After intense professional experiences, returning to routine can be difficult. That was how it felt to me. Following a few more attempts to find my place, I decided to begin a new stage alongside my brother.
A travel agency. A travel startup. What did I know about managing travel? Nothing. I thought I knew something about computing, although necessity would make me question that confidence many times.
I had already dealt with technical and business problems of many kinds. What awaited me at CUSTOMTRAVEL would test both sets of skills. In 2013, I began by putting down a heavy professional backpack: assumptions and habits that were no longer helping me. I brought my language closer to the ground, and people seemed to understand it. The internet was our strongest tool.
The years in that business taught me more about myself than any previous experience. I was tested continually, personally and professionally. I could also see how my work was helping turn my brother’s ambition into a reality: a business devoted to tailor-made travel around the world.
It was not simple. Teamwork, coordination, responsiveness and innovation helped CUSTOMTRAVEL establish its place in the Spanish market. Even when the travel sector faced serious difficulties, I trusted the team’s ability to find a way through them together.
For me, the company meant family. You do everything you reasonably can for your family, and you hope nobody is left behind. It also meant freedom: the chance to use my engineering skills to build solutions with free and open-source software rather than organise my working life around a proprietary vendor’s ecosystem.
The path that brought me there mattered. The present grows out of the past; the future depends on what we do now. If I borrowed Maslow’s pyramid as an image rather than a diagnosis, I felt I was moving from survival towards autonomy and contribution.
CUSTOMTRAVEL gave me room to direct my own course. It also helped make another long-held ambition possible: becoming a university lecturer.
