Year 2024 started the best way possible. In the last 24 hours of 2023, I found myself on a plane, flying to a new continent and to a new country that I had never visited before: Brazil. Landing just 6 hours before NYE in an 11 million-person city, Sao Paolo.
But first, how did I even get here?
Leaving my employer
To find out how I ended up in Brazil we have to go back in time a little bit. In December of 2019 I moved to Switzerland to transition my career from product design to sales, hired by a local software company.
I had an opportunity to choose between two job offers, but I ended up going for this one as I clicked better with my future manager and was more familiar with the industry. Spoiler alert: my future manager got fired 4 months in as COVID hit. But I stayed with the company. I started at the most entry-level sales position and worked my way up to become a Customer Success Account Manager which was the highest-ranked individual contributor role at the company at the time.
Having achieved this, and given the size of the company, I did not see much more space to grow. After long and careful consideration, I finally found the courage to hand in my resignation.
Consequently, it has always been one of my dreams, to use the time between the jobs to travel. I find it a bit unpractical to go to Peru for a 2-week paid time off when you’re based in Europe—way too much time spent traveling. So on December 30, 2023 (coincidentally on my late sister’s birthday - who also loved to travel by the way) I hopped on a plane to Istanbul, Turkey to explore the city for a couple of hours, followed by another plane to Sao Paolo.
Four months of travel
The number of memories I made, the people I met, and beautiful places I have seen are countless. I first explored Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. Then, making a quick pit stop in Buenos Aires to refresh my memories as I studied there back in 2019, I hit Ushuaia. The world’s southernmost city is located in Patagonia - having spent about a month exploring Patagonia. Then in Chile, I visited the Eastern Island, the capital of Chile, and headed North towards Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Miami before I returned back to Europe.
Going places and having a good time
The rest of the year was marked with going to various conferences and trips. I was fortunate to spend some more time with my family and friends too. Even reconnected in Europe with friends that I met on my trip to South America. Some of those people became truly close and instrumental in my life. Other friends flew from around the world to come visit me in Switzerland and I was able to show them around.
Besides refreshing my old hobbies like doing via ferratas (lesson learned from this year is that doing two K5 - very difficult via ferratas in a row is somewhat really hard) or golf, I have picked up a new hobby - running and ran the first half-marathon in my life in 1h52min.
Last but not least, I tried to work on my skills. I thought I would achieve more, but I still managed to squeeze in a 3 month long very intensive (Mon-Fri 6h/day) German course finished with world renowned B2 Goethe Certificate (there are only C1 and C2 levels which are higher). I briefly refreshed my designing skills, video-editing skills, and coding skills (and found out how fast can ChatGPT help you move forward!). Lastly, I forced myself to pass the AI Specialist Salesforce certification.
2024 in summary
- ✅ I soft-launched this blog!
- January - April I explored 11 countries:
- 🇧🇷 Brazil
- 🇦🇷 Argentina (2nd visit)
- 🇨🇱 Chile (2nd visit)
- 🇧🇴 Bolivia
- 🇵🇪 Peru
- 🇪🇨 Ecuador
- 🇨🇴 Colombia
- 🇵🇦 Panama
- 🇨🇷 Costa Rica
- 🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
- 🇺🇸 USA (Puerto Rico, and revisiting Miami)
- ✅ Bought a car as I got back from my travels.
- ✅ Attended a bunch of great and interesting conferences.
- ✅ I started with running and ran the first half-marathon in my life in 1h52min.
- ✅ Got back to learning German and put the European B2-level stamp on my knowledge passing the Goethe Certificate.
- ✅ Had a great time traveling with my sister. Established some new friendships as well as refreshed some that I neglected.
- ✅ I got back to reading:
- I finally finished reading The Effortless Experience.
- Really enjoyed The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
- Listened to Can’t Hurt Me before my half-marathon.
- ✅ At the end of 2023 I finally got myself to invest some money which generated a solid interest during 2024.
- ✅ I got myself to pass the first Salesforce certification - the AI Specialist.
Things that did not work so well in 2024
- ❌ It turned out to be slightly more difficult to meet my potential significant other than I thought, but I am staying positive on this front.
- ❌ I told myself I would obtain at least one cloud certification but haven’t made it a priority.
The year 2024 was epic. A preparation for 2025 that is certainly going to be full of big changes and I am both slightly scared and truly excited! Wish me luck and follow along for more.