My guest for this episode is Valerie Perry. Valerie has made a career out of exciting jobs that made it possible for her to travel and see the world. Valerie is currently a Cruise & Travel Director with the Holland America Line. Previously she worked for National Geographic and before that she spent four years at sea with Royal Caribbean. Valerie’s mission is to inspire people to live larger, more passionate and adventurous lives than they ever dreamed possible.
In this episode we talk about:
- How Valerie went from being an adult who had never set foot on a plane or ship to visiting all 50 states, going to dozens of countries, and becoming a travel writer.
- Some surprising benefits of cruising and Valerie’s favorite cruise routes and ports
- Valerie’s quest to visit 100 National Park sites in honor of the centennial anniversary of the NPS
- Tips for making the most of any trip to a National Park
- How Valerie got her first job in the cruise industry, even though she had never been on a cruise or even seen a cruise ship in person
- What it’s like to live and work aboard a cruise ship
- How to get a “dream job” working for a company like National Geographic
Books Mentioned:
- Valerie’s Sea More book series
- Cruise Confidential by Brian David Bruns (the infamous American waiter)
- Forever Nomad by Tynan (who writes on cruises)
Links:
- Valerie’s Travel Blog – The Road Lots Traveled
- @valeriedperry on Instagram
- Find a National Park near you
Listen and Subscribe on:
Transcript
Neville:
All right, Valerie, welcome to Never Normal. Thanks so much for having me. You have a lot of travel experience, which we’ll come to. I think you said you’ve been to all 50 States and a few dozen countries as well. It sounds like, but before you started doing all that traveling, you described yourself as a home body and someone who was it. You were in college before you had your first boarding pass.
Valerie:
Yeah, I’d actually graduated from college, but I was a total homebody as a kid was too afraid to go away to summer camp. Wasn’t interested in any of that. Just wanted to be home. Our family vacations. When I was a kid we’re all fairly local, there’s a great Lake half an hour away. And we would camp there every summer and it was fantastic and I loved it and I didn’t really know anything else. You know, we had one family trip when I was in probably fourth grade to a few States away to visit some family, friends that have moved. But other than that, I was here in Pennsylvania. All of the time had never flown anywhere until I had my first job out of college and actually had to fly from Cleveland over to Phoenix. And the first plane that I got on was actually a prop plane with just one seat on either side of the Island. I got on the plane out loud to the other passengers. These look a lot bigger on TV, cause it was just the aircraft. It have actually, I think I flew Pittsburgh to Cleveland for the connection. So you’re just on that tiny plane to get up to Cleveland. But yeah, that was my first flight first travel experience. And it’s really taken off since then.
Neville:
Was it, was it love at first flight? Like, did you, did you have that first experience and was it, was it like the flying that got you? Cause obviously something changed between no boarding pass until after college and the amount of travel that you’ve done now.
Valerie:
Yeah. I honestly don’t really know what it was. I think even as a kid, even though I was afraid to go anywhere, especially by myself away to camp or anything like that, I always loved the idea of traveling and we would take a few trips, you know, over to Ohio for company picnics or something that my dad or my grandfathers had. And I would always get sick right before those trips. Or we always attributed to too much excitement. Like I would just be so worked up that I would get like strep throat or something right before it happened. But just the anticipation of staying in a hotel, which I still get crazy excited to go stay in a hotel and see someplace new. But just, I mean, even my campaign days, just that whole idea of exploring, even though it’s a place I had been to a lot, just being able to get out and explore just really mattered to me.
Valerie:
And so then when I did take that first flight, just my whole world kind of exploded that all of this is out here. I mean, I was taking photos of everything when I first got out to Arizona. I mean, I’d never seen the desert before just like airplanes deserts are something that only existed in movies. You know, this was, this was real, this exists out here for the first cafeteria. I saw the first tumbleweed I saw all of it was just magical because my eyes had been open to everything that was there. And then once I got that taste of all, this is out here, plus how much more all around the world I was hooked and had to just see as much as possible.
Neville:
I know exactly how you feel, but especially growing up in America, as fortunate as we are in many ways, having lots of vacation time and the ability to just sort of travel whenever you want to, or even I’m in Spain right now. And I was just noticing like how many of the stores and businesses have just basically like shut for the month of August. They, it’s not that one employee or even the owner, you know, takes a week or two weeks off. They just, they’re, they’re happy just to close the entire business and just say, you know, vacation rest of this month, basically what the sign on the door, it’s a little bit frustrating as a customer, but I love that they’re able to do that, that the culture allows for that. And that’s not really something we do in the U S there’s more of an expectation that, you know, work hard. You might have a couple of weeks of vacation a year. So how did you, I mean, you, you, you developed this love for travel. How did you find the time to travel?
Valerie:
Yeah. It is something that is almost shameful the way Americans look at at time off and how it doesn’t really fit in with our culture. And not only is there a limited amount of time off typically in, in a job, a lot of people don’t even use that for various reasons. One of them being that they don’t want to be looked at as someone that needs that time off. I mean, it’s good for you in so many ways, not just mentally to give yourself a break and perform better on the job, but just the way travel changes mind and your perspective on the world on whatever problems you may be working on at work. But one way that I combated that was that I wanted a job that always let me travel. And so that’s what I’ve always sought out where, you know, I didn’t have to just travel on my vacation time. I wanted a job that was going to pay me to travel as well. And those jobs are out there. They exist. I’ve certainly made a career out of many different jobs throughout the world doing that.
Neville:
It’s something that I I wish I thought of earlier, to be honest now I’m sort of clued into all of that. Having traveled a lot myself and, and met people like yourself growing up, I’ll say I love to travel. I was very fortunate that I had the opportunity from a young age, although it was less adventure in my case and more visiting family. I had family spread all over the world. And so basically any time off that we had, either my parents from work and my sister and I from school was spent, you know, going to visit relatives in, in other countries, the idea that you could just, you know, sort of travel full time and do it for fun and maybe even do it for work and get paid while you were traveling. Totally. Didn’t enter my mind until, until much later in life. So today you’re the cruise and travel director for Holland America.
Valerie:
That’s correct. Yeah.
Neville:
And obviously working on a cruise ship means you’re traveling quite often. What is it like working on a ship?
Valerie:
It is fantastic. I love it. I tell everyone I get paid to be on vacation. I work four months on typically. So I’m on board for four months straight, no time off you work every day for four months. And then I have two months vacation and then go back for four months. That’s general. I have yet to actually do a four month contract. ‘Cause things just shift depending on what season it is and where they need you. But yeah, I live on board for, for months and months at a time. And it is just such a great way to see the world because I have the added bonus where I get to return to many ports over and over again. So for example, last summer, I spent five months doing seven day cruises to Alaska. If you’ve never been to Alaska or Alaska by cruise, highly recommend it absolutely gorgeous.
Valerie:
And like any other cruise experience I’ve ever had, where you get to just see these beautiful mountains outside all the time, as you sail up the coast, you can spot whales nearly every day. It’s just an incredible experience. And it’s an experience that a lot of people love and that a lot of people have take these Alaska cruises, but they visit Juno once or they visit Ketchikan once where I have that unique experience of I go back there every single week. Oh, it’s Tuesday. It’s time to be in Juno again today. And you find your favorite spots that you get to go back to, but you also get to explore much more of the areas have gone to do a lot of the tours in these cities that would just be difficult to fit into a one day visit. So it’s like all of the benefits of a cruise plus that added benefit of returning to places.
Valerie:
And then of course getting paid to do it is great as well. But what I particularly like about this role with, with Holland America line is that it is a cruise and travel director. So if any of the listeners out there, if you’ve ever been on a cruise, everyone knows the cruise director, you hear their voice all the time. They’re up on stage every night, kicking things off. But with this new role, it’s really Holland America lines really reimagine what a cruise director can be. And they’ve added that travel portion as well. So my job isn’t just to kick off the show and make the announcements. It’s also to educate people about these places that we’re visiting and the culture and the history of these destinations, and really get people excited to travel, which I can’t imagine a better job. I mean, I’m so in love with traveling the fact that I now get to talk about that it’s just an incredible opportunity. So for the Alaska season, you know, I would give a talk all about whales and I would give another talk all about the native people of Alaska. It’s just a really beautiful combination of entertainment and education all at once.
Neville:
That’s amazing. And your, your passion certainly comes through. In talking about this. Alaska is an interesting one. I’ve never been to Alaska. I would love to go. It’s, it’s very high on my list. My dad actually has cruised to Alaska, and it’s one of the things that seems obvious now talking about it, but I had never really thought about it is actually going on a cruise enables you to see stuff that you would never normally see. Cause there isn’t necessarily, you know, airport infrastructure runways, hotels, paved roads cities, obviously there are in, in Alaska, but not in all of the places that you can get to by boat that you would just, the average person certainly would never have any chance to see. You mentioned nature, whale watching. So it seems like if you want to see Alaska, like actually a cruise is probably the way to see more than you ordinarily would be able to on land.
Valerie:
Yeah. And especially a lot of Alaska cruises go to the Southern portion of Alaska, Juno, Ketchikan, Sitka, and they’re all located on different islands. So it’s a lot more difficult to get there. A lot of people with, if they visit Alaska by air, they’ll fly into Anchorage, maybe go up to Denali, maybe down to Seward, but it’s a lot more difficult to go visit all those individual islands. So a cruise is a great way to do it. And I call cruising kind of the wine tasting of travel. You get to sample a little bit of a bunch of different places. And if you fall in love with the place and think, Oh, I want to meet the locals and spend time there. That’s where your next trip can be. Can go spend a week in Ketchikan. Next time after you spend an afternoon there on the cruise,
Neville:
That’s a great travel tip. I love that. So using cruising almost like, yeah, like you said, wine tasting, or even I think of like a sampler platter where you can just for basically trip and without having to deal with a lot of like the logistics yourself or really any of the logistics yourself, you get to experience multiple destinations. And then the so called downside is like, yeah, you’re, you’re less integrated into the local scene there. You’re not spending as many nights in one place, but as you said, you can always go back. And so you kind of get the best of both worlds, try it out and then go back. Do you have any besides Alaska, do you have any favorite cruise destinations or ports of call?
Valerie:
I love the Canada – New England cruises. That’s actually where I was supposed to be this summer. I spent all last summer in Alaska this summer, I was going to be doing seven day cruises from Boston to Montreal. So up and around down the Saint Lawrence river and then a seven day cruise back around the other way. And I’ve never been to Montreal or Quebec via cruise, I think had overnights in Quebec. And it would have been just beautiful, but I love those Canada, New England cruises, and Bar Harbor, Maine and Acadia National Park is one of my favorite places on the planet. So truly love cruising up there. That would be my, my Alaska and new England are kind of tied at, wanted to there.
Neville:
I bet almost for almost anyone listening, neither of those are even like destinations. I imagine I have to admit, I didn’t even realize there were cruisers going up new England to Canada. I mean, it makes sense now when you describe the geography of it, but I think the stereotypical cruise in most people’s mind dislike, you know, Caribbean Island, hopping beaches, warm weather, tropical, those kinds of places. But obviously there’s, there’s a lot more to it than that. And there’s Transatlantic crossings and Transpacific crossings, even, although those are, those are harder to come by and other options, any other, any other particular favorites?
Valerie:
Well, they’re, I mean, they’re, they’re all favorites for various reasons. I just got to do a full transit of the Panama canal, which is just a remarkable experience to go through this feat of engineering that, that literally changed the world when it came about. So getting to see it in person is just spectacular. And then my final cruise before the industry had to shut down, unfortunately, was out of Hawaii and that was my 50th state. And so I’ve only been to Hawaii the once, but got to go to three different islands, but would just love to get back there to explore more instead of just that, that one time quick stop for me.
Neville:
Why is the state that I guess, I can’t say I never wanted to go there, but I think in my mind it was just sort of like, you know, the typical movie scene, you know, stay at a generic chain hotel and they have a Luau every night and somebody puts a lay on you when you get there. And it’s basically like what I imagined was sort of older, retired couples, having these, these kind of like by my standards kind of boring and very touristy experiences. And, you know, I would never say never, but I kind of left it as a gap, you know, maybe one day when I’m like retired at 80 years old, like I’ll, I’ll make it to Hawaii and then life happened. And because of work, I ended up going and working at the Ironman world championship, which is in Hawaii.
Neville:
I mean, it started in Hawaiian and these days it’s in Kailua, Kona on the big Island, same place every year, the second weekend of October. And so I started going there for that. And I really like, I, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a vacation and it didn’t really have a choice. It was just go to Hawaii. But once you’re there, obviously you’re going to, especially if you’re an adventurous person to explore and I was totally blown away, like the, the vision I had of Hawaii that definitely exists if you want that, you can find it. But it’s just, it’s so obvious now when I say it, like, yeah, it’s this volcanic tropical Island was an interesting, unique local culture and like all kinds of different climate zones. I mean, you start, if you’re on the big Island, like, and you’re in Kona, for example, you start in your super tropical, hot humid at the beach.
Neville:
It’s exactly what you probably expect of Hawaii with amazing surfing. And then you just like turn right up the road, start driving up. What was actually the largest mountain on the planet measured from bottom, which is actually like, you know, below sea level to top bigger than Mount Everest, if you count the entire mountain. So that’s super interesting in and of itself. And, and just like, you know, a few minutes after you start driving, all of a sudden the temperature drops way down, you get like up into like the clouds and fog and there’s coffee plantations. And it’s just, I mean, if you have any appreciation for nature whatsoever, and again, maybe this is super obvious for everyone else. And I’m just like the one person who just only thought about like the resorts and the touristy side of Hawaii, but absolutely gorgeous. And of course, volcano national park, which, which is an incredible experience. I think, as, as Americans, the fact that that’s like part of our country, we almost have like a patriotic duty to, to visit and celebrate the natural beauty.
Valerie:
Yeah. I agree. I think a lot of travelers, when they think Hawaii, they just think Honolulu and they think stretches of beach and hotels, which is lovely and great in its own. Right. But Hawaii is just such a diverse place with all these different islands and yeah, the big Island was my favorite. It’s just an incredible place.
Neville:
Speaking of the big Island, volcano, national park and national parks in general, you mentioned you visited 50 States, all 50 States, you’ve also visited a hundred national parks. Is that right? Or at least a hundred national parks in time for the 100th anniversary of the national park service.
Valerie:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s correct. So back in 2016, the national park service had its Centennial. And so I set a goal a couple years before that, that I wanted to visit 100 national park service sites because there’s not 100 true national parks, but there are also national monuments and national seashores. So all of the units managed by the parks service. I wanted to visit a hundred of those before the Centennial and I made it, I had made it to Yellowstone just the, about a month before the Centennial for my 100th park. And I’ve seen about 120 in total now has since, and that’s just over a lifetime. It wasn’t just within a compressed unit, but as we discussed, I didn’t travel a ton as a kid. So I hadn’t seen that many before I set out on that goal.
Neville:
It sounds like you’ve more than made up for that, that perhaps lack of travel when you were younger. Wow. So more than a hundred, you, you might have some kind of record out there. I don’t know if the national park service keeps records, but I think you’d be in the running if they did.
Valerie:
Yeah. There are people that have visited all of them. There’s over 400 units and some people have seen them all which I find remarkable. Someday I’ll get there…
Neville:
Did you specifically plan to finish in Yellowstone? Is that like the a, was that like the reward for all the work that you’d done to see all of them before that
Valerie:
It had not originally been the plan, but as things were getting close, I definitely avoided going to any parks before I had that trip because I knew I’d be in Grand Teton before that I did detail into Yellowstone and Glacier all in one trip a few summers ago and all amazing, definitely worth the experience.
Neville:
Do you have a particular favorite? Yeah.
Valerie:
My favorite is still Acadia they’re in bar Harbor, Maine, which I first visited on a cruise that we had a call into bar Harbor. Then there’s a free shuttle that takes you from the town green right there in town into the park. And that’s part of what helped me fall in love with national parks that I couldn’t believe this was in America. It’s, it’s our land. We, we, you know, we own it as Americans. Open to everyone and yet I had never gone to see it. And if this exists, just like we were talking about my first trip, when I got to the desert, if this exists, what else is out there? So, same thing when I fell in love with that park, I knew I had to see more. So I love Acadia. I also really love Glacier in Montana.
Neville:
Yeah. It’s, it’s funny. Travel is a it’s like people will often use the phrase that go scratching an itch, you know, in some countries there’s like a tradition of having a gap year or, you know, certainly people just backpack or take a little time off and travel and, and, and people who don’t necessarily do that, you know, refer to that as, Oh yeah. You just scratched that itch, you got out there, you saw what you wanted to see you travel. And if, if I had to make an analogy, it’d be something more like, I dunno, fractals, just like the more you go in, the more, it just keeps going and going, like you go visit one place and you’re not like, okay, great. I saw that place. I’m done. Now. I remember I was in I was in, I think it was Thailand. I was in Southeast Asia and it was just like, you know, I had planned to go to maybe Thailand and India and based on, I think it was like monsoon season or the weather or something.
Neville:
I was like, I had been in one country for a while and I was like, yeah, it’s probably, I could probably wait another month before going to the next one, just because of the weather. And so I, you know, you pull out a map and I’m basically like, Hmm, where else could I go around here? And I had never been to Indonesia and it was sort of convenient locally. And I think there were cheap flights and it ridiculous. I mean, it’s a country of like, you know, more than 200 million people, as soon as I, as soon as I started planning a trip there, it’s just like, it went from being not even on my itinerary to, I did weeks of overland travel through Indonesia. And and every place that I went to kicked off like, Oh man, if I ever get back here, I’ve got to go to this other place. Like you go to Bali and you want to go to Gilli islands. Also, you go to, you know, some part of Java and you’re like, Oh, I wish I could have gone to Sumatra too. And it just, it, it does the opposite. You don’t scratch the itch. You end up finding like 10 new ones for each one place that you go to.
Valerie:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely
Neville:
Going back to the national parks though. Do you have any, any recommendations for anyone who’s maybe not setting off on quite the same quest, but who wants to spend more time exploring our national parks? Is there any particular park you’d recommend that people start in? Are there any particular parks that are overrated or underrated?
Valerie:
Yeah, I would just get started as soon as you can. And start locally, there are national parks in every state, so there’s probably one close to where you are. And there are certainly parks that are my favorite and parks that are not my favorite, but I will say that I have learned something in every park. You know, it’s amazing how much we didn’t learn in history class. And I think we’re finding that out more and more, especially with the climate of the world today, but even in every park I’ve gone to, I I’ve read a sign or toward a museum and thought really that happened. That happened here. How was that never mentioned? I remember this little line from history class, but how was this not covered? So just head out there and start exploring them.
Neville:
When you visit parks, are you typically visiting just for the day? Do you camp, do you take like something like a camper van or an RV and like drive from park to park or do you have a particular strategy for, for getting through them or,
Valerie:
Yeah, it depends some mini parks I just visit for a day, but other parks, I try to spend some time, especially the, those true national parks as, as they are like Acadia, like Yellowstone Yosemite. And I, I do a bit differently in every park. I don’t have a camper van. I have a car that I camp in. So sometimes it’ll be in my car. Sometimes I’ll go with friends. I was with a good friend of mine on that Yellowstone trip. So we just took a tent atnd tent camped. I actually took my mom to the big five in Utah. So we rented a camper van in Las Vegas and we’re able to do that big circle in our van. So it really just, just depends Yosemite. I stayed in one of their tents there at halftone village. So there are lots of ways to do it. Then there’s also a great lodges in many of the national parks. I haven’t had the lodge experience yet, but there are just gorgeous lodges in Olympic national park, glacier national park. So really whatever your style of travel is, it can be accommodated.
Neville:
I think that’s great to keep in mind. And I think you can appreciate parks differently. Like if you’re, especially when you think about the, kind of the biggest, most popular ones, if you’re just driving in with like throngs of other tourists, you know, kind of standing at the designated photo spot and hopefully staying on the, on the trail or on the path or whatever, and not being one of those people who like falls into a Geyser trying to get a good selfie. But if you’re just sort of sticking to like the obvious main point, taking a picture and then leaving, like you’re just going to get stuck in traffic and have a frustrating, annoying experience. The idea. I mean, the idea of actually staying in the park, whether you’re camping, or as you said, there are parks that have lodging with proper hotel, like facilities with lots of amenities. You get to wake up there, you get to go to sleep there, you get to hear whether it’s the, you know, bugs or animals or whatever it is at night. And that sort of peaceful, stillness and see the stars. I think if you can, that’s definitely what I would recommend people to do.
Valerie:
Yeah. And a couple more tips on that, but they say a lot of people don’t make it a mile past the visitor center. You know, they go to the visitor center, they take a few steps to get those photos and then that’s it. So pick out a hike, even if it is a fairly short roundtrip hike, but that gets you out of whatever that central area is so that you’re seeing something else, you’ll encounter a lot fewer people. And if you are staying in the park or very near a park, get up early and stay out there late, you know, there are definitely peak times in the park when tourists are out from mid morning to usually right before dinner time. Cause they eat breakfast, then they head out and then they get back before dinner to get up at sunrise, get out and explore the park and then stay out there after dinner.
Valerie:
So I would typically, you know, get up super early, eat breakfast on the run while I’m out and about. And then come back for lunch, take a nap since I got up so early and then head out there for dinner and eat dinner as a picnic, kind of reverse how most people do it so that you’re getting those quiet times. Plus I’m a huge wildlife lover and love taking photos of wildlife and sunrise and sunset is what they’re most active. So it really benefits you that way. You’re going to get the best pictures, the fewer crowds it’s usually cooler than if you’re touring around in the summer. So there’s a lot of benefits.
Neville:
Yeah. And the animals too, if you are a wildlife spotting, I mean, you definitely don’t want to be around big crowds because that’s the first thing that’s going to scare them away. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that actually those tips that you just mentioned are pretty much applicable to almost all kinds of travel. I always think you should just sort of not necessarily completely avoid the beaten path. A lot of the places that are famous and popular are for a reason, but at least trying to serve via beyond like the shoulder season, whether it’s months or hours, you know, times of day be out in the morning, be out in the evening. Picnics, I think are a really cool idea wherever they’re permitted. It’s nice to just, you know, instead of having to rush off to some probably overpriced, probably not great restaurant, you know, bringing healthy, good food with you and being able to enjoy it in the surroundings is great.
Neville:
I’ll say one one national park that I’m dying to get back to is the the Grand Canyon. But the North side of the grand Canyon, that was another one that totally blew me away. Again, I had this kind of expectation that the grand Canyon is like hot and, you know, Arizona, dusty deserty, you know, like the I’m picturing like, you know, Bugs Bunny one of those scenes or like the Road Runner and Wiley E Coyote, you know? And it’s like, that’s always that kind of a landscape with this, like, you know, cactuses and all that stuff. And that is Arizona. Like Arizona definitely looks like that. As you mentioned. And the South side, I think of the Grand Canyon has that sort of a feel. It also has about a trillion tourists and McDonald’s and like, you know, miles and miles of traffic, but the North Rim of the grand Canyon is like in a pine forest.
Neville:
It’s it’s chilly, at least the, I think I was there in September. It wasn’t cold cold, but it certainly wasn’t like, you know, a hundred degrees, sweltering desert. And there were, I remember these little cabins I think were managed by the park service and they were just like feet, maybe I’m exaggerating in my memory, but it seemed like they seemed like if you, if you were to wake up in the middle of the night and sleepwalk, you could like walk out your door, like just into the grand Canyon, if you weren’t being careful, like they were right there on the edge. I didn’t stay in one of those. I didn’t even know about those. I was just doing this whole kind of tour around Arizona, but that’s one in particular I would love to get back to and I would love to stay in because I can just imagine how amazing that is to just like wake up to that amazing view.
Valerie:
Yeah. I’ve actually never been to the North rim of the Grand Canyon. So I would love to do that. I would love to do the rim to rim hike where you start on one side, go all the way down in the Canyon. And then back up the other side, the last time I was at the Grand Canyon was on that tour of the mighty five in Utah, was up at the grand Canyon first and stayed at a forest service campground outside of the big tourist area there near the grand Canyon. I don’t remember waking up that morning and hearing an elk bugle just outside the campground. And that’s just an incredible experience. Nature has the best alarm clocks
Neville:
Are eloquent. The ones that you need to be really careful of. I know, I know moose are like I think people don’t really take them that seriously. Everyone’s looking out for bears and stuff like that, but I think they’re like the statistically, like the most dangerous that, that charge or elk as well,
Valerie:
Probably if you got close to them, especially in fall, when it’s the rut and they’re all out there looking for a mate, you want to keep your distance
Neville:
Yeah, I think that’s generally my advice for all animals. Like, you know, enjoy them, but if they’re mating stay, stay away
Valerie:
Get a long lens so that you don’t need to get that close for your selfie.
Neville:
When you visited national parks, you did some of that cruising. It sounds like. And the rest was just kind of like self organized travel.
Valerie:
Yeah, I did very little of it cruising by the time I launched kind of my parks project, my 100 by 100 by the Centennial, I had changed jobs and had a job on land, but was taking a lot of domestic business trips. So then I would tag on extra days to go see a park. So I was flying to Seattle all the for work. So one, one of those trips I would go to Mount Rainier. The next trip I would go to Olympic and extra. If I would go to North cascades, you know, just always adding where I could to kind of make that financially a bit easier. And also time wise, you know, if I was flying out there on a weekend, I would typically produce shows Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. So I’d take the red eye out Friday after work, have all day Saturday to explore, go to work on Sunday, something like that.
Neville:
But that seems like a really good way to do it. I want to kind of back up in the timeline, because you mentioned this idea that, you know, you, you fell in love with travel. You realized that having a job that would enable you to travel, like that would be the way to actually get a chance to see the country or see the world. I know you started with a small production company, but then you had another job in the cruise industry. Is that right?
Valerie:
That’s correct. I toured the U.S. for a couple of years with a small production company in a bus. So I saw some national parks that way, but not a lot of freedom to go since I was traveling with a group of people and then took a job at Royal Caribbean and worked on board their ships for about four years.
Neville:
And how did you, how did you break into, cause I mean, now you’re like a Cruise and Travel Director, which I imagine is, you know, not an easy way to get started. That’s a position available to people who have a lot of experience. So for someone who’s hearing this and thinking like this kind of lifestyle sounds exciting, being paid to travel, having the opportunity to go to Alaska once a week, let alone like you a once in a lifetime. Sounds exciting. How does someone get started in a travel job or specifically in the cruise industry?
Valerie:
For me, I just fell into it, which I know is not super helpful, but yeah, I was working for this small production company and I was a robotic camera operator. So we would have entertainers on stage and a three camera system. And then this little like video game controller that I would run to control the cameras, which is a pretty niche skill. And I didn’t know that at the time, but that’s also what a lot of cruise ships use to film the entertainers that are on stage. So I was with this production company, we stopped in Las Vegas for the national association of broadcast trade show, which is this just massive audio and video show that happens in Vegas every year because we needed to buy some, some new equipment for the tour. So we stopped there. The day we were meant to leave. There was a job fair happening that morning.
Valerie:
I had done all this research just cause I’m a big nerd when it comes to video. So really looked into the show ahead of time to figure out who everybody was, what would be happening and then saw they have this job fair. So I convinced all of my tour mates that it had just been kind of a hard couple of weeks. They all should sleep in. We should leave later in the day, that day we were going to leave. They said, Oh, that’s a good idea. Let’s leave at noon. So they all slept in. I got up, took my resume, my demo reel and went to the job fair and Royal Caribbean was one of the companies there. And I thought, I know nothing about cruising. I’d never been on a cruise. I’d never seen a cruise ship that I’ll never hear from them, but why not apply? They’re right here. I’ve got everything I applied the very next day. They asked me for some more information and about four months later I joined my first ship and my life were completely changed from there.
Neville:
And were you working in like the broadcast or in, in media and production, the entire time?
Valerie:
Yeah. Yeah. I was a broadcast technician and then what they call the head broadcast technician. So in charge of the small little broadcast department, so we would film events that were happening on the stage, help support the shows that were happening on stage. We would also film a souvenir DVD that people could purchase and take home with them. So we would go to all the events and film people. And I would also on some ships work with the cruise director and produce a morning show what’s happening that day, important information people needed to know. So I was part of the cruise director’s team. I was in that same entertainment department. So when I came back to cruising, I had a pretty good understanding of how everything worked, but went from behind the scenes to now in front of the scenes.
Neville:
You always hear that like cruise ship, especially the larger ships are like a mini kind of floating city. And it’s pretty amazing to think you even have like a morning show. It’s the number of departments and things that are going on. I mean, you think of obviously like you need to feed everybody, you need to keep floating and get to your destination. So there’s mechanical and like Marine aspect to it. But the amount of like entertainment shows stuff going on, obviously travel stuff and basically like a full hotel plus all the additional services that go with that. So you work in, I think what I would say is a pretty niche area within cruising. What sorts of other jobs do you meet other Americans in? Because I know that there are a lot of different kind of nationalities working in cruising and some tend to be dominated by particular nationalities. Maybe. I don’t know if that’s your experience.
Valerie:
Yeah, that definitely is my experience. And you do meet not many Americans in general. And typically if you do meet Americans working on board, they are in the entertainment field. So they may be a technician like I was so either video or lights or sound and then entertainers as well, singers, dancers, or other performers, other musicians, you know, they could be a piano entertainer as part of one of the show bands as well. But I’ve also met bartenders and waiters that are American. So it’s not as common. Most of them I would say are, are in entertainment. Also the children’s department, if there’s a kid’s club on board, a lot of times those staff members are American as well.
Neville:
I read a book by, I think his name is Brian bronze. He wrote a few books on, on cruising and the cruise industry and what it’s like, I think he was the first American to ever work and survive a contract, maybe even more than that day as an American working as a waiter on a cruise ship. And maybe it was for his specific company, but either way, it sounded pretty rare. And his description of the industry and the work was, it sounded really grueling. I mean, you know, you mentioned four months, basically without a day off and, and doing a sort of more manual job of like carrying heavy plates and trays and things like that. It definitely sounded like hard work, but at the same time, it affords that opportunity to visit all these beautiful places. And then as you said, you get sometimes a couple of months off in between contracts.
Valerie:
Yeah, it definitely is a lot of work, no matter what position you have on board. Most people, I would say work an average of 10 hours a day. And again, that is every day with no days off, I have an extremely easy job. My job is to talk into a microphone compared to what a lot of people do. It it’s extremely easy. I can’t imagine just the physical demands of us carrying heavy trays, cleaning the rooms, but it is such an exceptional group of people. People that love what they do loves their colleagues, love their guests. Everyone is so friendly, so happy all the time. And it really is like that. Always. It’s not some act that we put on as we’re walking down the hallway, even when we get back to the crew areas, everyone is saying hello to each other, greeting each other friendly.
Valerie:
It’s just, I wish that we could somehow bottle those dynamics that happen on a cruise ship and just how friendly and accommodating and helpful everyone is and expand it to the rest of the world. Because you were talking about it being like a mini city. And it’s amazing to me, how quickly things happen on board. Something breaks in your room. You pick up the phone and someone is right there to solve the problem. Imagine that happening at your house, you know, you call and they say, okay, we’ll be there next Tuesday between the hours of whatever and whatever. I get so frustrated when I’m not on board, because just everything in life is more difficult than it is working on a ship. It’s just this amazing little micro city.
Neville:
I find it endlessly fascinating. Like I’ve read all these books on people about people working on cruise ships and just everything from like romance between people working together to yeah. The different like hierarchies and, and officers and not officers and people who are yeah. Like the different nationalities that sort of monopolize different jobs and how that creates an interesting dynamic and crew bars and all that stuff. But you spent you said four years working on a ship and then left the industry for a while. So after, I mean, hearing everything that you’re saying about it, it seems like it would be very difficult to transition back to life on land. What, what brought you off of ships for that time?
Valerie:
Yeah. It was a variety of things really. I mean, at the time that I left, I’d been there for years. I had actually become, I mentioned that head broadcast position where you’re in charge of the department. I had moved into that role pretty quickly and pretty quickly decided I didn’t want to be there and demoted myself back down to just being a broadcast technician. I wanted to see the world and not really manage people at that time in my life. It didn’t really leave me with a lot of career options on board. I’d already moved up to the highest position position that I could didn’t like it and came back down. And at the time that I decided to leave, I was working on the largest ship in the world at the time, it was the Allure of the Seas.
Valerie:
So all of the equipment was brand new. It was state-of-the-art. I was working with what I would be working with on land as well. So I thought if I’m going to make a transition to land, this is the time to do it. Some ships come out and we’ll keep that same equipment for years and years. So I had worked with equipment that was five to 10 years, kind of out of date. You wouldn’t find that most spots on land. So I knowing that my skills were now where they needed to be to transition back on land. I thought that it, it may be time. And as much as I loved my job at Royal Caribbean, I did kind of feel that a big portion of my job was just filming drunk people, which is super fun. The people would go to these parties sometimes have a little too much to drink, and then I would film it and make a souvenir DVD of it and people would buy it.
Valerie:
And again, they’re on vacation. They’re having a great time. There was nothing wrong with that job, but I just felt like maybe I could contribute more to the world than just doing this because there was nowhere else I could go board. And that was it for my department. I could kind of move myself down and take a different pay wage, have to move into a different role to hopefully work my way up the ladder somewhere else. And I may have done that. Had I not found the right fit on land, but all those things combined, I said, you know, it’s time to look elsewhere and see what else I can do.
Neville:
And so what lured you back onto the land or who alerted you pack onto the land? Cause that’s, I think around the time we met, you were working in Washington.
Valerie:
Yeah. Yep. So I was still on board and decided it was probably time to go. I had extended, my contract kept extending as long as they would allow me to do so. So I had some, some type of income coming in, but it was applying for jobs on the side. And again, just like what happened with Royal Caribbean where I said, Hey, I’ll apply. They’ll never call me. We’ll see what happens. I applied to a job at national geographic that I’ll never hear back from these people, but my resumes ready, why not send it in? And sure enough, they called me and wanted an interview. And I did two video interviews with them since I was still in the Caribbean and had never met anyone in person until my first day of work. When I showed up there and just kept saying, I hope this is not a scam. I hoped it really is a chop for me here. Someone’s not going to just Rob me in the lobby of this building. But yeah, they, they hired me. I think I had three weeks to get off the ship, find an apartment in DC and move my whole life down there.
Neville:
National geographic also fits in that category of things. The guidance counselor didn’t mention in, in high school of jobs that, I mean, actually we had stacks of national geographic magazine in school. So maybe it was my own like failure of my own imagination, but even growing up around DC, visiting National Geographic’s museum, which at one point was like attached to the headquarters. I’m not sure how it’s set up now. It still never really occurred to me, but it seems like one of the coolest places to work in the world as like an adventurous person, national geographic is like for more than a hundred years, I think now like the standard bearer of like get out there and explore, do cool stuff, enjoy what, what the planet has to offer us. Was it, was it a dream job for you? Was this something that you had wanted to do since you were a kid?
Valerie:
Yeah. Yeah. It became a dream job for me, but I, it had never been my lifelong dream. You know, I, I, it wasn’t something that I wanted to do. I didn’t want to grow up and work at national geographic. And there’s a lot of people when I worked there that would tell me that it was their dream job. I would meet people on the road. Oh, that’s my dream. How do I get a job there to the point where I felt bad about it. And I was taking someone’s dream job when that had never really even occurred to me the same as you just mentioned. I never thought that I could work there. But in reality, I think I’ve met one person, one of the photographers that it had been his dream since he was a kid to work there. And he is now had over 75 cover stories.
Valerie:
I think. So it worked out great for him, but for most people that work there, you know, we just work in our profession, whatever that may be, whether you’re a photographer, a writer, or you work in live entertainment like I did. And on the production side and you become excellent in that field. And then you move into a brand like national geographic, some type of powerhouse storytelling brand that needs those skills that you combed. It’s very rare that I would meet people that, you know, made that jump to NatGeo right away, right out of college. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s typically people that really build up quite the portfolio of work and then find that perfect role in the company as a way in.
Neville:
Interesting. So if somebody wants to pursue these kinds of opportunities, it sounds like it’s probably not easy, let’s say right out of college or right out of school. But rather if you have kind of like your sights set on that, build up the buildup, the skills somewhere else, that’s easier to get into. So you can have a portfolio or a reel or whatever is appropriate in the case of your skill. And then once you have something like that, you can do what you did, which is apply, and you’ve already got the skills and you already have the experience and then those roles are there. Did you ever imagine that you would be traveling the way you do now that you would have worked at NatGeo, that you would be working on a cruise ship? Was that like the path that you were always on or, you know, what, what was the guidance counselor telling you? What were your parents telling you? What was the expected path?
Valerie:
Yeah, when I was a little kid, oddly enough, I wanted to be a park ranger. So that really worked out with my, my parks project that I took off on. So that had been my first dream. And then I really wanted to work in television and produce television. I got close with nacho, but I never worked in television on, on that side of things. So it kind of morphed from television into live entertainment, which is where I spend most of my time. Now I would still love to work in television, especially host now, but also produce. So hopefully someday that will still happen, but I can definitely see how those childhood dreams of both park ranger and this entertainment aspect have fit the path that I’m on currently.
Neville:
Yeah. It’s interesting. So many people I talked to where, you know, it’s like, you’re a kid and you, you know, you have some dream and then you just go in some completely different practical direction. Right? It’s like when you’re a little kid, if you want to be like an astronaut football player, ballerina, and then, and then you grow up and life happens and suddenly you’re an accountant or a lawyer, or you’re in like actuarial school or something. I don’t want to say boring, but very practical let’s say. And not necessarily what any little kid is dreaming of. And it seems like there’s a pretty, there’s a pretty straight path for you from, from what you wanted to do. It sounds like, sounds like almost lifestyle driven in a way that like you enjoyed time in nature and time and parks as a kid. And you found a way to incorporate that into your lifestyle as an adult.
Valerie:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, your, your job can be anything you want it to be. And I mean that in a few ways you can literally have pretty much any job you want, if you work to acquire the skills, but then you can also view your job any way you want it. So there were times, especially during my park project, when I was working at NatGeo, there were seasons. I didn’t get to travel very much. So I said, okay, I’m going to view my job right now as fundraising for all those adventures that I want to have. And there are times where that’s just the reality. And then there are other times where everything just clicks. And there were certainly times like that at Nat Geo too, where, you know, I have the best job in the world. This is incredible that I get to do this and meet these people and be here. So they’re, it’s seasonal, but you get to shape it, how you want it to be
Neville:
I love that mentality. And I, I agree. I mean, I think that ultimately money work, all of it, it’s a means to an end. I mean, I think you should, you should love your work if that’s at all possible. I think those of us who do are very privileged, but I think at least as you said, you can frame it mentally that way. And just say like, you know, this is this, isn’t just some daily grind for the sake of it, right? This is moving me closer to this thing. I love your philosophy. You also have a website, the road lots traveled where you kind of travel blog over the years. And that’s actually how we found out about your national park adventures and the quest to visit a hundred.
Valerie:
Yeah. There’s a lot of parks content on there, more coming, also some cruise content from my earlier cruise days and hopefully a lot more cruise content coming as well.
Neville:
While I have you here, I know you’re working on some content, but since we’re talking, do you have advice for, for first time cruisers for would be cruisers? Is there anything that you wish people knew cruise guests knew before they got on a ship or when they’re getting on your ship?
Valerie:
Yeah. I think that one of the important things to know we touched on a little bit already is that cruising can be whatever you want it to be. I think people think Caribbean cruise and they think just drinks on a beach. And if that’s what you want it to be, it can certainly be that. But everywhere you go, there’s also history and culture to explore. You can dive into the local food scene and even your experience on board can be that as well. If you want to sit by the pool all day and read a book or take a nap, go for it. It’s your vacation. It’s your time. Do whatever. If you want to get involved, you can certainly play bingo and hit the casino all day. You can also take, you know, we do a cooking show on board Holland, America line ships called port to table.
Valerie:
That is this great experience of local cuisine that talks about the local flavors and, and how all of those flavors came to be in these dishes. So you can immerse yourself in culture, on board and educational activities on board, but it just truly is whatever you’re looking for. It’s not a one size fits all vacation has the great benefits. Like you only unpack once as they say, when you take a cruise, cause you’re in the, in your cabin there, you don’t have to worry about moving hotel to hotel, but it can really be anything that you’re after. So I would say if you haven’t taken a cruise and are kind of thinking about it, I say, go for it. Even just take a shorter cruise or a five day cruise a four day cruise, just to try it out. I think you’ll be surprised.
Neville:
I love the kind of choose your own adventure element. That seems like a recurring theme in a lot of what we’re talking about. I think for my dad only unpack once and not have to lug suitcases from hotel to hotel, but still be able to visit lots of cities is the benefit for Tynan. Who’s a friend of a friend and a fellow digital nomad who writes a lot about his interesting lifestyle. He gave me a completely different idea about cruises. He, he uses cruises to do deep thinking work, especially writing. So he talks about this in his book where, when he has like a new book to write or something like that, that he’s working on, he’ll book a really long cruise. He’s specifically looking for something like an ocean crossing, where there are not a lot of stops, not a lot of ports that you’re calling at.
Neville:
And he doesn’t really feel like a huge opportunity cost of he’s missing stuff. If he’s not out doing shore excursions the entire time. And instead he’ll just have a routine where you’ve got a gym on board, you’ve got great food on board. Those types of cruises tend to be more affordable. Especially if you look at the like per day rate, I don’t think this is what the average person is going to do on a cruise. But if you think about the cost of like staying in a hotel somewhere, paying for three meals a day and then adding in whatever other incidental expenses, if figures for not a lot of money, he can have a solitude. All his food cooked for him, his room cleaned for him. He’s got a great gym to work out in. Most people on the cruise don’t even want to bother with the gym.
Neville:
They’re just there to relax and drink and have fun. So he’s got it to himself. He’s got a rock climbing wall or I know a lot of ships have I forget the, the brand of it now, but like the surf simulators. So you can all kinds of leisure activities, flow rider. And then you’ve got, you know, eight or 10 hours a day to just write and, and stare at the ocean. And like, no friends are there to bother you. No, one’s going to call you. You have limited internet for distractions. It’s pretty genius when you think about it.
Valerie:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I actually even think about guests booking a cruise for that reason. But, you know, we were talking about before my final cruise with guests before this a pandemic, it was to Hawaii. Shortly after that, I found myself on a one way trip to the Philippines. We were sailing from California to Manila to repatriate a lot of our Filipino crew. And I flew home from Manila and I actually use the time in the same way every morning, it would be breakfast, hit the gym every afternoon. I started a book that I plan on turning into a course. And so I just had hours to just sit there the view of the ocean and write and get so much done. So I love that idea.
Neville:
Amazing. Can we talk about your course at all? Is that something that you’d like to preview?
Valerie:
Yeah. I’m still working on the book portion of it. I actually have another book that is all about cruising, especially cruising the Caribbean. It is called Sea More Caribbean (S-E-A More Caribbean). And so I wrote that book a few years ago after I’d finished my time at Royal Caribbean thought, I had finished my time at sea and I plan on continuing that series I would love to do an Alaska edition was planning on working on the Canada, New England edition this summer, but that got delayed a little bit. So as I’m waiting to continue that series, I’m working on a book now that is a guide to keynote the software that comes on Mac computers. It’s a presentation software. It’s actually what I used at national geographic for all of their live entertainment. It’s just a really powerful tool that I think a lot of people don’t use because at least when I was a kid and in school, we would always use PowerPoint. All the teachers would use PowerPoint. We were taught PowerPoint. And I, I was unaware of all of these capabilities that keynote has. But especially as someone with a video background, I’m really amazed by the capabilities that are in this program that literally comes free on your computer. If you have an Apple computer. So I’m working on a book about that and then would like to develop a course as well, to help people get the most out of it. Cause you can create some stunning visual works in Keynote
Neville:
For anyone listening. If they want to find your current book or your forthcoming books and the course, what’s the best place to do that. And just to kind of stay in touch with everything that you’re up to.
Valerie:
Yeah. We’ll see more Caribbean is available right now on Amazon, the new book, whenever it is ready and books, the future will be the same. You can find those on Amazon. And my handle is Valerie D Perry. So D as in dog, Valerie D Perry and that’s on Instagram and Twitter. So you can keep up with me there
Neville:
And I’ll have links to all those in the show notes. Valerie, thank you so much for your time.
Valerie:
Thanks for having me.