget.

In this second part of the interview ,we discussed her strategies for staying on top of content creation for her blog and most importantly, how does she balance it all. Read the first part here.

Editor’s note : this article has been edited for length and clarity

WATCH THE INTERVIEW VIDEO BELOW

You’re an entrepreneur with multiple business ventures -a financial technology start-up- a fashion brand, your blog, on top of being a wife and a mom. How do you 1) keep the balance and 2) stay consistent with content creation for the blog and related social media?

When it comes to creating content. I rely a lot on technology and apps. I share content from current and past travels. I went from a strictly travel blog to a lifestyle blog. So, on regular basis, I will sit and decide on what content I want to share for the month, week, etc. For instance, in which direction I want to take my content this month? If I have a trip planned, it’s even better, then I fill my stories with pictures of the current trip. The rest are fillers from my past photos collection. I don’t feel pressured to always have a trip planned to have content. The truth is nothing is really ever new, your perspective. We can speak about an ice cream 20 000 times. It can get intimidating when you compare yourself with other content creators who seems miles ahead. But it’s not about them, it’s about you.

Also, I try to plan around themes, like travelling with a toddler, or travelling while pregnant etc., and create content around the theme.

Some of the apps I find useful are:

Later: it has both free and paid version. Even the free version allows you to plan your content on IG, FB, Twitter.
Word Swag: it’s a font app that help with designing stories.
Adobe Lightroom: it too has both paid and free version.

All the apps above both also help with editing photos.

I also use Trello, a project management tool, where I will list all my tasks. I will take an afternoon in the week and brainstorm and plan my content. There is also an app called OTTOR which record and convert speech to notes in real times. You just have to edit later in proper English.

You can also make use of freelance translators and content creators ( writers, photographers, etc.). The idea is not to depend completely on them, but to use them for specifics tasks. For instance, I tend to use freelancers for few specific tasks over a couple of weeks to boost my content . But Don’t overuse them as you want to keep your authentic voice and for budget reasons of course.

[ Editor’s note: I told Tania that I will need to schedule another interview focused on blogging and content creation because she’s got amazing tips, so stay tuned]

H.O.N: In this Covid-19 pandemic, as an entrepreneur what is the biggest Life + Business lesson you have learned and to conclude. Also what’s your top 3 dream destinations?

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is patience! Last December, I was in Mozambique and when we toasted to 2020, I was like THIS IS MY YEAR!. I’M GONNA MURDER IT….)laughs). This year really taught me to appreciate patience, to go back to what’s essential. It also boosted my creativity. I was dealing with a lot of work related stress. The lockdown made me appreciate the little things in life; for instance, I will plan and direct a photoshoot with my daughter just for fun. My husband and I also realized it was the first time that we spent so much time together. We’re always on the go, travelling in separate directions for work. We weren’t even sure we were going to cope. Like what are we going to do with ourselves for so long? So it was a big adventure of its own.

What are your dream destinations. The top 3 countries on your bucket list?

The first one is Italy. Anyone can go to Italy of course. I’ve been to Europe so many times, I could have just taken a train to Italy. But for me Italy is one of the destinations that would require at least a month. I want to eat my way through every single kitchen there. I want to learn more about fashion and, the craft for my brand. It’s just that right now I cannot commit to a full month of travelling. So it’s something that I’m wilfully delaying. Maybe it will happen for my 40^th birthday I’ll have to take some remote work with me, because I cannot just disappear like that (laughs). Maybe I’ll even make a documentary about it.

The second one is in my home country, DRC. Honestly DRC is a huge and beautiful country, and I don’t think I’ve seen even half of it. My dad introduced me to this farm in Eastern DRC where they make cheese, so my dream is to spend time there and learn how to make local cheese. And it will make a great story because when people think of DRC, they think of many things, generally negative, but certainly not cheese. It’s something that is more attainable for me so it’s something that will happen very soon.

For the third one, I’m split between Japan and Korea. I’m a huge fan of Japanese culture. It’s going to be almost like a pilgrimage for me. I love their Zen, their discipline, culture and fashion. I’m split between Japan and Korean (I’m talking South Korea of course) because I love Korean romantic movies and series. There is also their fashion and food.