Alumna travel influencer shares her story — and top travel tips

Alumna Jen Ruiz ’09 is a travel guru.

She is also an author, entrepreneur and three-time TEDx speaker who has been featured by The Washington Post, Huffington Post, ABC News, Forbes, Insider and more. She has traveled across the globe to places ranging from Greece and Argentina to Thailand, Iceland and Jordan. Along the way, she blogs about her adventures and shares tips for affordable traveling.

She is an author of six books covering topics such as ways to solo travel safely and how to transform a blog into a business. Most recently, she wrote her memoir, “12 Trips in 12 Months,” which was published by Blackstone Publishing, the same publisher that earlier this year released books by Whoopi Goldberg and Robert Downey Jr. Ruiz and her new book have been featured in news stories, podcasts and even on a billboard in Times Square.

How did Ruiz become so successful?

It started with a deeply personal travel challenge she set for herself in 2017: to take 12 trips in 12 months. She was only one year away from turning 30, she was single — and wishing she could find a good man, get married, travel with her hubby and live her life. After a failed relationship that year, she decided to fully enjoy life as a single woman.

“I didn’t want to be anxious about waiting for romance,” Ruiz said. “I was looking to celebrate my life. There are pros and cons to every life stage. We spend so much time wishing our life away. I asked myself, “What is the pro of my life stage’?”

She realized she had time to travel so she embarked on a journey to experience the world. It proved lifechanging. She not only smashed her travel goal (she ended up taking 20 trips) but also found a new career as a blogger and writer.

Ruiz quit her job as a lawyer and dedicated herself full-time to her blog and business. Today, she regularly works with brands who hire her to travel across the globe to share her experience with her followers. She’s got a long list of partners, such as Viking River Cruises (she'll be taking a cruise for the company through Eastern Europe later this year).

Earlier this month, Ruiz came back to FIU for a special event hosted at the Barnes and Noble at MMC’s Graham Center. She and fellow travel blogger Kristi Evans led a conversation about Ruiz’s memoir. Ruiz was greeted by avid bloggers and would-be-travelers as well as an ardent base of sorority sisters and friends from her alma mater.

“I loved my time at FIU,” said Ruiz, who majored in political science, under the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs. “I was involved in Greek Life, Model UN, and I was the representative at large for the Student Government Association.”

She says that her student activities were the best preparation for her current job, whether it be creating marketing plans for her books or landing solid partnerships. “All those extracurriculars, it’s basically what I do for a living now. It reminds me of running for student government.” 

She shared some of her insight as a travel expert and blogger with Panthers.

Traveling tips

• Find cheap flights. Budget airline tickets and look for deals. Sign up for flight alert programs that notify you when affordable flights become available. You can also use travel points and miles from credit cards and other purchases to reduce your total flight bill.
• Always bring an airplane bag. “Bring wipes, so you can clean seats, windows and any other area you will be touching,” she says. Also bring headphones, a backup charger and an anchor battery. Ruiz also takes slippers on flights over six hours long. She also wears tights (“you don’t want any of your clothes touching stuff in the bathroom”) and a hoodie to keep her warm when it’s cold.
• If you’re traveling by yourself and concerned about safety, make sure you book walking tours and food tours. “You have a built-in group of people that way,” she says. “The guide is designated to make sure you make it back to your hotel okay.”
• Don’t use public wi-fi. You could get hacked. Seriously. Ruiz recommends using an eSIM or SIM card with your phone to connect to wi-fi instead.
• Make sure to bring your own medicine pack. It should include bruise ointments, a burn kit, allergy medicine and pain relievers. You never know what’s going to happen!
• For students: Take advantage of study abroad trips and exchange programs. Check for affordable deals, too. “On studentuniverse.com,” Ruiz says, “students can save a couple hundred bucks just with a student ID.”

Travel Faves

• What is an awesome first trip? Try a European river cruise, Ruiz says. “I did a Viking River Cruise of Christmas markets on the Rhine. It was great.”
• Favorite food on a trip: Moussaka from Greece. Moussaka is an eggplant or potato-based dish often including ground meat and cheese.
• Favorite place to visit? “It’s hard to pick a favorite. It depends on what experience you have in mind,” she says. Of the trips recorded in the memoir, her favorite was the south of France. “I got to see the lavender in full bloom,” she recalls. “I felt at ease and so peaceful there. I was also able to go find the real-life places Van Gogh painted. For adventure, Jordan can’t be topped. It’s the best. You’ve got the Wadi Rum desert, Petra, so many great things.”

Three tips to become an influencer

• Decide what your expertise is. “That’s what will make you influential,” Ruiz says. “You have to pick a topic that you know more about than other people. You need to have a core skill set."
• If you’re interested in travel blogging, start with your own city. “You already have that expertise,” Ruiz says. “Even if you can’t travel, you can share hidden gems in your own town. That’s what’s going to help you stand out. You can even go deeper and find your niche. Be a blogger on Miami travel food or Miami travel art or Miami travel history.”
• Think of it like a business. “When you share your knowledge or entertainment across platforms, you are providing your skillset to others. You want to be recognized outside of individual platforms.”
• Have endurance. “Most bloggers quit within two years of starting,” Ruiz says. If you want to be a blogger, she says, you need to stick with it. “Eventually, it will take off.”