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 ju