Dear Diary,
Within my short career of 4 years, I enjoyed my time working in advertising which is what I went to school for. But, I see a bigger purpose for myself. Let me explain by putting down a quick timeline.
August 2007 – December 2011 – Attended VCU for Marketing
December 2011 – January 2015 – Lived in NYC, worked in advertising
January 2015 – Moved back to Richmond, VA. Closed on my house
April 2015 – Started my Meetup Group “RVA Near and Far”
June 2016 – Quit The Martin Agency to begin my career as a Global Travel Agent
The pivotal point in my life for making the move was the success of my personal travel life, being an Organizer for RVA Near and Far, which a little over a year later it currently has 1,700+ members. I created this group in April 2015 in an effort to bring people in my community out of their comfort zone and try new things, explore new places, and cross things off the inevitable bucket list.
I hosted a few trips out of the country with my group and I was hooked. I loved traveling in my personal life but never had the time to do it. I was given the standard 15 PTO days + holidays of course, but rarely found the time to take the days. It also seemed like the wrong time. I was always either starting a new ad campaign and needing to brief the creative team, smack dab in the middle of an ad campaign (the craziest time obviously), or launching the campaign. It’s not always easy to use your days, knowing they don’t always roll over to the next year. If you don’t use it, you lose it.
That’s when I realized that I’m already pretty much a Travel Agent, just part time and not getting paid for it. In my spare time, when I wasn’t at my full time job, I was creating itineraries for upcoming trips I wanted to host, or helping people plan their vacations. I thought to myself, why shouldn’t I be getting paid for this? It’s what I love to do! That’s when I decided to reach out to travel agencies nearby and see if they would hire me. With little to no experience, only a pocket full of members who love to travel and my ability to network, I was offered a job with Accent On Travel. And happily accepted.
With this blog, I’m hoping to achieve 3 things:
- Share my journey of becoming a travel agent and what travel agent life is all about. Maybe or those potentially considering the job change..
- Provide travel experiences (places I’ve been or my clients have been). Share travel tips/advice
- Help hoteliers, tour companies and other travel companies grow their business, by visiting their properties, tours, etc. and able to provide my readers with good insight.
