Home Travel Industry Hub

GLOBETROTTING: Meet the Gold Coast Travel Agent travelling the world...on FULL PAY

Gold Coast Travel Agent Sophie Whiteing was effectively paid to spend three months travelling the world last year... and we're about to share with you how she did it.

Gold Coast Travel Agent Sophie Whiteing was effectively paid to spend three months travelling the world last year… and we’re about to share with you how she did it.

Sophie, who works for Flight Centre’s Universal Traveller brand at Pacific Fair, took full advantage of the company’s unique unlimited annual leave program.

The program meant Sophie could travel to seven countries while working remotely.

“The unlimited leave program has really worked well for me,” she explained.

Sophie Whiteing- Universal Traveller

“I take my laptop away with me and always make sure my customers know that I’m not going to be in the office and to email or WhatsApp me,” she said.

“They can also use Facebook or Instagram if that’s their preferred method – it’s so easy to communicate this way as our customers are constantly using these channels”.

“Whether I’m at a hostel or hotel I will just find time to log on and reply to customers. Often at airports is a good time too, as I have lots of time to kill, or simply at the coffee shop.”

Balancing work with international travel meant that Sophie was often touching base with customers from makeshift “offices” in the world’s most exotic locations.

Sophie Whiteing- Universal Traveller

“Central America would be high up there – on an island called Caye Caulker, just off Belize in the middle of the Caribbean. It was just stunning,” she said.

“There was also Zephyr Lodge in Guatemala. I remember sitting by the pool replying to a few emails there looking out into the vast rainforest and thinking this is the life”.

Travel Agent Sophie Whiteing

Last year she went sailing through the Ionian Islands in Greece and did Yacht Week in Croatia.

Sitting on a sailing boat replying to some emails from your phone in the Mediterranean ain’t so bad,” she said.

During 2019, Sophie spent three weeks travelling around Thailand in April and then took off to Japan in May for the Topdeck Mega famil, before travelling to Las Vegas in July.

Sophie Whiteing- Universal Traveller

She plans to visit Sir Lanka in February 2020 but is also trying to squeeze in one or two other breaks.

Travelling has only enriched her career, as evidenced by her success in finishing the year as the brand’s second most successful consultant in Queensland and fifth most successful nationally.

She also qualified for the Flight Centre Travel Group’s 2019 Global Gathering in Las Vegas last month and was recently appointed team leader of her Pacific Fair shop.