You get paid to work here?

A family member is asking for advice on careers. Would I suggest a career in travel, tourism and hospitality?

I’d have wasted my life if I didn’t recommend the career I followed all my working days! The one that has taken me to this blog, books and history.

Career is a poor description of the work I took, because it seemed like fun and I was following no plan. I had no path in mind when I took my first job in the sector, and I was only doing it for a season before getting back to my proper job, one that my parents would approve of.

I never went back to my chosen career at the end of that summer.

Because I had so much fun, because I never knew what challenge was going to be thrown next, from a system failure, to a flood, to someone who had ended up in Liverpool when he meant to go to Liverpool Street Station in London to get a train to the town where he meant to stay, and the youth hostel where I worked.

People travelling are having fun (or not), and it can be almost as much fun helping them enjoy themselves (providing somewhere to stay, food, advice, chat and anything else hospitality encompasses) as it is for them.

And helping them find their way from Liverpool to Liverpool Street. When they’re not having fun, part of the job is getting them back on track.

The hours can be long, especially hours spent on your feet, especially if you’re cooking, serving or manning reception. The pay can be low but we were sometimes told, “you get paid to work in this place, with that view, and those hills on your doorstep? You seriously get paid to work here?”

I visited some of the most beautiful places in England, and Europe, lived in some of its most lovely towns and cities, where others could only dream of living, and explored its most treasured landscapes, all because of my work.

When I worked on a front desk in a busy youth hostel, at any minute on any day, anyone from anywhere could arrive, and be talking with me. I travelled the world without leaving the place where I worked.

I learned the difference between Slovakia and Slovenia, learned kayaking and climbed hills. I made friends from around the world, with many of whom I’m still friends today. My wife and I met working together in youth hostels.

I discovered tourism and hospitality encompass heritage and heritage sites, national parks, schools and the education system, the bar and restaurant trade, activity management, finance and property, Human Resources and public relations, and much, much more. And policy, where my career took me its last years.

The industry includes camp sites; B and B’s, of all sorts; guest houses and lodges; accommodation from budget chains to the Savoy, from hostels to holidays camps; car hire, railways and cruise ships. The variety of what is included is endless, bewildering and beautiful.

I had the chance to work in a part of the industry devoted to travel for young people, aiming to widen the experience of travel to everyone, with a charitable remit, while sharpening a reputation for independent budget travel.

Would I recommend working in the career I followed? I certainly would.

Notes

I wrote this following a piece on the Good Tourism website.

Image shows the Youth Hostel at Steps Bridge, one of the many youth hostels in my career, courtesy YHA archive at Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.

You can read more about my career in parts of Open to All, how youth hostels changed the world.

The guest who ended up in Liverpool? We suggested another place to stay that night, closer to Liverpool, and they were back with us the next day.