Meet Maggie Ryan
LOCAL FOREIGNER’S TEAM OF INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS
This post is part of our series celebrating our Independent Contractors and Hosting Program. The Local Foreigner's Hosting Program provides a platform of systems and support for independent travel advisors.
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Catching the bug
Growing up in a household of four sisters, Maggie – the youngest – learned the magic of travel at an early age. Whether she was headed to sleepaway camp, joining leadership summits, embarking on international sailing excursions, Maggie fell in love with the independence and freedom she found along the way. When she traveled as a teenager, her experiences were her own – not her sisters’ – and she loved that.
Forever chasing that feeling, Maggie began a kind of solo-traveling career in her early 20s, studying abroad in Australia during her college years and taking yearly international trips once she entered the workforce. Having worked in education and non-profits in the early part of her career, Maggie made a complete lifestyle change in 2013, when she moved to Atlanta to be closer to family. In her new city, Maggie was connected with Ann Mashburn, a local designer, who was looking for a senior stylist with strong interpersonal skills to work out of her flagship store. Maggie jumped at the opportunity to try something new and quickly fell in love with luxury retail and the client service industry.
Cultivating relationships
For the next eight years, Maggie became the client face of Mashburn’s Atlanta store, greeting shoppers, dispensing fashion advice, and building relationships with regulars. She quickly learned that in the world of high-end retail, relationships are everything, so she developed an intimate rapport with the store’s top clients. Over the years, she cultivated a large client base, teaching them to be confident in their fashion choices….and dispensing travel advice whenever she could. Still an avid traveler, Maggie became known to her clients as an excellent resource for hotel recommendations and destination suggestions.
I wanted to learn from the best.
-Maggie Ryan, on why she joined The Local Foreigner
A serendipitous encounter
Throughout the years, Maggie liked to dream about making travel her full-time career, but she didn’t know how to get started. She’d never worked with a travel advisor before and was unsure of where she could learn more about the industry. So it seemed like serendipity when she connected with a local travel advisor in the Ann Mashburn store. They quickly became friends and Maggie gained all kinds of industry insights. It was actually this agent who steered Maggie toward TLF: “My travel agent friend and mentor knew I wanted to join a small, close-knit team. She knew I wanted to learn from the best, so she directed me to The Local Foreigner.” After meeting with Alex Erdman, TLF’s Director of Hosting, Maggie knew she’d found the right fit and was ready for a career switch. “The idea of being a travel consultant made sense to me, because that’s what I’ve always done – building, cultivating, and maintaining connections with people will always be part of what I do, no matter what field I work in.”
“Building, cultivating, and maintaining connections with people will always be part of what I do, no matter what field I work in.”
Finding fulfillment
Since joining TLF as an Independent Contractor, Maggie has enjoyed getting to know the team, both in-person and virtually. Fellow Atlanta-based IC Cally Pirrung joined Maggie for her launch event at the Ann Mashburn store, where Maggie introduced her new career to her clients. When office manager Libby Shillito had a layover in town, she met with Maggie and Cally for lunch. And when Maggie traveled to Long Island this summer, she and Camilla Catlin met for lunch in Sag Harbor. “When I was looking to make the switch to the travel industry, joining a small team I could learn from and connect with was so important,” Maggie tells us, “I’ve already found that with The Local Foreigner.” She’s so glad to have found fulfillment so early on in her new career and couldn’t be more excited for the future.