Jen Ruiz Has Turned A Year Of 12 Trips Into A Travel Memoir

29.05.2024 - 15:01 / forbes.com

While New Year’s Eve is seen as providing a fresh start, the holiday has taken on a different meaning to Jen Ruiz. At the beginning of 2017, this Florida lawyer turned travel blogger and expert was flying to Greece for what would be first of 12 trips that year.

In her latest book, Ruiz shares the stories and lessons behind that time and trip length. Available on June 4, “12 Trips in 12 Months: Make Your Own Solo Travel Magic” Ruiz delves into happened on them but also reflects upon how the entire year gave her a sense of self-empowerment.

“It was a story I've been wanting to tell; I kept having it on the back of my mind,” said Ruiz. “And I always say when you have an idea that like keeps resonating in your mind and you just can't get rid of it, it's for a reason. And for me, that was this book.”

Having published a series of travel tip based books, Ruiz has wanted to put out a travel memoir for quite some time. It was also to highlight an age-old debate facing other single females, in achieving certain milestones in life but not finding a long-term romantic partner.

“I really wanted to give a voice to those women and show them that they're not alone, that this is actually a very common journey,” she explained. “And hopefully help them find some resemblance of purpose along the way.”

In relating to this issue, Ruiz explained that her book is a proven result of breaking away from that misnomer about singlehood. When she was traveling to Greece, Ruiz was also in the last year of her twenties. And with her birthday also in January, she had an A-Ha moment.

Why not extend her celebration beyond that month?

“It was how I transformed that holiday from something I dreaded to something I now look forward to,” remembered Ruiz.

Following Greece, Ruiz’s monthly journeys continued on to Aruba, Arizona, France, Canada, Cuba, New Mexico, California, Texas and Ecuador. Ruiz kept working full-time in law, first in corporate and then in nonprofit. She stretched out her trip schedule over federal holidays and allotted vacation time and booked overnight and red-eye flights.

She would take a Friday off to travel and then fly back home on Sunday night. “There was a point in that year where I remember being in a meeting was like my eyes physically open but I swore I fell asleep like I was so tired,” said Ruiz. “My mind just needed the rest because it was so much and I don't think today that I could pull it off. I'm glad I did it when I was younger.”

Ruiz began blogging and article writing in 2014, while working as a law clerk, and came up with the name, “Jen on a Jet Plane,” two years later.

In her memoir, this now full-time travel content creator chronicles her trips with descriptions and experiences in about these