Hi, I’m Yulia, founder of Sip of Europe® – I have a decade-long story of passion and commitment to uplifting hospitality and travel industries.
My journey started from the ground up in hospitality – I worked nearly every job in the industry before creating my own café from scratch, turning it into a five-star local favorite in Portland, Maine. Every day, I watched people searching for connection, transparency, and experiences that actually felt meaningful.
Through years of creating itineraries, sharing tips and tricks of action packed traveling I realized my mission: to build an ecosystem that rewards curiosity and inspires people to explore, learn, and uplift others – through travel, food, and culture.
📖 My Journey
2014 — Travel Website: In addition to leaving reviews on TripAdvisor, i started creating a detailed website about St.Petersburg and also began posting on my Instagram account. I gave advice and shared a lot of well-researched information like entering museums for free, etc.
Below you can see screenshots of the main page of my website. Unfortunately, it is no longer active but you can access it’s interactive version here https://web.archive.org/web/20190602114422/http://glad-to-meet-you.com/
I translated basic pages into few post popular languages AND created multi-language printouts in English, Chinese, Spanish, French.
And below you can see some of my TripAdvisor reviews.
2015–2020 — Café Era: you can see my 5-star ratings, Yelp Elite events, photos on the main page.
2018 — The Generosity Project: In 2018, I was experimenting with ways to make the world more generous — launching a small challenge called #HowChicAreYou from my café offering a prize to recognize people who uplift others, learn continuously, and support their communities. That project, though small and though it failed in getting attention, became a blueprint for my bigger vision — proving that people are motivated not just by money, but by meaning and recognition.
2021–Now – got over 10 different jobs & roles in New York resulting in over 21 job & role in hospitality, food & dining industry in my life. Never written up, never fired.
Sip of Europe App is a decade long proof of passion and hospitality.
I’m building the app I wish had existed when I was both a traveler and a café owner.
My philosophy:
- Generosity – creating shared value through kindness. Finding happiness in giving.
- Curiosity – inspiring people to keep exploring and keep learning, being eternal student of life.
- Transparency – sharing clear, trustworthy information for all aspects of life that allows to make educated choices.
- Connection – finding culture and heritage fascinating; finding people and their stories interesting; sharing knowledge and laughter as a part of life, creating and sharing great experiences. Being kind and supportive, seeing good in people and uplifting them.