Advice on Career in Travel Field

Since money is not a primary motivation, you could have some fun. And why not? You're passionate about travel. Go for it. What about creating some customized tours for people, such as Eco travel, or just more personal travel options where they really get to experience the culture? You could also give family tours of NYC. Promote the idea of Manhattan as a family destination and offer guided tours of the big sites, arrange Broadway show tickets, etc. One thing I did as a young mom with small children was to take two classes for travel agent and leading/designing tours. I never did want to be a travel agent...I just wanted to organize customized tours. I started out by creating customized tours for my mom and her teacher friends going to Europe. That was a lot of fun and in the 1990s the only way to get the info on B&Bs was from books you could buy at Barnes and Noble. Both classes were helpful in doing this. I never really got beyond that (except for organizing our own trips to Europe) because I also finished my masters around that time and started teaching part time. But I think with a little more effort on my part I could have had some fun with it.

I do LOVE to plan a European Vacation and I too have planned such trips for other family members. I'm in the very early phases of planning my families next trip to Europe in 2014! I just love to think about it and read about exciting places. I have been successful in arranging four wonderful home exchanges for my family (France, Spain, England) which is trickier than arranging for hotel rooms/apartments. I could help other people secure home exchanges. I do love your idea of planning all the details of other peoples trips, I just don't know if anyone would pay me for it. I do need to make SOME money. Like, if I spent a whole week (40 hrs) planning a trip for somebody, I'd need to make at least $500 (that's a mere $12.50 an hour). Would anyone pay even that much? Travel agents are free?

Kerry - There was an article in the NY Times a few weeks ago which claimed that travel agents are making a comeback and it seemed the agents profiled had specific niches they specialized in. You might want to search the NYT website. You could specialize in helping people do home exchanges. Good luck!

I too did a course in tour organization as I was somewhat involved in that area for a while at work. I found it useful for my own purposes and for helping friends design itineraries. Travel agents do get paid (at least in Canada they do). Its $75 for each ticket booked. I use both travel agents and do my own bookings, depending on the trip. With so many code-sharing flights, airlines being taken over etc. etc. I think people will turn to agents more and more for protection if nothing else! Remember the "charter" flight companies of a few years ago who went belly up and left people stranded with no way of getting home? Agencies do provide some protection and if they are good, they will know what is happening in the business. Good luck!

I'll take a look at the NYTimes article for sure. I could definitely help people secure home exchanges, and THAT alone would not be very time consuming on my part; I wouldn't have to charge them terribly much for the service. While in my opinion it is an exceptional way to travel, many people aren't open to the idea for various reasons (fear or lack of trust of opening their homes to relative strangers). Not sure if I could get enough interest, but it's an idea to consider. I would love to help people with planning home exchanges.

Kerry, I bet after you made the first few customized itineraries, (1) it would get easier and faster, and (2) you'd have some contacts you could go back to and rebook for future customers. You may not need to charge as much if you can multiply your efforts.

One of the newer trends are websites like Vayable, or Gidsy, where they offer unique tours for destinations. They may be looking for content writers, editors, etc. It would be quite easy to perhaps design some tours for your own hometown too, if you go digging around for little quirky stories and history. Local newspapers will often post information about stuff like this too, as it is interesting for the residents as well as for tourists. https://gidsy.com/ http://www.vayable.com/how_this_works

Should you decide to do local tours in NYC, be aware that you must be licensed. NYC is one of only two places in the U.S. where guides need to have a license. There is a lengthly exam involved. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dca/html/licenses/021.shtml There is also a tour guide association in the city: http://www.ganyc.org/ Lastly, Reuters had an article a couple of days ago on how Travel Agents are staging a comeback. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/uk-travel-agents-comeback-idUSLNE86I00S20120719?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessTravel

Thankyou, Thankyou, and Thankyou!

To piggyback on what Jo said, many print magazines and newspapers buy stories from authors. You may want to contact magazines such as Readers' Digest, Good Housekeeping, and various Parent & Child type magazines to see what their requirements are for articles. They will tell you how many words or pages they require, and what they pay. You could start off with Family Vacation articles for the parent/child magazines. Then write some articles about your European vacations, including child oriented attractions, such as zoos. How about "The Best Zoos in Europe" or "The Best Zoos in The US" for one of your articles? The best part of this is that you can write your articles while being at home with the kids. Good luck in your new career, whatever you decide to do!

I do like the idea of travel writing; I even had a funny "True Story" published in Budget Travel Magazine about an experience in Venice on my honeymoon. It is a possibility.

Kerry, That's great! Every article you have published builds your resume and makes it more likely you will have more articles accepted for publication.

Kerry, Doing a travel agent course, even if you don't end up working as a TA, would also greatly help in a travel writing career. I hope that the PMs I sent you were informative. My apologies for the length - I was forced to chunk into into several parts. LOL!