Working Travel Into Your Busy Schedule

Working Travel Into Your Busy Schedule

As part of our Women’s History Month series, Cinneah (the founder of Flynanced) and I co-hosted a series of incredible roundtable discussions with some of our favorite women in the personal finance space with the goal of fostering rich intersectional conversations around money.

Danielle Desir, an author, blogger, podcaster, and founder of The Thought Card, an award-winning affordable-travel and personal finance blog and podcast, talked about how time is something that keeps many of us from traveling. 

We think “I don't get a lot of time off or I have a full time job, so I can't be traveling all the time.” Danielle shares some ways we can effectively manage our time when traveling with a full-time job. (You can watch the full recording of the roundtable discussion, Creating a Travel Abundant Lifestyle, here).

Think Strategy

Danielle Desir: Come up with your goals for both work and travel. We may believe our full-time job goals and travel aspirations are opposing, but for me, I see that they coincide. If I grow in my career, I grow in my income. I will have the funds to be able to travel. For me that is number one. Over the past six or seven years, I've been actively growing my income by getting promotions and really becoming an expert at work.

Prove Yourself at Work

Danielle Desir: When you have a full-time job it's really important for you to know when you're required to be present in the office and when you're not needed. I always map out when throughout the year no one is going to care if I'm not around. That's a time when I will be jetting - and for me that's very, very important because my job is so cyclical. 

I'm needed three times a year at very high intensity. After that, they don’t really care about my being in the office because they know I did my time. I did my work and they're not going to bother me. That's really, really important - knowing when your work schedule is and making sure that you're confident in that. 

Utilize Your Weekends

Danielle Desir: People say weekends are not enough time to travel. I push back on that because I went to Oslo (Norway) for a long weekend. When you truly want to fit travel into your life, you may have to make some compromises like traveling on the weekends.

I also think that that trip to Oslo helped me realize whether or not I actually liked fast travel. Regardless, if you're not going to try something once, you're not going to get to know your travel style. For me, going to Oslo for the weekend was a bit intense. If I was able to extend the trip for another three days, it would have helped a lot. 

Weekend travel is definitely something that I encourage people to do and explore. We have 52 weekends each year. You could travel once a quarter and still have lots of Netflix and Chill time with your boo those other weekends. 

Embrace the Holiday Schedule

Danielle Desir: Before I start the New Year, I map out all of my time off. Of course, I leave a little bit reserved for getting sick or random things, but I  sit down and I calculate when I plan to take time off. 

The best times to travel are also during holidays. Add a day before the holiday, add a day after the holiday. I am a master “cheap flights” person. I’ve figured out the best times to fly. For example, it’s cold in January. Nobody wants to go to Ireland then. Well, Danielle does! I will go to Ireland in January, but I would piggyback off of Martin Luther King weekend or Valentine's Day weekend to get those days off.  

If you plan your trip at least six to nine months ahead of time, Thanksgiving time is excellent for finding cheap flights. Be studious to understand cheap flights and how seasonal travel works. Take advantage of all those opportunities.

Remote Work

Danielle Desir: A lot of us now in 2021 are seeing for the first time that remote work is a thing. Traditionally, they didn’t want us to do this. 

Now, there's no way I'm ever going to go back to the office. I don't care. I know I'm valuable. I know that I'm an amazing manager. If you want me to stay with you, then you have to accommodate me. That's stepping into power, which I know is hard to do.

I've been working remotely two days a week for the last three years. And I did that by planting seeds. I said to my boss, “listen, I live two hours away from work and it's a drag. Can you please give me some remote opportunities?” 

They said no, but every time my annual review came around, I would mention it again. Plant seeds and don’t be afraid of rejection. When you get a rejection, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Those rejections put remote work on the radar of my boss and her understanding that it was something very important to me. I was able to use that as leverage. I was offered a new position, and my boss offered me remote work because I was about to leave. Even if you hear no, keep on pushing!

Next Steps

About Danielle:

Danielle Desir is an author, blogger, podcaster, and founder of The Thought Card, an award-winning affordable-travel and personal finance blog and podcast (The Thought Card Podcast) empowering financially savvy travelers to make informed financial decisions - travel more, pay off debt, and build wealth. She is also the co-producer of Millennial Wealth Builders, a 3x grant-funded audio docuseries highlighting women of color building wealth.