tinarose

I have recently changed from a sales career to a career in education, taking a big hit to income to have more flexibility in my life. Now comes the rub. I have all summer to travel in but no money to travel with so I am expecting that from here on out my travel will be of the barest bones style. This is okay for me. Although in my 40's I prefer to travel alone and I am willing to take less expensive accomodations etc.
But now a headhunter has come hunting and is wanting me to interview for a sales job in my old industry. It pays double the salary (and more) but I'm back to two weeks each year to be able to travel Europe.
WWFD? - What would Fodorites do?

SalB

Stay in teaching!! You can camp in Europe or anyplace else. You'll meet more people; you'll have "authentic" experiences you would never have in a 4 star hotel.

As we told our son when he fussed about camping vs. fancy hotels like his friends, "If we hadn't camped on the trip (in the US), we'd never know the wind comes up every night in Marathon, Texas." He takes his kids camping now!

If you have absolutely NO money to travel, sign up for trips with volunteer organizations. You can work clearing trails in parks, setting up campgrounds, working on archeological digs in various countries, "summer" teaching at missions in various places. There are ways to travel and the time to do it. You will meet the most amazing people.

You have to plan ahead. Estimate how much money you'll need and put 1/10 of it aside every month. At the end of the 10 month school year, you have your trip money.

As a teacher, your salary will go up every year so as you get older, you'll have more travel money. My district paid extra for more degrees and extra credits so you could take some courses to move up the salary schedule.

There are ways, and when you look back on it and know how many lives you've touched, you will never regret traveling on-the-cheap. The kids are worth it.

My Dad was in sales and my husband and I taught. Dad would trade with us but we would never trade with him.

I'm a very new Fodorite so my opinion may not count for much, but that's how I feel. BTW, I still get letters, calls and e-mails from former students. You can make a difference!

Michael

This reply is not related to travel but to retirement. If employment in education gives you a decent guaranteed retirement, then you might want to choose to stay in education. Remember that your 401k can have its ups and downs, and you may want some type of safe cushion.

WillTravel

If the company wants you badly enough, perhaps you could negotiate an extra two weeks leave.

Cole

Follow your heart and do what you like most. Taking a job for the money will make you unhappy. Find a travel buddy to share lodging expenses or make some friends abroad that you can stay with. You can offer them a place to stay in exchange when they come to your part of the world!

Anonymous

Around here, tutors make $25 per hour. A mere 3 hours of tutoring a week for 30 weeks would yield a supplementary travel budget of $2250. Surely this beats working full-time!

nytraveler

Only you can decide what matters most. Do you prefer one career to another - or is it just the extra time off you want?

If you truly have no prefernece as to career I would do the interview but ask for special time off concessions. (I have a friend who offered to stay with his current highy paid job only if he could have July and August off - naturally at a pay cut - and his offer was accepted.)

But if you prefer education in addition to the exrtra time off I would stick with it and do the tutoring to boost your income. I don't know the situation where you are but $25 per hour sounds modest for professional tutoring - and you could definitely do more than an extra 3 hours per week - providing a very reasonable travel budget.

ira

Hi tina

You do realize that in the teacher business you will be able to travel only during the seasons when everyone else is travling?

After 30 years as a prof, I really enjoyed going to Italy in September.

Negotiate for 4 weeks off at a slightly lower salary.

ira

PS

With the extra money you could take 10 long weekends instead of two weeks off.

jsmith

If the only reason you have for going into teaching is to have more time off, please don't. We have enough teachers who are not educating children already.

mclaurie

Interesting question with interesting answers.

Does the sales job involve travel? FF miles? Go on the interview & see what happens. You don't have to decide anything til you get an offer, right?

mcgeezer

Traveling is one thing but spending 40 (plus) hours at a job is another. Do the work that makes you happy. Because if you're miserable at a job what's the point?

isabel

Well as much as I'm addicted to travel I agree that the kind of work you do is the most important consideration. But if you are worried about having enough money to travel - don't. You can travel for a very reasonable amount of money - and I don't mean camping or staying in hostels. But 2 star hotels often cost half what 4 star ones do and the differences are insignificant. Read Rick Steeves if you need to be convinced that traveling the less expensive way actually gives you a better experience in many (I think most) ways. There are plenty of threads here about traveling inexpensively which can give you lots of ideas. And the idea to tutor (or take some other part time job) to earn travel money is a great one. I teach, get 12 weeks off a year, and work a second job only enough to earn the money I need to travel. There is no way I would ever trade my life for someone who only gets 2 weeks off a year, no matter how much money it paid.

Patrick

I agree to consider negotiating for more time off without pay. If you're making considerably more money anyway, why would they not consider letting you take a couple extra weeks at no pay? You get more time AND more money. I know lots of people who have done just that -- just like one well paid younger mother I know who negotiated for working four days a week at a slightly reduced pay from what they were offering.

Christina

I don't think people should decide careers on the main basis of money and/or benefits, but what they find fulfilling. Aside from that, this sales job sounds kind of odd to me as I don't know any highly regarded salesperson in a good company who does not have more than two weeks vacation unless they are a rank beginner. If this company is only giving you two weeks vacation because you'd be a starting employee, then you might be able to negotiate more, especially if they are going through a headhunter. In any case, it would only be temporary until you got more seniority, if it's only because you are a beginning employee.

A lot of company's wouldn't care if you took some extra time off if you did it without pay and since this job pays so well, you could easily do that and be ahead of the game.

This sounds like a bogus/troll dilemma to me as certainly you had the same issue when you orignally quit the sales job to go into education. What's changed? If you didn't change fields out of giving it a lot of thought and making a serious mature decision, why don't you go back to sales because you probably aren't going to be a good employee in your new job. Maybe you'll change your mind again when you get back into the job you just quit and remember why. If you're a teacher, I agree, get out.

tinarose

Thanks to everyone who replied thoughtfully to my post. This is only one part of a bigger decision and I appreciate other viewpoints.
TO JSmith I am not so thoughtless as to think that vacation is the reason to go into teaching. If you don't love children and have other motivations besides time off, teaching would be the worst job in the world.
TO McLaurie, yes the FF miles are worth something. I'm finally using the last of mine from previous career to go to Italy in July and they are worth about $1500-$1800 for me right now.
TO Christina I am not a troll, there are 4 weeks total vacation but no "committed" sales person can take a month out of the selling cycle regularly to take a vacation. Your response is mean spirited, cruel and uneducated since you don't know anything more than what I put in my original post. There are certainly a lot of issues surrounding career choice and this is the only one that I am interested in sharing in this public forum. Responses like yours are why I will start lurking and stop posting questions.

WillTravel

It would probably be hard to take off one whole month at any given time given sales cycles. But with the extra pay, you could take several shorter trips. You can always drag your laptop along and phone people from Europe.

Anyway, there are pros and cons both ways. But considerably more money is not something to sneeze at. I would take a look at what your situation would be in twenty years, going down one path or the other.

kismetchimera

tinarose,
just follow your heart and do what you really want to do...Having more moneys is great and can make your life so much more comfortable! .However, doing something that really make you happy,is a Blessing also...

Think about it...your future and your well being depends on it.
Good Luck,
kismet

francophile03

I agree that you should follow your heart and do what you really want to do.

Sometimes the comments you receive here are very blunt but it's only one person's opinion.

bbib

tinarose: Hi there, I don't believe I can add much more to what has already been suggested. However, please don't stop posting on account of one or two responses - I think the majority of posters here are sincere in wanting to advise. If we all stopped posting every time we had a 'bad' response, then I doubt there would be any threads at all!

There will always be those out to attack and those with pointed and sometimes unsubtly blunt opinions - buy hey, who gives, we are in cyber space....stick around!