Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Adelina is a blogger and full-time community manager. I met Adelina at BlogHouse in Milwaukee in 2015 and we instantly bonded over being Canadian, like Canadians naturally do. I chatted with her about how she juggles both a career and travel to get her tips and insight on how she makes it work. Keep reading to learn more…
Tell me a bit about what you do for a living.
I am the Community Manager for Gastropost Vancouver which is a community for food lovers in Vancouver. Every week we send community members out on food missions which they complete by snapping a photo and sharing it on social media. We share them on our website and it gets published in The Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers in Vancouver.
Do you have a certain amount of vacation days a year at your job?
Yes, I have three weeks of vacation time.
How often do you try and travel within a year?
I try to do one or two big trips a year with my vacation time. The remaining days, I add onto long weekends so I can go on longer getaways to nearby places.
Do you ever feel limited to how often you can travel because of your job?
Every so often when I feel frustrated with work or other aspects of my life, I dream of just leaving it all behind and hitting the road for a couple of months. Those whims usually pass once I sort out what is going wrong in my life, but sometimes the desire does seem to overwhelm me.
Do you find it hard to unplug from work when traveling?
No, if I’m traveling, I’m able to fully able to detract myself from my work. I leave my work in the very capable hands of my coworkers. That said, as a blogger, I find it hard to turn that off sometimes. When I first started blogging, I would try to write while traveling which is really difficult. Now, I just try to enjoy it as much as possible, soaking up the moments and taking notes as needed.
Why is it important to you to have a career but also incorporate travel into your life?
I have always imagined myself having a career, a place to call home and a family. I enjoy having structure in my life and need goals to work towards in order to be happy. Sure, I could live on the road for a couple of weeks, but eventually I would miss having a career and working towards something. Not to mention, I like having a place to call my own and be able to nest and recharge for the next adventure. And yet, nothing is better than waking up in a new city with an open day of wandering and experiencing new things, so it is important to me to keep a balance of travel and home life.
What inspired you to start a travel blog?
I started a travel blog as a way to get over reverse culture shock. I had just come back from a stint living in Budapest, Hungary and was going through extreme travel withdrawal. The blog was a self-coping mechanism, a place to tell my travel stories, but also a way to keep me motivated to keep on traveling and seeing 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?
With the average North American receiving only ten days of paid vacation time, try to negotiate more time off when starting a new job as a part of your compensation package. It’s easy to forget this aspect, but this is the best time to ask. Another good time to revisit this topic is when asking for a raise. If your employer doesn’t seem receptive to the idea of paying you more, see if you can get more vacation time instead.
You can check out Adelina’s blog here.
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