Today we’d like to introduce you to Alina Zubanova.
Alina, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born in Vladivostok, Russia, and took my first trip when I was just two weeks old, to Sakhalin Island, where I spent most of my childhood. When I was almost 10, my family moved to Kazakhstan, and in 2013, I came to the United States as a student. 13 years later, Virginia is still home.
I met my husband here, and together we’ve traveled to more than 30 states.
In 2018, I started posting about our trips on Instagram. I didn’t have many followers, but I treated my little account like I had a huge audience. I wasn’t really thinking about numbers. I just genuinely enjoyed recommending places, giving travel tips, and helping people plan their own adventures. At the time, I was taking all my photos on my phone, and some of them started getting featured by popular Instagram pages dedicated to different states.
That’s actually what pushed me to buy my first camera in 2019. I had no idea what I was doing or where it would lead, but I wanted to get better at photography. A year later, I sold my first photo to Blue Ridge Magazine.
Then COVID happened. I was stuck at home, bored like everyone else, and decided to give TikTok a try in 2020. To my surprise, my following grew really quickly. In 2021, I decided to start a brand-new Instagram account, and that started growing pretty fast too.
Fast forward a few years, and those two accounts have grown to over 200,000 followers combined. Somewhere along the way, what I was doing for fun became my full-time job.
In 2024, we welcomed our daughter, and now she’s part of most of our adventures. Traveling with a toddler is definitely a different experience, and not always an easy one, but I love that we get to do this together.
These days, I work with tourism boards, hotels, destinations, and brands, creating content across Virginia, the East Coast, and beyond. It’s still a little wild to me that something I started just because I enjoyed it turned into a career.
And even after 13 years in Virginia, I’m constantly finding places I didn’t know existed. That’s probably my favorite thing about what I do. You don’t need to book a flight or travel across the country to see something amazing. Sometimes it’s a little town you’ve never heard of, a trail you haven’t tried, or a spot that’s been right under your nose the whole time. I love being able to introduce people to those places and hopefully inspire them to go see for themselves.
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?
Oh, definitely not! I think the hardest part was figuring out how to turn something I loved into an actual business. When you’re a content creator, you have to wear so many hats. You’re the photographer, videographer, editor, manager, accountant, stylist, and the list goes on. I had to learn pretty much everything on my own, and I’m still learning.
Then there was the social media side of things. At one point, some of my videos went a little too viral and reached completely the wrong audience. During an already difficult time in my life, I experienced an overwhelming amount of hate and bullying online. It was really hard to deal with back then. These days, my skin is so thick that I mostly just laugh at hateful comments, but getting to that point wasn’t easy.
And then came probably the hardest chapter of my life: becoming a mom.
When I was pregnant in 2024, I had all these expectations of what life with a baby would look like. I imagined taking my daughter on adventures, traveling together, and continuing to do what I loved, just with a little travel buddy.
But reality looked very different. I struggled with postpartum depression, had a baby who barely slept, and could barely leave the house because she wouldn’t sleep in a stroller and hated being in her car seat. I went from constantly being on the road to feeling trapped within four walls for almost six months.
During that time, I pretty much disappeared from social media. And honestly, it felt like the whole world had forgotten about me.
I still remember when I finally shared that I’d become a mom and posted the first photos of my daughter. Instead of the excitement I’d hoped for, I watched hundreds of people unfollow me. I know it sounds silly now, but at the time, when I was already struggling so much, it really hurt. I felt completely worthless and convinced myself that everything I’d worked so hard to build was gone and that I’d never be able to get it back.
Getting back to work and rebuilding my online presence wasn’t easy, especially while trying to figure out motherhood at the same time.
But here we are, two years later, and I honestly can’t imagine my life any other way. My daughter is now my little adventure buddy, and I can’t imagine going on a trip without her. It’s funny how the life I once thought I’d lost turned into something even better than I had imagined.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Back home, I was studying French and English philology at university. If someone had told me I’d end up as a travel photographer and content creator, I probably would’ve laughed. But life had other plans!
Today, I specialize in travel photography and videography, mostly across Virginia and the East Coast. I cover everything from outdoor adventures and seasonal experiences to charming towns, unique stays, and road trips.
I’ve always believed there’s something extraordinary in the ordinary. Whether I’m visiting a famous destination or a place hardly anyone knows about, I try to capture it through my own perspective. I’m drawn to beautiful light, colors, and little details that others might walk right past. I want my photos and videos to capture not just how a place looks, but how it feels to be there.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with brands like Visit Virginia, Bauer, Airbnb, DJI, Marriott, and many more.
What I’m most proud of is building a business from scratch, without a background in this industry, and turning something I genuinely love into my career. And hearing that someone discovered a new favorite destination because of my work never gets old.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think I’ve always been a bit of a risk-taker, although I don’t always realize it until I look back.
Moving to the United States in 2013 was probably one of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken. Moving to a country where I didn’t know anyone, with just $200 in my pocket, sounds pretty risky to me! I left behind everything familiar without knowing how things would turn out. Looking back, that one decision changed pretty much my entire life.
Starting my own business was another big leap. I had no background in photography or marketing, and building a career around social media isn’t exactly the safest or most predictable path. There are no guarantees, algorithms change overnight, and you never really know when the next opportunity will come along.
But I’ve always been more afraid of looking back and wondering “what if?” than of trying something and failing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @alinazbv
