10 Ways Travel Can Boost Your Career

In 2011, I quit a well-paid job for a multinational in Manila, Philippines to travel full time. Everyone I knew, including family and friends, assumed I committed career suicide. Not only did I leave an enviable job in training and development for one of the biggest banks in the world, I had also publicized it in my blog.

Most people thought I was making a crazy bet and the stakes were simply too high. Their advice? Don’t quit your job to travel the world.

They had a word to describe me: Unemployable.

6 years later, after traveling all over Asia, the United States and Europe, I’ve finally decided to stay put in France. I applied for a job in Paris, and here I am sitting at a desk just around the corner from the Champs-Élysées.

I can read your thoughts: You must have gotten very, very lucky. Perhaps I had. But I wouldn’t say it was ALL luck.

If you’re thinking of quitting your job to travel and are afraid that it would make you unemployable in the future, here are 10 ways travel can boost your career instead of end it:

1 Learn New skills

Before quitting my job, I started learning an important skill that would prove to be very useful for years to come. I learned how to blog. I learned how to write, to take great photos, to connect with an audience, to build a community, to create a social media presence- I even managed to teach myself the basics of html! I had a lot of help along the way. I reached out to so many people online and found many mentors.

2 Become Fluent in Other Languages

Travel does not only allow you to learn new skills, it also gives you the opportunity to learn another language. After traveling all over Asia, I had learned some basic phrases and sentences in most places I have visited. Although this might not seem useful career-wise, it has allowed me to connect with the people and have deeper experiences. It also made me more curious about learning languages. So when I lived in Portugal, I took Portuguese classes. Now that I live in France, I’m taking intermediate French classes and learning something new every day. Knowing 2 or more languages certainly gives you an edge.

3 Build Your Network

These days, it’s so easy to connect with people from all over the world. When I first started blogging, I connected with other people like me who were just starting out. We helped each other and shared ideas. As I traveled and got interested in other things, my network had moved beyond bloggers and readers. I started to reach out to amazing people doing amazing things. To people who were starting companies, movements and groups. I also made it a point to meet interesting people face to face whenever I could.

4 Discover Your Passion

Travel is a great way to give you space to think and discover the things that truly give you joy. Countless successful people have often found their calling while they were abroad. And if you do realize that travel IS your greatest passion, you can always take your career online and become location independent. I’d even met a few guys who were playing online poker and managed to sustain a travel lifestyle for years!

5 Know Your Strengths

It’s important to know what your passion is, but also what your strengths are. Since traveling can give you several tasks and activities that you normally don’t do on a daily basis, it’s a great way to discover more things that you’re good at. While traveling in India, I discovered I was actually good at budgeting. And in Thailand, while doing events for freelancers, I realized I did wonderfully in events planning and coordination.

6 Grow Your Confidence

Many times while you’re traveling, you have no one else to rely on but yourself. This experience can be uncomfortable and often painful. But it also allows you to trust in yourself and what you’re capable of. Learning how to surf and rock climbing for the first time made me feel strong and gave me a lot of courage not just physically but also mentally.

7 Explore Endless Opportunities

Since you’re literally outside of the box when you’re on the road, your imagination can run wild. You can see opportunities that never occurred to you before. You can meet people with so many interesting careers and life stories who may encourage you build your own unique ideas. While traveling in Bali, I met a chef who was traveling all over the world to come up with his own Nomadic food truck concept. In the Philippines, I met an Israeli guy who had just sold 2 startups and was working on his 3rd while surfing exotic beaches.

8 Design Your Dream Job

In case you find yourself unhappy in your current or previous job, now is the best time to create your own. Why not start your own business, build your startup or create a new opportunity in your current company? Everyone who loves to travel knows that it opens you up to bigger possibilities- the sky’s the limit!

9 Delve Into Foreign Cultures

Perhaps the best way to embrace the culture is to live it. When you fall in love with the city you’re traveling in, why not find ways to stay there? Whether it’s through an internship, or a business idea, you will hopefully find open doors. The key is finding that unique skill, strength or passion which makes you stand out from the rest.

10 Pave Your Own Path

When I had decided to go back to corporate life, in Paris of all places, I was definitely apprehensive. I had placed my blog on my CV and I knew it would open a Pandora’s Box on my previous careers.

Luckily, it was also why I got hired by an online media company based in Paris. Because I could write, blog and edit in English- which is somehow a “rare” skill in this city.

There’s nothing like travel to make you realize how unique you are and how you can find your special place in the world. With the same courage it took to book that plane ticket, perhaps you can also launch yourself into a career you love.

And we can prove to everyone that travel can, in fact, boost your career and change your life.