Meet the face
behind the posts
I am Yndiana Montes-Fogelquist, a Venezuelan-American journalist. I've been a travel writer for more than 30 years. Venezuela was so close to the Dutch-speaking Caribbean that I started covering tourism for the Islands first, and then the Anglo-speaking Caribbean. From Aruba to Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica, these Caribbean island destinations were like home to me.
In 1990, I founded my own company, SoloCaribe Inc., to participate in a more corporate way in conferences, and to organize press trips and diving trips. The Internet gave me the opportunity to create digital newsletters and websites, while developing content, translating, and disseminating press materials providing another dimension to my work. I did all of this to promote the Caribbean in Latin America, including Brazil. I specialized in sustainable tourism. Natural wonders, cultural traditions, best practices, and conservation initiatives are what I love to showcase in my work.
Throughout the years, I have received many awards and acknowledgments from organizations such as the Jerry Award of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA), and most recently the OMPT 2021 Award (Organización Mundial de Periodismo Turístico) and the "Excellence in Communicating Sustainable Development” award specially created by the faculty of the Sustainable Development Department of Appalachian State University (link to my resume)
After completing a B.A in the Sustainable Development Department, with a concentration in Environmental Studies; the Appalachian Studies master’s degree program was a natural fit because I was so happy having completed my bachelor’s degree in my dream career and I was so interested to learn more about Boone and its surroundings. I decided to move permanently to Boone from Wilmington to learn about all things Appalachia. This made perfect sense to me.
Getting to learn about the dark side of Appalachia was hard. But soon, I fell in love with Old Time Music. My experience working on environmentally-oriented and entertainment-focused media campaigns in Latin America for top Caribbean clients along with my newfound love, led me to start documenting and posting my experiential production videos on Appalachian State’s Center for Appalachian Studies’s social media platform. I worked on this platform as a graduate student until my graduation in May of 2024.
After taking the Documentary Film Research Methods class with Professor Tom Hansell in 2023, I finished the short film Everybody Loves Maako. I am now working on my second documentary, Joe Troop: From Bluegrass to Latingrass. I am also the creator of Glitter Lady, a negative aesthetic character who loves pollution, especially microplastics, as this infamous persona represents one of them. Glitter Lady saw the light as my concentration in the App Studies master’s degree was Sustainability in Appalachia.
My internship was with the Appalachian Studies Association (ASA,) where I developed a Spanish component for their website https://www.appalachianstudies.org/awards, wrote interviews, and designed a social media campaign for International Mountain Day 2023.
I was the recipient of four scholarships during my time with the Appalachian Sustainable Development department; Among them the William C. Lindley, Jr. Memorial Scholarship 2023 and the Arthel (Doc) Watson Endowed Scholarship for Traditional Mountain Music 2023. This year, I also received the IBMA Foundation’s Arnold Schultz scholarship.
I am starting an M.A. in Romance Languages in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Appalachian State University next fall. My goal is to teach Appalachian Studies here and abroad and work on other documentaries about Appalachia, in Spanish.
Yndiana Montes-Fogelquist
