Social media maven and travel influencer, Tanyka Renee Henry, started traveling when she was a young girl living in foster care. She would jump on her bike and go on adventures by herself, riding from town to town, exploring, feeding her curiosity and escaping her reality.
She signed her first modeling contract when she was 13 and visited Paris.
“Paris forever changed me,” Henry told ESSENCE while she was vacationing in the South of France. “It opened my eyes to fashion and different cultures.” That was when the travel bug first bit her.
About three years ago she went through a bad break up and wanted to travel to clear her mind, but found that she couldn’t afford to go on vacation the traditional way. She went backpacking through Asia – Cambodia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia – taking pictures and posting them on social media. She wrote about travels for different magazines and blogs. Before she knew it, her social media following had grown and she was approached by various tourism boards to visit their countries.
She now partners with tourism boards and travel companies all over the world and gets paid to travel.
