Tips for Traveling Models and One of My Favorite Sets with My BFF Jaime Chan

6/7/2018

One of the biggest perks of modeling is your ability to travel and work in new locations, both locally and internationally. Most of my modeling career involves traveling to new places, or even living overseas for months on end for projects and career opportunities. Between traveling a couple of times a month and internationally at least four times a year, here’s what I’ve learned:
Finding Photographers/Casting the Crew: When you’re traveling, whether you’re going for one booking or two, you can always squeeze more shoots in, so finding people who you want to shoot with is crucial to planting the seeds of connections.
Social media is such an important tool for models traveling, so it’s important to utilize it! By using Instagram, or even the Hub, you’re able to see photographers all over the world and get a first hand view of their work. Who has recommended them and what is their reputation on various sites and platforms? Will they fit in with your brand?

Whenever I’m traveling or scrolling through Instagram, I always make an Excel spreadsheet of the location I’m going to and the crews contact information for who I’d like to work with. This is an easy way to see who is on your list for different locations and to see who you’ve worked with previously.

Learning the Lingo: When you’re traveling to any new destination you’ve got to do your research. What makes your destination unique and special? And what is the fashion industry like at your destination? What do photographers and companies in the area look for in models? How will you fit in?
Learning the industry before you head to work in a new place is super important. It gives you a foundation to pitch yourself to people there. Learning about the coolest locations to shoot, what photographers are into shooting, and makeup/styling tricks help you get your footing and a sense of what you’re going to be shooting while you travel.

One big tip I learned is to learn a few phrases in another language, if you’re traveling internationally, that will be useful for shooting. This will also show international clients and photographers you are interested in learning the culture and integrating yourself as much as possible. When living in France, I traveled over with another model who did not speak French and it was inhibiting her from working with a lot of companies as she wasn’t devoted to learning the lingo of France.

Pack Light, but Universal: When you’re traveling anywhere bring the basics, jeans, a t-shirt, etc. Learning what the industry in that city loves can give you a better idea for what to pack. You need to be ready for any type of shoot when traveling, so pack with multiple shoots in mind.
Great so you’re all packed and have a ton of stuff in your bag. Awesome! Now remove about ⅓ of it. Usually when traveling and shooting you’ll only be using ⅔ of the items you actually packed. So that extra pair of shoes you want in case they don’t like the other shoes, put them back in your closet. Unless a photographer explicitly asked you to bring an item, like an accessory or specific top, don’t bring it if you think it’ll only help you to style one outfit.

When I’m traveling for shoots, I will book shoots similar in style to what I’m actually booked for. For example, I was booked for a lingerie shoot in LA so I booked shoots with photographers who wanted to shoot lingerie. This builds my book more for lingerie, and I won’t have to pack so many other styles for my travels.