Opla was born from a shared love of storytelling and adventure—co-created with my friend and fellow traveler, Allison Reiber DiLiegro (pictured).
Opla—A Travel Newsletter
Before Substack became a thing, my friend Allison and I wanted to document our time living in Europe. Inspired by the editors and travel writers we admired, we challenged ourselves to write and publish a weekly newsletter—complete with interviews, personal essays, city guides, and the occasional strong POV. Opla became our creative playground to explore the world through our lens, one issue at a time.
“Ling is my favorite collaborator, with her impeccable eye and bright, infectious energy. She has a sixth sense for culture, with a finger on the pulse of what’s happening and contacts wherever we need them. Her writing for Opla is so insightful and evocative that I’ve immediately bought flights after reading (you’ve been warned).”
We approached each issue as an invitation—to discover new places through personal tips, local voices, and the gems we unearthed along the way.
In under a year, we published 25 issues and reached 400 subscribers—without Substack, ads, or paid promotion. We shared dispatches from more than 30 destinations, interviewing locals we admired: a mixologist in Hong Kong, an artist in Detroit, a hotelier in Cairo.
2019 became a patchwork of memories from Milan, Cape Town, Bangkok, Bhutan, and beyond. Through Opla, we explored sustainability, identity, joy, friendship, and the kind of reflection that rarely fits into a caption.
In just one year, Opla built a global community of readers with 25 issues spanning 30+ destinations—proof that thoughtful, long-form travel storytelling still resonates.
We were named a website to follow in 2019 by Fathom, a travel publication we admired deeply. Soon after, they offered us our first reporting assignment—fly to Detroit to uncover the city’s cultural revival.
What began as a guide to restaurants and museums turned into something much more meaningful. We found stories in the people who never left. The artists, the chefs, the ones who defined Detroit’s pulse. With support from our community, we told the city’s story through its food, its art, and its spirit of resilience.
The Shinola Hotel, one of the featured stops in our Fathom-published Detroit City Guide—an editorial deep dive into the city’s creative pulse.
