Today, we are joined by a very special friend of mine, Mari Escobar a Financial Controller for an indie record label in Los Angeles, and a world traveler. Mari has been to 54 countries and counting all while working a normal 9-to-5 job. In this interview, we’ll talk about how she prioritizes and negotiates travel with her work, where her love of travel came from, and what it was like for her as a Puerto Rican studying in the United States of America.

Plus, stick around to learn how Mari, Tanner Combias, (You can listen to that interview here) and I know each other!

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Mari Escobar Financial Controller and World Traveler

If you want to get in touch with Mari Escobar or see where she’s off to next, check out the links below.

Instagram: MariMari4

LinkedIn: maritereescobar

41 Where to Next? World Travel and Finding a Work-Life Balance with Mari Escobar

*Transcripts may contain a few typos. With interviews ranging from 1-2 hours, it can be difficult to catch minor errors.

Peter Kersting: Welcome to Alone with Peter a podcast for entrepreneurs, artists, digital nomads, and people seeking personal growth. Today, we are joined by a very special friend of mine, Mari Escobar. And this one’s fun because if you have listened to the podcast for a while, you maybe remember I talk with somebody from the Big 4 named Tanner Combias. I met Tanner in Vietnam. Well, guess what? I also met Mari in Vietnam and Mari also worked for one of the Big 4 financial firms. We’ll talk about that as we go through this episode, but one thing that I think is really special about Mari is anybody who knows her for long enough will be like, okay, where is she now? Because you’re literally always somewhere different. You’re always traveling. You’re always going on some kind of trip. And I can’t wait to dive into what that looks like. How do you prioritize travel? You have a normal nine-to-five-plus job. Right? And I think most people, think that’s not possible. So we’ll talk about your travel experience, but we’ll also talk about what you do for a living. Getting into solo travel a bit, especially as a girl, I think that’s gonna be an interesting topic and just catch up on some travel stories and stuff. So, you know, with that in mind, Mari, how, how have things been for you lately?

Mari Escobar: Hey, thank you for that introduction. It’s very true. Nobody asked me, how are you? It’s like, where are you now? where are you going next? So yeah. Yeah. Doing good now in LA I’m kinda, I’ve been here for a couple of months, but you know, I’m taking off in a couple of weeks.

Peter Kersting: nice.

Mari Escobar: I gotta keep it going.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. Where are you to next?

Mari Escobar: I am going to Europe. So I’m doing Paris, Italy, and Dublin.

Peter Kersting: Nice. You, you never get tired of it. Do you?

Mari Escobar: Of course not.

Peter Kersting:

Mari Escobar: Never enough.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. We’re gonna, we’re gonna talk a fair amount about these different things, but Alone with Peter, we like to go through different segments. So this is a three-part interview. We’re, we’re all strapped in for here, and starting in part one, we’re gonna be talking a little bit more about your background, right? So I wanna talk about your professional background, your personal background, and also kind of dive into your love for travel. So I wanted to start with where are you from originally?

Mari Escobar: Yeah, so I grew up in Puerto Rico and then I left for school, but my father’s Panamanian. So that’s kind of like, it was always an excuse to travel, to go visit family. So that was part of our, my upbringing, I guess, but yeah, born and raised in Puerto Rico. And I’ve been in the states let’s say on and off like 10 years.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. And you mentioned that you mentioned your family has played a pretty big role in why you love traveling so much. Do you mind sharing what traveling, growing up was like for you guys?

Mari Escobar: Yeah. vacation was always like very important. We at least would plan like one big trip of like two weeks, somewhere, mostly Europe. And we would usually have that sometimes plus going to Panama, you know, to visit family. So those were like two big ones, like usually around the summer. And my father always like put that into me. He’s like travel now that you can don’t wait till you are old, when your knees hurt and you can’t walk, you gotta do it now.

Peter Kersting: That’s really great advice. Yeah,

Mari Escobar: I took that very seriously.

Peter Kersting: well, and obviously sounds like the way that your family traveled has had an impact on you, right?

Mari Escobar: Mm-Hmm we like to do stuff, explore, like we’re very practical. We don’t do like super fancy vacations, you know, three star hotel will do, but we go in an Explorer for like 12 hour days and just walk around, get lost and get to know the place. We’re not all about, you know, have a fancy dinner, sit down for like three hours and then, oh, now we’re tired. No, even with my parents, like we, we go out early in the morning and we don’t come back to like midnight

Peter Kersting: so what it is all about doing stuff wheb you’re on a trip? It’s not necessarily about relaxing.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. I mean, sometimes you gotta have those, but no, it’s all about exploring, getting out, especially in Puerto Rico, we don’t get to walk that much. So mostly when we go to Europe, we’re like, okay, let’s just walk. We’re like getting out the door and just walking around, getting on the subway, exploring, trying the local food, local restaurants, that sort of thing.

Peter Kersting: What were your parents like when they were traveling with you or were you guys planning things out ahead of time? So you knew what you wanted to do or was it a little more spontaneous?

Mari Escobar: A little bit of both. I mean, when I was growing up, obviously I was dubbed the travel agent. So my father would get someone to buy the tickets and all that stuff. But yeah, I guess we had an idea, but never like planned like minute by minute. Sure. Like we have the main attractions and oh, today we’re doing this and this, but not like by the hour and say like, oh, we like this place better. So we’ll stay here for a little longer and then we can do the other still the other thing after nothing like super rushed, they’re not paranoid. Yeah. They’re very relaxed. I can just like me so, you know, we just go with the flow, nothing. Like they don’t get mad easily, so yeah,

Peter Kersting: Yeah.

Mari Escobar: Well now they’re, they’re older obviously, but they’re not like, okay, we have to be in there for like five hours right before or anything like that. So, and now that I get to plan all the trips my father’s just like you do everything. Just tell me how much it is. Like you buy the tickets. I’m like, okay, can we go this states like this, does this work for you? That’s it. I do the rest.

Peter Kersting: That’s awesome.

Mari Escobar: I look for the areas, but they’re like, yeah, now they leave it up to me. And then last year went on our last trip. We did a road trip through, through Spain and my father’s like, oh my God, you’re amazing. You should, you know, people should pay you to do this. just tell them the days. And you’ll take care of everything, like from getting the Ubers each day to planning, you know, the main attractions to the, to the, the flights and kind of like the leisure schedule. I love that. I’m like I could be a travel agent too.

Peter Kersting: well, you, you answered my next question already. I was gonna say, you know, how much do you enjoy the, the prep part? That sounds like that’s a pretty big part of it for you. You kind of like getting excited about the trip before it happens.

Mari Escobar: I do, but I’m not too big into research. Like , I’m pretty lazy when it comes to that. I like right now I haven’t done any research of where I’m going. Like most places I’ve been to, but like sure. There’s one in get there that I’ve never been. I, I probably go at the airport. I’ll be like, okay, what, what should I do? Yeah. I cook a hotel. I have a general idea of the schedule, but not like, yeah, I, I can get very lazy. I, but I, I do like booking for flights. I’m okay. Let me see. And like, yeah, I’m one of those that at the office, like, I’m like, okay, how are the flights?

Peter Kersting: I’m kind of the same way. I don’t know if I’m trying to remember what I’d be. Okay. So I asked Tanner this question, like I said before, early in the podcast, the three of us met in Vietnam. And the three of us traveled together for a little bit of time. And then each of you individually, I spent some time with traveling, but I, I, this, the question I asked Tanner was what was your first impression of meeting each other? And and I would love to hear your thoughts, your first impressions of meeting both of us, or just in general, that trip,

Mari Escobar: You guys were ready together at the hostel. Oh. And we were waiting for a tour, right. That’s right. I’m like, well, you know, there’s, that’s right. Like two Americans, they seen these city talk to. Yeah, yeah. I say more than that, you seem cool, like approachable. And we were doing the same thing, so sure. I was trying to make friends cause everybody does in a host. So

Peter Kersting: no you’re right. I that’s one thing I like about the host experience. It’s kind of like it’s easy to figure out, okay, who’s going out and doing stuff. And if you’re not as big of a planner and you like to be more spontaneous, it’s easier to be like all, what are you guys doing? Oh, that doesn’t sound very fun. Lemme talk to these guys over here. You know,

Mari Escobar: I always try to get like the what’s that like a free walking tour? I think something along those lines.

Mari Escobar: I try to get those out of the way when I first get to a place and get an idea of what’s what’s there. And then whatever, I like, I can go back to it later and like spend some more time, but you know, get a little bit of the history, see where I am standing.

Peter Kersting: Sure. Well, and especially nowadays, it’s pretty easy to just not be that planned out because you can always look it up. Even if you’re in Southeast Asia, you can use the internet. So it’s kind of easy to just be like, ah, what did everybody else wanna do here? You know, look at best things to do and blah, blah, blah. So,

Mari Escobar: And now with COVID, it’s kind of even better not to plan too much cuz it can change in a heartbeat.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. That’s a really good point. And I think we’re gonna touch on that a little bit more later. Yeah. One thing I’d love to do in part three is kind of share some tips for people who are looking to do more solo travel themselves. So this, you know, it’s interesting to hear how different people go about planning for planning, for travel and what they enjoy about travel. But I, I wanna, I wanna step back a little bit and talk a little bit more about your personal and professional background for a second. Mm-Hmm so we got an idea of what it was like for you, your family growing up loved to travel a lot. You moved to the us for college. Was that the first time

Mari Escobar: Mm-Hmm for school in Boston.

Peter Kersting: So, so tell me about what that was like for you because that’s a pretty big culture shift moving somewhere, not just visiting, but moving. Did you feel prepared for that or what was hard about it? I’m

Mari Escobar: Sort of it, you know, when you like traveling, it’s like, it’s kind of like another trip and then it’s college. So it’s fun. And then I already like a lot of people from my school, it, I went to Boston in Benley university. So I, from my school, they push you kinda like to go to school in the us. So I already knew some people there also like in Boston. So, you know, I was moving into the fun sure. Getting out of Puerto Rico, exciting like meeting new people, that sort of thing. So it, it was fun. It’s not like, I wouldn’t say exactly culture shock. Maybe it was later as I started meeting more international people. Sure. Cause in Puerto Rico, you didn’t get that. I mean, you get a few like S but it’s not that Politan or

Peter Kersting: That was kind of one of your first times meeting international friends was one of the first times you really felt some of those culture shocks. Is that fair to say? Yeah,

Mari Escobar: My father in Puerto Rico, my, I kind of became also, I came cuz in Puerto Rico he had like a little of like Indian friends. Like there’s not that many Indians in Puerto Rico

Peter Kersting: But yeah, I wouldn’t imagine anyway.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. Our neighbors are Indians and so like, you know, they have their own crew and then they would always invite us to their like new leaf party, stuff like that. And I would love the food there. I always got so excited, especially cuz I’m a vegetarian. So, you know, we don’t have that many options. Like there’s no Indian restaurants in Puerto Rico, maybe one. Yeah. So that sort of thing I really enjoyed. And then when I got to school, I got to make my own Indian friends. So I was like, oh, you know, I I’m following my father’s footsteps in that, in that regard.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. Do you think that your family’s love for travel is really why you love it so much? Like that experience was so positive for you? Is that why, or it’s kinda something of your own at this point?

Mari Escobar: That, and then also as I started meeting more people in college, like I would say, I thought I always traveled like in high school, but my group of friends, I was one of the ones that traveled the most like with my family mostly or even like trips that they did in school for like on our society. I’m like I would ask my father like, can I go it’s in Disney? I’m like, yeah, sure. Go so I’ve been spoiled in sense too. I cannot complain. Sure. But then yeah, I thought I traveled, but then I, you meet these people that they go on like weekend trips all the time or they’re like, I have roommates from like Indonesia. I had never taken a flight longer than seven hours to Europe. Sure. And they do what like 14, 30 hours, 48 hours nonstop, total 30 hours. Like yeah, they do it. Like, it’s nothing. I’m like, whoa, what is that like? Is that even possible? So that definitely like opened up my eyes. And then I was like, where is Indonesia? I never, I never cared about like, I didn’t know anyone, you hear it on the news. It’s like, you know, it’s so far away. But when you, you have close contact with these people and it’s like, Hmm, maybe I’ll start paying attention. And that definitely opened up my eyes to global traveling besides Europe and the us

Peter Kersting: sure, sure. I mean, it’s also funny too, cuz I remember the first time I went to Europe, I was thinking like, not that it’s exotic, but like it’s different. Right? Mm-hmm so you go like, wow, this is exciting. Cause this is so different. But then when you go somewhere truly different from the us or wherever you’re from, you’re like, oh wow, this is really this, that wasn’t exactly the same. You know? That’s like, that’s pretty similar

Mari Escobar: To, yeah. That’s closer to,

Peter Kersting: What’s a lot more like what I know compared to this anyway. So I totally get what you mean with Indonesia.

Mari Escobar: My father also had like some friends from Spain, but my mom’s like, yeah, you were already traveling when you were in my belly and they would go to like Barcelona a lot. So that for me is like, you know, I, that, I think that’s why also I love Barcelona cuz like they going there all my life and then, and we, we knew the local. So that also gives you a different perspective, not just, you know, the touristy I’m bla and all that stuff.

Peter Kersting: so I wanna talk a little bit about your college experience more though. So you got your master’s in science, in taxation from Bentley University. That’s the one in Boston, correct?

Mari Escobar: Yeah. I also did my undergrad there.

Peter Kersting: Why, why masters in taxation?

Mari Escobar: I, because I didn’t wanna start working yet.

Peter Kersting:

Mari Escobar: It was my excuse to keep studying and then also to become a CPA. You need like certain credits. So with just the undergrad, you couldn’t get it. So with the, they had like a five-year program in my school. So you would do like one more year after undergrad and then you would get all the credits and you’d get another title too.

Peter Kersting: It sounds like CPA was what you already had in mind then. Why, why CPA? Was your dad a CPA or

Mari Escobar: No, my father’s a CFA. So more like a financial advisor and then I won the accounting route. Okay. But you know, it’s, it’s a business school, so they’re pushing you to one of those, you know, if you wanna succeed in the field, you need to get that.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Kersting: I’m gonna say this…

Mari Escobar: Little nerd.

Peter Kersting: I’m gonna say this and please don’t take it the wrong way. But when I just talking to you, I would never guess like mathematics and science and taxes and stuff.

Mari Escobar: I’m not the typical accountant.

Mari Escobar: [I’m surprised those] would be the classes that you would wanna take. You know, it’s just kind of funny, but it’s also, what’s great about getting to know people better,

Mari Escobar: But I’ve always liked numbers. Somehow. My dream was to be a cashier.

Peter Kersting: at like what? Six years old.

Mari Escobar: Yeah, that was, that was like my favorite toy. The cash register. Oh my God. Soy one. That’s so good. Now, you know, when you have like the scans, like whatever the yeah. At the store that you can do self-checkout. I love that. I’m like, here’s my dream come true.

Peter Kersting: Were you guessing how much it’s gonna cost at the end or?

Mari Escobar: No, I just like the scanning

Peter Kersting: I love that. I love that.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. And so I had like, you know, my cash register when I was growing up and then I would get like, I don’t know that that probably doesn’t exist anymore, but my father would have like some slips, those that have like three copies with a carbon copy on the back. Yeah. So I would always like take those from his and fill them out and you know, play around with my friends, with those,

Peter Kersting: Your dad was probably thinking, wow, this is pretty easy. I didn’t have to buy any toys.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. So you could tell, I mean, I was inclined for something around, I I sure I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, but I know, I knew I didn’t want science or anything like that. So, you know, business was the right choice.

Peter Kersting: sure. But at the time of going to masters, you have to better idea about what you’re getting into. Right. So what is it about that type of job looking back and in hindsight that you enjoy, cause you’re still working in finance.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. But there’s so many accountants who hate their job so I got to one of those. Yeah. I mean, I was good at it. It’s now like, oh my God, I’m dying to do numbers, but I was good at it. I, I, you could say I enjoyed, I obviously I hated the accounting class, but it’s stuff that I could do. it was, it was a good, there’s always like a, a lot of jobs, no matter what.

Peter Kersting: So it’s a little bit more of like, let’s say a practical decision, you know? So like here’s the way I put it. Some people try to get a job that they love because they’re gonna be working a lot and they wanna be doing something that they love when they’re working and that’s a valid way to do it. That’s kind of what, the way that I see it. Other people, maybe the way that they look at it is I’m going to do something that allows me to do what I love, helps me pay for it or gives me the flexibility to do that. Which of those would you say you fall into, if you had to choose one or the two,

Mari Escobar: Maybe a mix it’s like, I don’t mind doing it and I’m good at it. yeah. But right now, like I love my job. I like I’ve had like my first job, I, there was a point I’m like, I hate it. Like, no, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna do it anymore because it’s it’s numbers, but there’s a level of doing numbers, crunching numbers when it’s more intense than just doing like an overview or, you know, it’s like getting a more, like, I’d say like macro

Peter Kersting: . Yeah.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. So that makes a difference. Like right now I’m doing more finance than accounting. So, and I like it better than just doing the accounting and doing the taxes. But at that point I chose taxes more say like audit is the usual route. Sure. And you pro Tanner pro I think also mentioned this yeah. He didn’t go with audit. I did. He was either either or I, I think he went like some other way. But I always hated not just getting too technical, but I always hated journal entry. So I’m like, yeah, I prefer taxes then, then audit. And then I was like, oh, everybody’s like, yeah, you should do law school because law school go with the taxes. But no, I hate reading. I hate arguing. So I always know that, oh yeah, they’re waiting.

Peter Kersting: I was wondering if this was gonna come up. Okay. So this is something we do not have in common. When we first met, I remember this being such a barrier. I was like, you’re like, I can’t stand books. Like I hate books with a passion. And I was just like, oh, I

Mari Escobar: Like books, books, but it’s not, I don’t spend too much time with them.

Peter Kersting: Hey yeah, you don’t, you got a bookshelf behind me, you know, but

Mari Escobar: I have some books here

Peter Kersting: I would love to see that. I would love to see that.

Mari Escobar: I knew… It’s just like a little box.

Peter Kersting: It it’s a one box in your house that still hasn’t been unpacked.

Mari Escobar: No, no. It’s like a basket. Not like a, it’s not like an

Peter Kersting: I’m just teasing actually, when we did the pre-interview for this, this is a little bit behind the scenes, I guess, but we were still unpacking your boxes. That’s how long it’s been since we talked about that. That’s so funny.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. There’s stuff on the walls now.

Peter Kersting: Well, yeah, no, looks great. It, I you, you, you enjoy the apartment. It sounds like. Yeah. It’s a

Mari Escobar: Good spot. Yeah. This one, I like a lot better. Mm-Hmm

Peter Kersting: well, so one of the other, one of the other things that I think is kind of funny, all the similarities between you and Tanner, right? Cause you didn’t know each other before you met each other at Vietnam and you really didn’t talk that much about it. At least that I was aware. Maybe just went over my head about how you’re both accountants, but you both worked for one of the big four accounting firms. Mm-Hmm which I’m APLE. I had no idea. What about what the big four was before I started talking to Tanner. All I know now is that it’s like, you know, they do accounting for a lot of people and there’s a lot of money involved and to get a job working for them is, is kind of a big deal. As far as your career trajectory.

Mari Escobar: It sets you up. It sets you up. Like once you have that on your resume, you’re good to go. Everybody’s gonna look for you. So that’s why you go through it. You become a slave for them. but I mean, I always knew I was not gonna do that for my, my entire life. Sure. You know, they usually say you do five years and then you’re good to go. Yeah. So that’s basically what I did it’s it was rough. The first year was fun and games. But after that it was like,

Peter Kersting: Yeah, yeah, here . Well, so I, I think we’re gonna talk about two other things before we wrap up this episode. But first before I talk about the second thing sorry, I’m being a little bit rambly here, but tell me about your experience working for Ernst & Young because that, as you said, it kind of sets your trajectory for what’s coming next, but was that your first job out of college? And so tell me a little bit about, you can go wherever you want with this. Tell me a little bit about Ernst & Young and then tell me about your first trip after Ernst & Young.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. Yeah. That was my first real job out, out of college. I had only won internship with them, but in Puerto Rico, like the summer before I try, that’s another thing, my parents never pushed me to do like an internship or get like a summer job fairly well, thank God. I didn’t really have to do it. So we would always travel and then my mom’s like, yeah, no, let’s go travel. So that was our summer thing. And so, yeah once I graduated well actually I had my, I asked for the, the, so I graduated in 2007, no, I mean, oh eight after the master’s, but I wanted to get the CPA out of the way before working. So I asked for the year off in between like starting to work and they were able to, to, to honor that cuz then there’s also the recession in, oh wait, that little people like lost their offers. Sure. So at least I didn’t go through that. So I had my job offer.

Peter Kersting: They gave you a job offer and then the recession happened. We still wanna keep you.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. But I know a lot of people who got similar or not even a year in between who got who, I mean their offers were like they fell through with the recess. But no thank God like Mac, like mine like held up. So I took the year off after graduating, I went back home did the CTA within that year and then I moved to New York in oh nine. So that was in no I’m, I’m moving to New York, you know, this super cool job. My first job is with EY, like super good company. I was like super excited. And then I knew some people, a lot of people from Boston moved to New York. So, you know, I had, I was not completely like alone. I had some friends that were already there before I was, so it was, and you know, it’s New York city.

Mari Escobar: So it was like super exciting. Yeah. Yeah. And the first year it was amazing. Like, and then also this, this kinds of company, they’re like, it’s like a class that starts at the same time. Like in the summer there’s like 50 people that start, you get the training and well, since it was new, it was New York. Like people who come to New York office for training, we, we didn’t have to go anywhere. So you know, you meet people from other offices and that’s part of like the, the fun part. Everybody’s just starting exciting. And then the work was not that bad. It was second year that it, it started getting like,

Peter Kersting: Is it just the hours starting to like pile on top of you? Or

Mari Escobar: Yeah, the first year I only worked, I, I remember everything I only worked till midnight, like once and that was it. And then you had like all these crazy parties and like trainings, like they would also send us to Chicago at some point. And so, you know, it’s, there’s a lot, a lot of perks, but then the second year, at least my division, we got like huge client and that changed everything so there was a lot more work and then the people is the same. It doesn’t matter. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. And things changed and it was like super constant, like working till like midnight for like work, leaving work at 3:00 PM. Yeah. Or

Peter Kersting: Like, you know, just

Mari Escobar: Eight was like, oh my God, that’s so early. you would always eat in the office cause yeah, I never cooked. I’m like, I was always in the office. They would pay for our food. So, yeah.

Mari Escobar: Sorry, you didn’t really like have to leave or do anything. You didn’t have time to do anything after. And then the, the few breaks that you had, you’re like I’m in New York. So people don’t have big apartments who host like dinners or anything. right. So you would go out and like eat with friends. So yeah. And even then I make my time to like, as you said, like prioritize vacation which over there is like with the workaholic mentality is not, I think that they enjoy, like, they always had a hard time approving it for like one more, more than a week. I’m like, just let me go.

Peter Kersting: Was, was that the biggest re have so many questions that are popping into my head about this because, because it’s interesting to see for those of you haven’t listened to Tanner come be’s episodes, check ’em out on the podcast, but there’s some interesting correlations here. I wanna get into a little bit without spending too much time on on the world of accounting. But the first is, is that why you ultimately left EY Ernst & Young because you couldn’t get enough travel time. Yeah. Huh? Was it because you couldn’t get enough travel time?

Mari Escobar: I mean, they always gave it to me, but it was it was kind of like a challenge. I think I was, I feel like that happens everywhere. Not just EY I’m I’m the one always using all my vacation days. Yeah. Most people like don’t even care. They don’t keep track of their days, stuff like that. But yeah, it’s like too much work. Like you don’t, you would be working holidays, weekends, so right. It’s like, I knew that wasn’t for me, I like doing other stuff outside of work

Peter Kersting: but wasn’t that a wasn’t that probably a pretty hard decision. I have to imagine. Cuz you make good money as a CPA for one of the big four. I’m sure you do, right? Yeah.

Mari Escobar: But by the amount, like, by how much you were like, they would always say this, like you, you probably were making like minimum wage.

Peter Kersting: just cause still

Mari Escobar: The amount of hours. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is like, they know your salary, so there’s nothing right. And so it’s like, oh, you’re gonna like Sue them. It’s not, you’re not the only one. right. They do this, but they know, you know their name on your, on your resume. It’s like it’s inable.

Peter Kersting: So in a sense too, deciding to leave after two years,

Mari Escobar: I two years in two and a half years in New York and I switched to Puerto Rico. Okay. It was a, but also with them. Interesting. And that that’s, after that I left, it was a little better in Puerto Rico. The, the hours were not us. Yeah. Crazy. It was never like 40 hour week. But

Peter Kersting: So

Mari Escobar: It was still pretty rough.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. It sounds like it just, it’s a recipe for burnout for a lot of people.

Mari Escobar: Yeah. Yeah. That’s why the turnover there is crazy. Yeah. And then when you would talk to people in other like states or around the world, like New York is always the hardest one so you get fun and games during the city. Like it was in times the office, I think they moved on, but it was right in the middle of times square, which sometimes you’re like, okay, I don’t wanna go to times square, but other times, you know, it had its perks. But it’s they work the New York mentality is like different from anywhere else.

Peter Kersting: sure, sure, sure. The other thing that pops to mind, I’d be curious to hear what you think about is if you spend time listening to Tanner talk, tell the dude I would, the way I would describe it is frugal. And he’s very good about knowing how to save his money and spend it the way he wants to spend it. And he’s okay with Matt spending money on certain things. One of the things he said in his interview was that you’d be surprised how bad some accountants are at being good with their money.

Mari Escobar: So yes, I, I hear that.

Peter Kersting: How are you with your money or how would you self-assess

Mari Escobar: I’m pretty thrifty too. Yeah. People. Yeah. My friends know

Mari Escobar: But there, I mean I do spend my money. I spend it on traveling. Sure. I don’t. I do go out. Yes. Yeah. But I don’t spend, I don’t buy like a 1000 purse or anything like that. I spend that on a ticket. Yeah. I’d rather do that. That than those kinds of things actually from New York is when I saved the most. Yeah. Maybe it doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what, that’s what allowed me kind of goes with what he was saying, like, you know, safe to do whatever you want whenever. Sure. And that’s why I was able to take like my fun employment gap months or almost

Peter Kersting: Fun employment

Mari Escobar: Because of what I love that one from what I saved from, from New York also you’re making, you know, a lot money, good money, but you’re working so much. You can’t, you don’t have the time to spend it all.

Peter Kersting: I was just about to say that. Cause I was talking to a friend who’s a lawyer the other day and she’s like, yeah, I’m saving money, but not because necessarily I’m good with my money cuz I don’t have time to spend it.

Mari Escobar: Exactly.

Peter Kersting: Yeah. And maybe that’s good for a period of time. You need to save up. But

Mari Escobar: When the PT season came around, I was like, okay, it’s good. I’m gonna save money

Peter Kersting: But it’s not sustainable. So I think we should wrap up this episode with a story of your first big trip afterErnst & Young, when you decided to leave.

Mari Escobar: That was actually my first solo trip around Europe and it was definitely like changing. Originally I was gonna do just a month in Paris because in one of my travels, when my, my family, actually one of the one that I didn’t wanna go, I was like, F why are we going to Paris? There’s nothing there. Like super uninterested. And Mike fell in love with it. I’m like, I’m moving here. So after that I always kept that in my mind. And I decided, okay, I’m like, I’m gonna go for a month and you know, take French just to do something besides traveling. And then it ended up being like almost three months. I kept changing my ticket and then I was like, so I, I did Paris on my own. And then I was visiting people where I had people, like my brother was in Munich at the time.

Mari Escobar: So I went to visit him. I did like Octoberfest. I also have friends that came to meet me at some points and then other friends that I was visiting there and then parts of it. I was completely on my own. And that’s when I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. Like I met so many people. That’s when I started doing the hostels and yeah, I know, I know I changed after that trip. Like I had to talk to people like, I didn’t know. I was like, I thought I was shy before that trip after I was like, I can talk to anyone who sends next to me because I have no option. Otherwise I wouldn’t talk to anyone for like three months.

Peter Kersting: right. I love it. Mari. Thanks for being on the show. We’re gonna take a quick break here. Don’t go away next week on Alone with Peter, we’re gonna be talking about Mari’s solo travel experience and how she maximizes work to pursue travel.