Fearless Friday No. 24 – Steph, British Expat in New Jersey and Freelance Marketing Manager

Name: Steph

Pronoun(s): she/her

Nationality: British

Hometown: Clacton on Sea, Essex, UK 

Currently: Haddon Township, New Jersey, USA

Occupation: Freelance Marketing Manager

Education Background

What does your education history look like and how have you been shaped by your education outside the classroom?

I did not attend college in the sense of American college (UK is something different). If I’d attended college, I probably would’ve studied something in media. Instead, I just dived into finding a job. I did some admin work for two years before falling into a marketing role (I was in the right place, right time). I’ve done marketing ever since, and I learned on the job by listening to my colleagues, and LOTS of Googling! (I think Google is the #1 in the Millennial Toolkit right?!). That was 11 years ago, wow. I was lucky to get to travel in some of my jobs, mainly just around the UK. But, one events role took me to Cancun, Mexico. That was pretty cool.

For Americans: What is the most striking difference to you about education in the US vs. education in other countries?

I’m not an American, but currently live in the US. The most striking difference is 100% the cost.

It’s wild how much you gotta pay to study in the US. Oh and the interest rates on the loans! I hear stories of people paying off a quarter of their loan, but then ending up owing even more than they started with because of the interest rates.

I didn’t go to college/university but I’m really in favour of it being free (like in Scotland).

What advice would you give someone who isn’t interested in attending a traditional college or university, but knows they want to travel?

I guess you have two routes: the first is saving up as much money as you can and taking a gap year/month(s) and using that time to travel. I never did that: I started working straight away, but would really maximise my annual leave from work and my weekends. For instance, I would take off the Friday, and leave to fly to Norway or something, and come back Sunday afternoon. I once did a day trip to Venice, flying out at 6am and returning 10pm (that was a lonnnng day).

Although travel doesn’t have to look like flying around the world… just driving an hour to a museum or go on a short hike/ramble is travel. I guess my advice is to maximise your free time, and work out what’s possible.

And going to uni/college doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t travel — I know someone who would finish up uni for the year in June, then jump on a plane to Australia and stay there until term restarted in October.

What areas of study might surprise some people in that they can lead to jobs with lots of travel?

Sales jobs can lead to a lot of travel. Studying something in business or marketing can be a great leg-up into getting a sales job — check the job descriptions to see if they mention travel. My dad worked sales for a tech company and his work would frequently take him to California, Shanghai, and Sydney.

Professional Background

What has working outside your native country taught you about yourself and the culture you come from?

The UK and US working cultures are world’s apart. Americans seem to have this ‘work til you drop’ mentality, where if you’re not working hard, you’re seen as lazy. My fear is the UK is heading this way.

I am a freelance marketing manager for a US real estate team. This team frequently work 10-hour days, six or seven days a week. It’s bananas. They’re fried. They love what they do, but I can see their exhaustion. I told them upfront I was only going to work 30 hours for them, because I didn’t want to get sucked into that pit of toxic hustle culture.

I really admire the Scandinavian working culture: they cherish family and social time, so I hear it’s frowned upon if you’re caught working late. Norway and Denmark’s average working week is around 28 hours.

Editor’s note: We’ve had two other features in and from the Scandinavian area – the first is Naomi, who moved to Oslo for love. The second is a Stephanie, a Norwegian who moved to Strasbourg, France.

Would you say travel or living abroad have impacted your career path? How?

It flipped things upside down, and I felt like I was starting from scratch. For one, American HR departments reaaally value college degrees, which I didn’t have.

I actually did dog walking when we first moved here just to have a bit of money.

I was lucky to find my current role with this small team but since we might be moving around a lot, I have no idea what my future career looks like, and that worries me.

What are some unique challenges facing expats in your career field? How are you working to/how did you overcome them?

The whole degree thing is a biggie, I’d say. Because even if you have a degree, the US doesn’t recognise it (say if you wanted to go and get a Masters at an American college). There are tools out there to help you translate your uni credits into American terms, but I don’t think it’s cheap.

And this isn’t really career-related, but I want to mention credit scores and building credit, because it affects every facet of your life.

I’ve really struggled to build credit here — been here nearly 2 years and I’ve only just got on the map because for the longest time my Social Security Number was undiscoverable. I managed to get myself a pre-paid Discover card and that did the trick. I finally have (mediocre) credit. 

Did you ever feel unsure of your career path?

Oh, all the time. I second guess myself if I want to do marketing forever. I’m always torn between “am I living to work?” or “am I working to live?”.

I think this is probably a Millennial thing where we’ve been raised by a generation who had serious careers and did that their whole lives, and beneath us we’ve got Gen Z who are already making millions having TikTok and Insta careers (I’m generalising a lot here ?)

I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering where the heck us Millennials fit into this. We’re now at an age where we need money to raise families and be stable, but we don’t want to give up on our dreams.

On Lifestyle

Lots of people think traveling is cool, but not something they can see themselves doing. What are the characteristics of a traveler or person who would enjoy living abroad, in your opinion?

This is super subjective, because the concept of “travelling” is different for every single person. As such, I don’t think anyone can be shut out of travel, nor are there any standard characteristics of “travellers”.

I’ve got a family friend who only ever goes on cruises. It’s flippin’ expensive – thousands and thousands of pounds for them to go on these cruises once or twice a year. They absolutely love it. It’s pretty luxurious, and they stop off at different cities every day and wander and eat and drink. Some “hardcore” travellers would probably see that as cheating or not real travel.

On the other hand I’ve got an British Insta-friend who lives her life on the road (real #vanlife!) in Australia, which is a heck of a lot cheaper. There’s no real definition of what travel encompasses… it looks different for everyone.

In the last year, my definition of travelling has included a 20 minute walk to the next town over to grab gelato and browse the shelves of the book shop. Who’s going to tell me that’s not travelling when it’s still me visiting a place that’s completely new and exciting to me?

Travelling is all about working out what your comfort zone is, and how far you want to push yourself out of it. It might be you have a very small comfort zone, and you want to stay within that realm (some could say a cruise is one example of this, because every single part of your trip is planned, and is pretty luxurious, or someone’s comfort zone might be a two hours radius of their hometown — which is totally ok). Van life could be considered the opposite end of the spectrum, where every day is different and you never know what’s coming. Everyone is different. For me, I absolutely love to include hiking and outdoor activities into my travel, which might be someone’s worst nightmare.

Do you prefer fast or slow travel? Why?

I used to enjoy really fast travel. I would visit a new European country for a day and be so happy with that (and was privileged to have the accessibility to do so). I think there’s a misconception that fast travel isn’t ‘real travel’.

I didn’t ever see it as ‘ticking a box’ or checking off a list, and I never assumed I knew about a whole country just because I visited one city for a few days. I saw fast travel as a gateway: if I visited a place for a day or two, it gave me an insight if I wanted to return.

Two years ago I went to Montenegro for a long weekend and absolutely fell in love with this country. It’s now on my list to return for a longer period of time so we can really experience each and every city, and savour the food, and spend more time along the coast and do more hiking in the mountains. Bar the environmental impact, I was a big advocate for fast travel. Now, I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or the increased awareness of my impact, or me just getting older and less energetic, but I feel I’ve changed.

We’ve barely been anywhere since March 2020, and the times we’ve managed to explore outside of our hometown have been really special (we still didn’t go far — no more than two hours from home via car). We really soaked up the experience of being able to ‘travel’, even if it was just one state over. Taking into account the environmental damage I caused by hopping on a plane twice a month, I now see my future as slower travel (I won’t say “slow traveller” because that term in itself is subjective!).

I can’t wait for it to be safe to go on trips again, and I envisage myself taking weeks (where possible) to visit new places, where previously I would’ve just gone for two days. I now want to make every trip really worth it. I also love the outdoors: camping and hiking in particular. I want my future trips to have more of a focus on that, and when you’re on foot that definitely slows down your travel ?

How would you describe your travel style?

My traveller style used to always be budget, whereas now it’s some combination of fancy and thrifty (apart from when we’re staying in a tent!). I’ll still always try and find cheaper deals, but now if I can afford to support a local business rather than a big cheap chain hotel, I will absolutely do so. And same goes for eating out: I’ll always try and seek out smaller independent places (what’s that American phrase… “mom and pop”?).

For me, travel now looks like supporting local communities and families, and I’m willing to pay extra to do so.

One last question

What advice would you give to a young person who knows they want to travel but aren’t sure where that fits in with the rest of their lives?

My advice would be to start small, and start local. It wasn’t until I moved away from my hometown that I realised how much I forgot to treasure it. For most of my adulthood, I lived in a big town called Colchester in the UK.

Colchester is actually the oldest town in the entire country (lots of Roman history), and scattered throughout it are ruins and other old sh*t… including a castle located right in downtown! I absolutely took it for granted, and I feel so silly now.

I was so desperate to get my passport and book flights that I was missing such an incredible story right under my nose. You might think the two hour radius around your home is boring, but I promise you I bet you’re missing out on something really cool that you’ve just never noticed.

Start small, and workout how this ‘local travel’ fits around your studies, your job and your family (i.e. what free time do you have? Do you plan on travelling with your family or leave them behind, etc), and then grow upwards from there. 

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Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited.

Thank you for reading Fearless Friday No. 24 – Steph, British Expat in New Jersey

If you connected with Steph’s open and passionate feature, are curious about seeing New Jersey or the US though the eyes of a Brit, or are British and curious to know more about what it’s like living in the US, be sure to give Steph a follow! She invites you to connect with her on the following platform.

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