A Travel Professional is Born!

This is my first blog and I can't think of a better subject than travel! You may be wondering how I became a travel professional.

For as long as I can remember I always felt that I was born in the wrong place. I used to look at different photos of far off places and wonder what if would be like to go there but never thought I would or could. Almost 30 years ago, I got married. We couldn't really afford an expensive honeymoon so we went to Niagara Falls with the promise that we would go to Florida on our 5th wedding anniversary. I actually made my husband sign and IOU a vacation! In January 1992 we cashed in the IOU and went to Florida! I had never been on a plane before and I must admit I was terrified (the Gravol helped). We had a great week on the beach and at Disneyworld. I was hooked! I knew that I wanted to spend my life travelling. I took a Travel & Tourism course via correspondence and began to dream of far off places. I started to read every travel article I could. I scanned the Toronto Star Travel section every week. I couldn't stop talking about travel to anybody and everybody. I knew that travel agents were paid by commission and that wasn't an option for me. Instead I began helping my colleagues at work with their vacation planning. They were always commenting 'you should be a travel agent.' I desperately wanted to be one but the timing wasn't right. Fast forward to 2008 when I heard an advertisement on the radio. A company named TravelOnly was looking for people interested in travel to join as independent, home based agents. I quickly called the number and set up a meeting. It did not take me very long to decide to join TravelOnly. The best part was I could keep my full time job AND help people with their travel planning AND get paid to do so! It was a dream come true. Little did I know then that one year later I would leave my job and become a full time travel professional. More to come next week :)