We interrupt our regularly scheduled #WheretoGoWednesday blog post to introduce the newest member of the TripTuner team. Becky Youman is joining us as both a Contributing Editor and our newly-minted Social Media Sensei. We’ll let her take the rest of the introduction from here…

Every time I plan a trip I feel the excitement and anticipation of new discovery, but at the same time I sometimes experience slight paralysis when considering the deluge of information and opinions about potential destinations. That is why I so appreciate the elegance of TripTuner. All I have to do is adjust the sliders and instantly I’ve got personalized recommendations. How cool is that?

Having played around with TripTuner for the last few months, I can say that its guidance is right on the mark. When, for example, Torres del Paine comes up as one of my top Mountain Adventure locales, I can vouch that it’s a majestic nature-lovers playground. Having co-written a guidebook on Chile and spent a couple of years traveling the country, I can go even further to say that Torres del Paine is one of my all time favorite outdoor adventure spots — I have seen flocks of wild parakeets soaring over massive glaciers, shared pisco with travelers from around the world, and felt the accomplishment of completing the physically-challenging circuito around the park. That gives me great confidence that Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, another of TripTuner’s suggested destinations for me, should be at the top of my list.

While I certainly love the outdoors, I am not all nature all the time. This girl also jones for some urban escapes. Having belted out horribly off-tune songs in a karaoke booth in Hong Kong and watched the sunrise after a night of tapas and Cava in Barcelona — two of my TripTuner recommended cities — I can’t wait to visit some of the others that come up when I adjust the sliders.

My hope is to bring the readers of this blog the lowdown on TripTuner’s fantastic destinations to help inspire you and give you ideas. I’ve lived in Mexico and Latin America, traveled the US, Asia, and Europe, and written for heavy-weights like Travelocity.com, Open Road Publishing, and Alaska Airlines, so I’ve got plenty of travel advice. I am also a mom, a wife, a mountain biker, a surfer, a yogini, a tequila aficionada, and a bookworm, so expect to see some of those influences thrown in as well. Stay tuned.