I can't travel. I've got a normal job It's time to throw out that old excuse. You CAN travel with a normal job. You've just got to find a way to prioritize it. Mari Escobar has been to 54 countries and counting all while working a "normal" 9-to-5 job. How on earth does she do it? Find out in part 2 of our interview, 42 Traveling the World with a 9-to-5 Job - 54 Countries and Counting with Mari Escobar.

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Follow Mari Escobar Financial Controller and World Traveler

If you want to get in touch with Mari Escobar or see where she's off to next, check out the links below.

Instagram: MariMari4 and LinkedIn: maritereescobar

42 Traveling the World with a 9-to-5 Job X 54 Countries and Counting with Mari Escobar

*Transcripts may contain a few typos. With interviews ranging from 1-2 hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors.

Peter Kersting: Welcome to Alone with Peter a podcast for entrepreneurs, artists, digital nomads, and people seeking personal growth. We are back with Mari Escobar who is going to be talking to us about her experience as a solo traveler and how she maximizes her work to be able to pursue travel more often. If you've been making the excuse that you can't travel because you have a normal job and they don't wanna give you time off. Well, maybe you'll find some tips in this interview about how you negotiate some of that. Bottom line is if travel is important to you, you can find a way to make it happen. That's something I'm excited to talk with Mari Escobar about. In this second part of our interview, Mari will dive a little bit more into some solo travel stories and all the above.

Peter Kersting: We ended last week though, talking about your first experience traveling alone, in Paris and how that changed you. Could you touch on some of the things that you really learned about yourself from that experience? You hinted about it a little bit last week.

Mari Escobar: Yeah, for sure. I would say the main thing is just like, I was not as shy anymore. And I learned to like talk to anyone around me because I mean, you're on your own. So you have to talk to someone at some point, right? And you have to figure out where you are, you know, you can't rely on anyone. It's all you, the money decisions, like where to go next and like, what happens if something goes wrong or stuff like that. But at the same time, it's like, you can do whatever you want. You don't have to be up to like anybody's schedule. And if you wanna sit here on the sidewalk of the street and ineat your falafel just do it here. Nobody cares. Make friends with the people next to you. Keep walking and stop by the next bench and, you know, take your time to enjoy the scenery nobody's rushing you. It's a whole different experience. I love traveling with my family, with friends, but solo traveling is a whole other world out there.

Peter Kersting: What is it about the solo travel that you've found you've enjoyed the most? It seems like I know for me, it's kind of what you're just touching on about, like, you could just eat your falafel and take 15 minutes on the bench if you want, or you could just keep running, you know, mm-hmm I love that you get to set the pace, cuz sometimes when you're with other people, even as not as much as you love being with them, it, you kind of have to just be more like, all right, what do you wanna do?

Mari Escobar: Yeah. You don't need to compromise. You just compromise as you, so yeah. Sounds selfish. But you know, it's, you can't enjoy it while you can. And then you also meet, I mean, you have to make this a point you also meet so many people like for like-minded and then you don't spend that much time on your own. Like, people are like, oh my God, you're crazy. Like, where are you going on your own? Like, something's gonna happen. Obviously mom gets worried. And even like all my friends, like, what are you doing? Like who does that? Right. But at some point I'm like, whenever I talk to my mom, when I'm like traveling, she's like, I haven't spent any time on my own. Like I've met so many people and we're all on, on the same page. We always, we all wanna see like this store's attraction or we wanna do like this excursion somewhere.

Mari Escobar: So it's super easy. Again, like you have to put yourself out there and be on that social mode. But if you do, and if, once you, once you open up, it's like so easy and then it's yeah, it's, it's a lot of fun, but at the same time, like the other side is like, sometimes you don't wanna feel that social. I'm like, Ugh, I don't wanna do those small talks again. And you know, try to meet new people. Like there there's always like one night it's like, okay, I, I I'll just eat and you know, go back to, to my place and not, yeah, don't have to go through that.

Peter Kersting: totally, totally. And it's an interesting aspect of it too, is you probably learn what you're comfortable with and what you're not comfortable with.

Mari Escobar: Mm-Hmm

Peter Kersting: Is anything popping into mind with you? I'm just curious, like I know for me, man, I, I could think of definitely there have been times where I'm like, I have to figure this out on my own and this is really stressful. But after the fact, I was really glad that I had to figure it out on my own. Cuz it's kind of what made the trip exciting

Mari Escobar: Sometimes. I don't know. Maybe when, I mean, we've all been lost at some point your GPS is not working or you don't, you don't always have like cell phone reception or like a sim card or like wifi, my phone. I don't have one of those international plans that, oh, I don't always have a SIM card. So it's like, okay. Yeah. Now I need to get wifi, try to find a place that has it. And you know, maybe if I'm trying to meet with someone and I'm like, oh, I need to find a place that has it. Try to go to like burger king and see if you can sneak in or Starbucks. That sort of thing can get annoying. But at the same time, other times it's like, okay, let me figure out, let me grab a map. I do love like old school maps. I don't always like the GPS. I like when I first get to a place, I try to get like a paper map, see where I am. I'm like, okay, where should I go? I go to like the counter. I'm like, okay, mark up the, the main places to go and you know, figure it out on your own.

Peter Kersting: Really? On the physical map? You just like to get it out and do that. I love that? I would never have thought.

Mari Escobar: I'm one of those.

Peter Kersting: That's so funny. I love th...