Traveling the world and balancing a career back at home is possible, and once again, I’m here to show you how not just me, but several other travelers and bloggers around the globe make it work for them. I chatted with travel blogger Shiara on how she juggles her career at a Fortune Top 50 company while still seeing the world with her husband, here is what she had to say…
Tell me a bit about what you do for a living.
My name is Shiara and I’m originally from Puerto Rico, I’m and engineer and MBA and work for a Fortune Top 50 company. My current role is at a planning centre of excellence, a very interesting job where I connect with great people from all over the world to increase the supply chain and planning capabilities in the organization.
Do you have a certain amount of vacation days a year at your job?
Yes I do, depending on how long I work at the company for, but currently I get 20 vacation days and 3 floating days.
How often do you try and travel within a year?
My husband and I plan our anniversary trip every year, that’s our “long vacation” and usually happens around July, August or September. We always look forward to that time of year and love visiting new places. Besides our anniversary trip, we try to take some Friday’s and/or Monday’s off to have mini getaways, and mix that up with business travel when possible.
Do you ever feel limited to how often you can travel because of your job?
Of course, currently my priorities are my “day job” and my husbands company, and I guess that determines a lot on when and how many times we get to travel. However, We travel a lot in business and sometimes we mix the two.
Do you find it hard to unplug from work when traveling?
Definitely! With the digital world it’s so hard to unplug, but if I’m traveling internationally I try to only read through email sporadically and I leave delegates for all my work so I can really enjoy my vacation and ensure work runs smoothly even though I’m gone.
Why is it important to you to have a career but also incorporate travel into your life?
I worked really hard at school to get my degrees, and part of my love for travel was because of my job. I never got to travel when I was young (I mostly traveled around my island of Puerto Rico), so my career gives me that sense of accomplishment and it has also enabled me to learn and connect with people globally. I’m not going to lie, sometimes I want to quit and go travel the world with my husband, but then I realize that my career is really important to me and there is a way to enjoy and have both!
What inspired you to start a travel blog?
Since I travel so much for business and for pleasure, I always enjoy the planning aspects of travel as much as the actual trip! I tend to organize the trips I go on and help my friends on their trips, on top of that, I love photography! So after my trip to Peru in 2014 I just had the urge to start a blog (still in progress) and be more active is social media to share my experiences with a bigger audience. There was something about that trip to Peru that made me want to inspire people to travel more and explore the world!
If you had a piece of advice for someone that is trying to maintain a career, and also see the world, what would it be?
This is a hard one since I’m still working on it myself, but my trick is trying to merge my career and my interests, that way I won’t feel like I am torn and need to choose one or the other. Also, don’t live for that 1-2 weeks vacation every year, enjoy the weekends, take a few days here and there and mix work with pleasure… it’s not always perfect, but it works for me!
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