From lesson plans to travel plans
Not every career change looks bold from the outside. Some of them begin quietly — with a growing restlessness, a side interest that keeps pulling your attention, and one day a decision that feels less like a leap and more like an inevitability. That's roughly how Abbey Meyer describes her move away from education and into the travel industry, where she eventually built Altitude Travel from the ground up.
Meyer's background in education wasn't wasted in the transition. If anything, it shaped how she thinks about travel — as something with depth, context and purpose, rather than a series of bookings and itineraries. The skills that make a good educator — listening carefully, understanding what someone actually needs, communicating clearly — turn out to be exactly what a good travel consultant requires too.
What building something of your own actually looks like
Starting Altitude Travel meant Meyer had to learn an entirely new industry while also learning what it means to run a business. There's a version of this story that gets romanticised — the brave founder, the overnight success — but the more honest version involves a lot of figuring things out as you go.
What stands out about her approach is the focus on a specific kind of traveller and a specific kind of experience, rather than trying to serve everyone. Altitude Travel carved out its identity by being intentional about what it offers and who it's for. That clarity, more than anything, seems to be what allowed the company to grow steadily rather than spread itself thin.
Why this matters for a solo travel audience in India
For solo travellers in India — especially those thinking about striking out on their own, whether as a travel creator, a trip curator or even a small-scale tour operator — Meyer's story is a useful reference point.
The Indian travel space is full of opportunity right now. Domestic tourism is booming, there's growing appetite for offbeat and experiential travel, and a new generation of travellers is actively looking for guides and curators they can trust. What Meyer's journey suggests is that a non-traditional background isn't a disadvantage — it can actually be your differentiator. A teacher-turned-travel-curator brings something to the table that a conventional travel agent might not: the ability to craft an experience that feels genuinely educational, immersive and personal.
The pivot isn't the scary part, in other words. The clarity about what you want to build — that's the work.
The takeaway
Abbey Meyer's path from education to founding Altitude Travel is a reminder that career pivots rarely follow a clean script, and that the skills you've built in one field often travel better than you'd expect. For anyone sitting on a passion for travel and wondering whether there's a real business in it, her story offers both encouragement and a grounded sense of what the work actually involves.