“We wanted to be location independent as we love to travel.”
What work were you doing previously?
I (Emma) was working in Corporate Recruitment, and Steffan was a Quality Engineer.
We’d both worked in these roles for 15+ years.
What are you doing now?
We both now work as writers for our travel and photography blog, and are photographers and videographers.
The website is our main focus but we also do content creation and photography for companies and individuals, as well as having done some weddings in the UK too!
We also love volunteering our time, as we travel with a passion for wildlife conservation where we assist with photography and videography.
Why did you change?
We wanted to build our own business to be location independent as we love to travel.
We also wanted the time freedom to work on our own terms rather than being fixed to 9-5 every week, which we'd both done for over 15 years.
When was the moment you decided to make the change?
We’d been working on our website part-time rather inconsistently for two years.
But when my grandparents (who I was close to) passed away, it felt like a wake-up call to how short life was. It really pushed us both to start making concrete plans as to how we could get into a financial position that would enable us to leave our full-time careers and travel full time.
How did you choose your new career?
I‘ve loved writing since I was very young but had been so busy with my corporate sales role for so many years that it was something I forgot I loved doing.
Since we loved travel, building a travel blog made sense as it encompassed my love of writing and gave us a reason to travel for work.
Steffan took up the role as photographer (after having never owned a camera in his life), and quickly fell in love with landscape and nature photography! Our blog slowly evolved into a photography and travel blog, focusing on photography as our niche.
Are you happy with the change?
Very happy!
We both love the time and freedom we have. We love creating something that belongs to us and are excited by the fact we’re inspiring other people to learn photography and travel more often!
What do you miss and what don't you miss?
We miss the regular income as we’re still in the growth stages of our business, and so we rely heavily on our savings.
We also miss the routine of a full-time job, which was something we didn't think we'd ever miss! Whilst we love the time freedom, there is a lot of comfort in knowing what you are doing each week and what you should be focusing on.
How did you go about making the shift?
One of the biggest things we had to do was pay off our debt which we’d accumulated over the years, and save some money to support ourselves.
We started selling all of our belongings to raise funds, as well as moving into a family home to save on rent.
We restricted our spending to food and bills for 18 months / two years until we’d paid off all of our debt and started to build a chunk of savings.
How did you develop (or transfer) the skills you needed for your new role?
After working in sales for seventeen years I was able to transfer my networking and relationship-building skills to our new business, to build relationships with other bloggers and business owners.
I’d also built so much resilience having been told no time after time in sales, that I can follow a process and keep moving forward even if results aren’t instant.
Steffan, having trained engineers and managed projects for many years, is able to write "how to" photography blogs very clearly to teach others photography techniques.
He also picked up photography very quickly. While I struggled to get my head around the complex settings, he learnt them quickly and developed into a very good photographer which has shaped our blog into a photography-specific blog.
What didn’t go well? What wrong turns did you take?
When we first started our blog years ago, we had no idea about SEO or building a website.
Last year, we finally invested in a course and had to rebuild the website from scratch, as well as rewriting/removing old blogs we'd written that were not bringing in readers.
This was a huge overhaul and hours and hours of work, but we’re happy to say that since these changes the blog is now growing!
We also underestimated how hard it is to travel full time and work at the same time.
Travelling comes with so much complex planning, hours travelling from A to B, photography missions and capturing content, that sitting down to build the website has been much harder than we imagined.
This has shaped the next steps in our journey, which involves heading back to the UK for twelve months to "catch up" and work full-time on the blog and website before travelling again.
How did you handle your finances to make your shift possible?
We both had a large chunk of debt so we had to set up a finance planner, analyse and record our incomings and outgoings, and restrict our spending to pay off debt and bills.
This meant for around two years we didn't travel, we didn't socialise and we didn't buy much.
We both worked overtime when it was available and sold all of our belongings to raise some extra funds.
We were also lucky that we were able to live in a family home for six months before travelling, where we even went as far as limiting the central heating and chopped wood to save money!
We did everything we could to save as much as we could to support ourselves while we travelled.
What was the most difficult thing about changing?
The over-thinking and insecurity that we were not making a sensible decision, or the right decision.
We both had very good jobs that were well-paid and for reputable companies. We weren’t unhappy. So leaving our roles in our mid-thirties to pursue our own business and travel the world seemed crazy to so many people!
And there have been many times we've questioned our own sanity.
But we have to keep trusting our gut, focusing on the life we want to live and keep moving forward.
So that's been the hardest thing. The fear of failing, of making reckless decisions and going against the grain.
What help did you get? 
We've both got a great community of people on our social media that are taking similar paths to us and that is very reassuring, to see that we’re not the only "crazy ones"!
Speaking to these people and realising that they feel the same way just makes it clear that this is part of the process of breaking away and doing something different.
What resources would you recommend to others?
Try and connect with other people who are doing what you want to do, either through Facebook groups, Instagram or even LinkedIn.
Reading about other people's journeys and seeing them take the leap really helps you realise that anything is possible!
What have you learnt in the process?
The biggest thing we’ve learnt is to be flexible, go with the flow and relinquish control.
When we left the UK fifteen months ago we panicked about running out of money and not being able to build our business fast enough.
But now we're so much more relaxed and very much have the attitude that it will take as long as it takes. Our health and happiness NOW are far more important than focusing on a date in the future when we make X amount of money.
We’ve even started volunteering for organisations as we travel, which not only means spending money from our savings but totally halts our business growth during the month we’re volunteering.
But, we both feel that doing the things that are important to us now, as part of this business journey, is so important.
Rather than sacrificing everything else to work 24/7 on our business, we’re making space for other experiences, other doors to open and to really going with the flow. The best part is, we’re not panicking anymore.
Of course, this means that we have to freelance or take time back in the UK to rebuild our savings but we’re happy to do this and see it as part of the journey.
What do you wish you'd done differently?
I wish we’d learnt SEO from the start, as that would have given us a fantastic head start with our website.
Instead, we're quite a few years behind in terms of where we could have been if we’d known what we were doing.
However, we’re big believers that it’s all part of the growth journey and without those steps, you miss important lessons.
What would you advise others to do in the same situation?
I’d advise anyone with a nagging feeling in their gut about something they want to pursue, but they’re worried or scared or nervous to try it, to just do it!
It IS terrifying and scary, it's all of those things. That’s just part of the journey. But if you never try then you’ll never know.
Most of the time we have nothing to lose. We can go back to a corporate role if all else fails.
But often the thing that holds us back is ourselves and our fear of failing.
Giving yourself permission to try and fail is the biggest thing you can do, and we never regret taking this leap although it has its ups and downs!
To find out more about Emma and Steffan's work, visit
www.inwanderment.com
What lessons could you take from Emma's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.
