The Round The World Trip

Well, to be honest, it is quite hard to do both things at the same time (travel and architecture). For a few years, when I worked at a firm, I compromised some of my “social time” working extra hours to accrue some extra vacation days to extend my short trips. But of course, that only gave me so many extra days to travel per year.

Eventually, with the blog running and generating some income, I decided to quit the firm to travel long term. But, before doing that, since I knew architect employers are not that open-minded with sabbaticals and remote-employees, I made sure to identify myself as an architect on my blog and the “blogosphere”. There are a lot of travel bloggers out there, but not many architect/travel bloggers.

While I wanted to travel long-term, I didn’t want to distance myself completely from architecture, even if it meant “practicing” it in a different way. So, exposing myself as an architect on my blog allowed me to present myself as an “expert” in the field to many travel companies and tourism boards that would like to focus their tourism campaigns on architecture.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with Belize, Norway, Eurail, Holland, Jordan, and a few more, as a travel blogger who is focused on writing about their architecture. Apart from that, I do some small architecture side jobs on my own that I consider I can dedicate my time to work on.

It’s true that you might not want to have a travel blog, but you could think of yourself as a freelancer, architectural consultant for companies abroad, or tap into another branch of the industry that can permit you to travel.

In reality, there is no secret way to make it happen. I just had to “sacrifice” traditional firm work (but did it happily) for a more non-traditional approach to using my architectural knowledge.

I too love architecture, and I know I’ll be back at a firm eventually, but for now, working as a freelance architect and on my blog is doing just fine.

PS. Fast forward to the post pandemic world and now more employers are more comfortable with remote workers. Now, more than ever, it is easier to make a living from pretty much anywhere in the world.