3 steps: From corporate career to travel consultant

 

The need for change rarely comes by on its own, especially if you have stability in your life. Occasionally though, certain events can come up with new possibilities, needs or desires. Usually you ignore these kind of things but, if they pile up in a short period, the alarm bells will start ringing and a new driving force may take hold of you. Of course, accepting it will still be up to you.

 

“Jumping off a cliff” takes courage and “surviving the fall” brings confidence. A cliché, right? In any case, getting outside of your comfort zone without an “insurance” is hard if not foolish. Yet, what if you do take the “jump” and, instead of just “surviving the fall”, you discover that all along you were actually able TO FLY?!

Enough with the theory. How did we manage to leave our corporate jobs behind, create Unveil Romania and start working as travel consultants and tour guides?

 

1. Setting the stage for a ride on the wind of change

 

A twisted adventure in Thailand planted the seeds for new desires

8 planes. 7 cities. 6 accommodations. 3 islands. Several unique cultures. From the rooftop bars of Bangkok to the jungle floor of Angkor Thom or to reclusive islands like Koh Tao. From planes to trains, boats, Tuk Tuk’s or elephants.

 

Same as with other trips, the memories were priceless. So what’s the catch? The thing with this adventure was that we have prepared everything just by ourselves, creating from scratch an itinerary suitable not only to us, but also to our group of friends. Thus, we realized we could organize large scale expeditions, stretching upon many days and requiring multiple accommodations, bookings, research and means of transportation. Moreover, we found out that we truly loved doing this.

 

Upon returning home, our friends told us that they were delighted with the Asian experience and asked us to help them plan itineraries for their future trips. We very much enjoyed doing this in our free time, up to the point where our friends’ friends came to us for consultancy. It was then when we finally understood that we needed to step up against the “safety” of the corporate life and do something that we would truly enjoy. All of this was perfectly reflected by our new desires:

 

What made us ride the wind of change?

• Desire not to waste our education & values: do something meaningful to us and to those around us.
• Desire to follow our passions: do what we love – design itineraries, plan trips, make people smile.
• Desire not to waste our potential through a constraining job: we wanted to inspire people.
• Desire not to waste the efforts of those who shaped and taught us to think beyond the outer layers: give them something back, as a way of thanking them.

 

Let’s cut to the chase and wrap this up: Powerful new desires → Need for change. Houston, we have a go!

Niiiiiceee, but now what?! While we were pounding our heads against the wall, the “need for change” was chilling in the background, drinking an icy soda and occasionally amusing itself by tormenting us. It was taking its sweet time that’s for sure, waiting to emerge and take us on the ride of our lives, on the wind of change…

 

2. An inspiring revelation gave birth to a mission through time

 

As already mentioned, the above desires caused the need for change and determined us to search for an awe inspiring revelation. Same as with the need for change, inspiration would not put on its shiny armor and come knocking at our door, offering to save the world for us. You need to have a proper mindset for its royal highness to arrive. So, we had to do it the hard way and think at what we can do with our existing skills, knowledge and passions.

 

• Passion for travelling – the childhood trips brought the passion for travelling and the love for our country’s history & traditions.
• Planning skills & client service orientation – by pursuing corporate careers we had learned how to be more organized, develop strategies and plan ahead. Moreover, listening to what a client truly needs and not applying what you think he needs saves both sides from a lot of frustration.
• Turning ideas into reality – by working for local employers we had learned how a company works as a whole, enabling us to see a bigger picture.
• Travel planning – by volunteering to design trips we had become accustomed with a large range of custom built itineraries and travel planning techniques.

 

Ok ladies, gents and fellow aliens, this looks like a no brainer. “Mr. Obvious”, a buddy of ours, said: “From this day forth, we pronounce you Travel & Agency”! Hooray! Now go get your friends, pack them in a suitcase and send them flying over the world. Wait, what’s with the sadness? Oh, right…sending people towards numerous countries requires tremendous amounts of connections worldwide. Not such an easy feat for a start-up, especially if you don’t want to let go of your ideas of flexibility & customization for each individual out there…

 

Obviously, inspiration stroke in the least expected moment although we were searching for it for quite some time. It happened in an ordinary evening, in our neighborhood’s park, during an ordinary walk around the lake…

 

Sitting close to the lake and with the thoughts of “world conquest” fading behind us, we started talking about our own country. We quickly realized that no matter how many of its places we have seen, we were still thrilled by the thought of packing our bags to start a fresh adventure through our beautiful Romania.

 

The forest glades, the highland villages, the Saxon heritage of Transylvania right in the middle of a Latin speaking country, the intact traditions, the ancient Roman and Geto-Dacian sites, the pristine natural landscape of the Danube Delta, the medieval castles with their legends…The list can go on and on and the number of attractions is staggering. So having all of this, why not do justice to our roots?

This revelation along with our enthusiasm provided the motivation needed to share with you the magic of Romania beyond ancient & medieval marvels, modern thrills or natural wonders.

 

Having a mission we were able to start shaping the concept. It would be about tourism but not a standard tour operator. We wanted it to be a travel consultant agency and to reflect our free spirit. It must be something special, bringing to light traditions and forgotten places. That’s how we came up with Time Travelling Tourism. This would probably be enough to inspire others, but we were soon going to find out that enthusiasm and passion alone can’t fully sustain us in our new endeavor…

 

3. Our need for balance shaped the heart of our vision

 

Inspiration gives you the energy to shape a concept and define a mission. Regardless, we quickly noticed how easy it is to be set off balance: stress, time limitations, things requiring more effort to complete, frustration. It seemed that balance is the key word here and that we needed a constant source of energy & calm, no matter what was being thrown at us.

 

Thinking at balance, we realized what an important role it plays in our lives: balance of our actions, balance between heart and mind, balance between past and present. We decided to create Unveil Romania so that you may have access to our unique concept – Time Travel Tourism. Through it, you can achieve inner balance. Helping you do this is our reward and a constant source of energy & stability. Balance through balance. Circle complete. As of this, our vision was born, carrying a message that could move people and share itself.

 

So this is it, this is the story behind the creation of Unveil Romania – our child and your Vessel. A Vessel with the power to inspire and the result of our inner motivation. A motivation to pay it forward to our loved ones, to our beautiful country and to those people who can really do something with such an inspiration.