I will review recent work aimed at measuring the Hubble constant to 1% using the extragalactic distance ladder, with a focus on stellar standard candles. In particular, I will present progress in the understanding of Gaia parallax systematics unraveled by asteroseismology, the most accurate absolute calibration of Cepheids based on Gaia parallaxes of star clusters, and the improvements to Cepheid photometry enabled by the unprecedented near-infrared spatial resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope. In turn, I will present recent improvements to the Tip of the Red Giant Branch calibration in the Large Magellanic Cloud.