Rising Stars: Meet Tara Zimmerman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tara Zimmerman.

I am a native of Florida, specifically born and raised in Palm Beach. After graduating from Florida State University, I briefly returned home to work for my family’s business. I then moved to Clearwater for 12 years with my (now) husband, where my career in Human Resources began.

I worked in the corporate world for about 17 years as a Director of HR & Recruiting, primarily focused on the healthcare industry. I enjoyed the opportunity to work in healthcare because, even though I was not a direct care provider, by helping to find great people and put them in place, I was doing my part to help the patients.

In 2001, I married a wonderful man I met in my hometown. As mentioned, we lived in Clearwater for 12 years and had two daughters. Our parents were still living in the Palm Beach area, and eventually, we decided to move back to be closer to our family. We returned to Wellington, the wonderful community where we both grew up and chose to raise our girls.

After taking many years in the corporate world, I left to help my husband with his business and eventually decided to start my own company in 2019. I started a boutique recruiting firm that catered to the healthcare industry, where I developed many contacts during my professional years and continued working with them as an outside resource. It was a wonderful experience, but unfortunately, Covid changed many things in healthcare, and when I realized that it would impact my business, I decided to change my direction too.

At this point, if I was going to shift my career, I wanted to do it mindfully and turn something I was passionate about into a job. I love to travel! I always have, but I only started to experience travel as an adult. Once I started planning trips for our family and friends, people we know began to refer to me as “The Cruise Director” because I was always making plans and running the show. My husband used to joke that I treated planning our trips like a job…so that is what I decided to do. I turned traveling into my job and decided to start a travel blog.

I developed a website and started posting shorter tips and recommendations on Instagram. My goal has always been to help all people travel more. I have always had friends asking me how to plan trips or for advice when they were traveling to places. I wanted to bring these things to everyone and make it seem accessible and easy for everyone to travel in big and small ways so that they could see that anyone could do it and travel more than they thought possible.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

Of course, there have been struggles; all stories have struggles. But I can say that, with every turn that my life has taken to make a change, I have always put in the work and effort to become an expert in whatever area I focus on, and thus I have ended up with things generally working out as I had intended them to.

As for the type of work involved with working as a Travel Content Creator, that is an interesting question. I like to become a subject matter expert when working in any field. I simply did not realize the amount of work, time, effort, and knowledge required to succeed in this area.

When I decided to start this journey, I had no idea the time and knowledge I would need to understand Instagram, Algorithms, SEO, and Analytics, to name a few things. It has been a huge learning process. Incredibly interesting and not at all what I thought it would be like.

It is much more than just loving to travel and posting about travel if you want to succeed in this creator world. That is a huge misconception that people have about what most content creators are doing.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I am also passionate about sustainable travel and fashion, and I have had the chance to bring my audience tips on how to travel more sustainably. I love the opportunity to partner with brands that work to bring sustainable travel and fashion to my audience and bring awareness to this issue. It has become a significant consideration for many travelers, and it is even driving the decision for some travelers when they consider when to travel and where not to travel.

One of the best ways to support sustainable travel is to get off the beaten path and look for “hidden gems” when you travel. Because so many people are flocking to Bucket List locations, they are becoming overrun by hordes of visitors, a phenomenon that is now known as “over-tourism.”

Whether traveling in Paris or venturing out and about in South Florida, nothing makes me happier than finding a great hidden gem and helping to support local small businesses, and getting as immersed in local culture as possible! I especially love supporting notable companies like Virgin Voyages with a corporate commitment to travel sustainability!

What do you like and dislike about the city?

I love the fact that we live where everyone else in the world wants to vacation. Sometimes, it’s easy to take that for granted and start to forget how lucky we are that we have all of the fantastic beauty, beaches, culture, and culinary opportunities available to us in South Florida.

What I like least about South Florida is that it is a very intense place to live. After moving to Clearwater for 12 years and experiencing life on the West Coast of Florida, it is a little slower and more laid back, and I miss that a bit. But all of Florida is beautiful and amazing, and we are lucky to live in a beautiful state.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fabulouslyadrift.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabulouslyadrift/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fabulouslyadrift
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarazimmerman/