‘I scowled, grew up and, ultimately, found out that they were right’

What do you do for a living? “I want to be a tourist,” I declared.
They laughed and told me that “isn’t a thing”.
I scowled, grew up and, ultimately, found out that they were right — traditionally, it hasn’t been easy to make a living from travelling the world.
But, today, the rise of social media platforms, especially TikTok, Instagram and YouTube is changing all that.
Just as influencers/content creators like Garron Noone and Aoife Dunne are reaching new audiences, building online platforms, and making money through adverts, brand collaborations and gig or event opportunities, so a new generation of vloggers is finding imaginative ways to make travel pay.
One of the most prominent of these is Sean Hammond, who has built an audience of 321,000 followers on Instagram and more than 40,000 on TikTok. It’s not just a hobby, it’s his job, and he’s making a success from it.
Hammond studied for a BSc in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at UCD, and left Ireland shortly after he graduated in 2022.
“I was born in Ireland, living between Ireland and England when I was a child. I’m half-Iranian and spent two years living in Iran,” he says.
“I was only 12 when I spent five months on a language exchange in France. And I was 18 when I spent a year by myself in Australia, working in a boarding school and in construction. I guess the fire for travel was always there.”
It could all have been very different for Hammond, a two-time Irish national chess champion, but he chose PPE because the course stood out to him, and he didn’t want a degree that would lead to a set career.
“There’s nothing wrong with jobs like psychologist, engineer, doctor – they just weren’t for me,” he says.
“The security they offered was boring because it would take away the excitement of uncertainty.
“I always knew that I would leave at the end of my four-year degree, but I stuck around a bit longer than I planned as I didn’t want to leave my partner behind.
“That changed when we split up. I had always seen travel bloggers on my social media feeds and I had a niggling thought: I could do that.
“One morning, I woke up and decided it was time to either stop thinking about it, or do it.”
With about €6,000 in his bank account, he decided to travel around southeast Asia and try to build an online following that would earn him money.
“I handed in my notice and, two days later, booked flights to the Philippines. People in my life were shocked, yes, but also extremely supportive.”
At the time of writing, Hammond was about to compete in Mr Universe this month, representing Iran. By the time of publication, he could be the winner.
“The opportunity definitely came as a surprise,” he says. “But it sounded interesting, so I decided to go for it.”
All of this seems like an unfeasibly dreamy job. While Hammond is upbeat and grateful, however, he says that it takes a lot of work.
“So much of this work takes place behind the scenes: responding to DMs and comments in order to keep my online community active, finding the right businesses to collaborate with, coming up with new content ideas every day.
“Every day, I make decisions on which hostel to stay in, how to get there, where to get a sim card, what to eat, how to get to specific places where I can take videos and, of course, having a place where I can edit the videos.”
It’s no surprise that many others have similar ideas to Hammond, so what does he feel makes him one of the more notable successes?
“In this role, you have to be authentic, consistent and hard-working. People follow you, not a page, so all the cool shots won’t get you followers without personality and being engaging.
“Consistency is the name of the game with social media. You can be the coolest, funniest, smartest, most beautiful person in the world, but if you only post once a week, basic maths means that a person who posts every day will have more followers and, ultimately, do better, as long as they have good content.
“I’ve made most of my money through brand collaborations, but I also have my own booking search engine, SHAdventures.com, which offers hotels and accommodation cheaper than Booking.com.
“TikTok has a good creator programme and Instagram has subscriptions that people can sign up to. I’ve done some social media coaching and, last month, ran a course online.
“I think that anyone can make a career out of social media; there are people on YouTube monetising hobby horse videos where they just ride around with a fake horse between their legs,” he says. “You just need to work hard at whatever it is you’re doing.”
I studied biomedical engineering at Trinity College.
I was initially interested in biomedical engineering because I wanted to understand human impact. Engineering teaches you to have a solutions-driven mindset which, I believe, can be applied to nearly any industry.
At Trinity, I spent a lot of time in the lab where I got to apply the theoretical concepts we were learning in the classroom.
While I enjoyed the research part of it, I found that a hands-on approach is more fitting to my personality. This is one of the factors that drew me to an internship at Millennium, a company that sits at the intersection of two fast-moving industries, technology and finance.
During my internship, I was given a challenge and provided the flexibility to explore and implement my ideas.
Coming from a non-financial background, you might expect that it would be difficult to make the transition, but my degree and experience at Trinity gave me the confidence to apply what I had learned to a new set of challenges.
In the first few weeks of my internship, I found my footing and was getting up to speed on the finance industry and Millennium’s role in it. The internship eventually led to a full-time job offer.
As part of my degree, I had modules on Matlab and C++. I found that learning one coding language helped me to learn others, which made my transition to technology much easier.
In addition to academics, I also played competitive hockey at Trinity, which taught me the importance of teamwork which has been invaluable in navigating the fast-paced, collaborative environment at Millennium.
Looking back at my experience, I believe that matching academic studies with an internship is one of the best things you can do when starting your career.
My internship provided the opportunity to learn both technical skills and soft skills. I participated in a variety of training, such as a one-week intensive course with a former New York Stock Exchange trader.
We practised soft skills including people management, project management and how to collaborate with global colleagues.
I apply the technical skills that I learned every day, but I believe that it’s the soft skills I will use most in every step of my career.
In my internship, and now in my current role, I have the opportunity to work with colleagues across a variety of fields and offices including New York, Miami, London and Singapore.
This summer I sought to learn about a new technical application and travelled to London to learn and spend time with the team there.
When you’re in a new environment, it can be daunting to ask questions, but I’ve been surprised at how willing people are to help me grow. That’s a lesson I will take with me as I advance in my career.
Now, as a full-time analyst, I have many opportunities to continue to learn and develop my skills.
I was always minded to do engineering. But, in school, I didn’t really apply myself.
There was a career guidance teacher across the road from me, and she advised me to also put some lower-points courses down on my list.
There was a course in Athlone RTC – which later became Athlone IT and today is TUS – in polymer technologies or plastics engineering. It was, I think, one of the lowest points courses on the CAO form, and many students used to laugh at the idea of doing it.
But the career guidance said: “Sure, isn’t everything made of plastic these days?”
I didn’t really know what it was, but down it went on the form anyway, and I got it.
This is a real example of how CAO points have little to do with the difficulty of the course: it was low points because not many people were applying for it, but it was actually quite challenging.
The initial intake of 36 fell to 14 and, to get into third year, a distinction was required
When I got on to the course, I learned how to study, and I found that I really enjoyed it. It was, effectively, mechanical engineering with a plastics or polymer focus, and it serves a large plastics industry in Ireland.
I’ve now been in the industry for more than 20 years, working as moulding manager for Europe with my firm. I kept working all through the recession, because it is tied to the medical device industry, and I have had excellent career opportunities. And, because we are in relatively short supply, and it is a niche within a niche, we have always been well compensated in terms of wages. It seemed like an unconventional course at the time, but I am so glad I found it.