Rebecca Smiley's career change came from an unlikely place: In July 2021, she was at a wedding and started talking to someone who works as a travel agent.

"I'll be honest, I laughed," Smiley, 28, tells CNBC Make It. She couldn't believe it: With the internet, social media and bottomless pit of resources available 24/7, travel agents were still a thing?

But something about that conversation stuck with Smiley as she returned home and to her job as a college admissions counselor. "I went back to work the next week and was like, 'Wait, I don't like this job at all. I haven't liked any job I've ever tried. What did that lady say that she did?'"

One three-hour phone call with her newfound "travel godmother" later, "next thing you know, I'm dropping my full-time career and trying this out," Smiley says.

Since then, Smiley's learned that there is, in fact, a lucrative career in planning other people's vacations. Smiley, who lives in Covington, Kentucky, now works as a travel agent for her company Smiley Travel and has her sights set on earning six figures this year as her own boss.

Her career has skyrocketed quickly: In 2024, Smiley booked over 100 trips, sold over $860,000 in travel and took home just over $77,000.

By the end of January 2025, Smiley had already booked $640,000 in travel for the rest of the year and, as long as everyone goes on the trips they've booked, will take home at least $75,000.

Her goal is to hit $100,000 by the time she's 30, and it's still early in the year. That would put her close to $1 million in sales and in the top 1.5% of agents at her host agency, KHM Travel Group.

It's a pretty dramatic shift for the sociology major, who "would have never guessed that being a travel agent was even a thing when I was in school."

From college admissions to travel planning

Smiley started her career working in mental health before transitioning to college admissions at the University of Kentucky and her alma mater, Thomas More University.

It was a tough job during the pandemic and led Smiley to feel like she was hitting a "quarter-life crisis," but one thing consistently caused her to light up: "I found myself talking to these families about my study abroad [experience in Jamaica] more than about the school that I was recruiting them for," Smiley says.

Smiley quit her job in November 2021 and gave herself a goal: If she could replace her $37,000 college admissions salary within a year working as a travel agent, she'd keep at it.

"It was either sink or swim, and without that, I don't know that I could have pushed myself as hard," she says.

Smiley partnered with a host agency, KHM Travel Group, to learn about the industry and access crucial partnerships to start booking vacations for clients. In return for tapping into their industry connections, KHM takes a split of Smiley's commissions.

Smiley doesn't charge a fee directly to her clients, so she makes money from the commission she gets from suppliers. For example, if she books a Carnival cruise for a client, Carnival will pay her a percentage of the trip cost as "thank you" for sending the traveler to them.

She took a part-time job as a bartender as a safety net and planned her first trip, a 10-person cross-country family road trip, within her first month. It was a "trial by fire," she says. By the end of the first year, Smiley comfortably made up her previous counselor salary and has grown her client book ever since.

'People just want to turn their brain off a little'

Being new to the industry, Smiley hasn't developed a niche for the type of client, vacation or price point she serves. It keeps things exciting, she says.

She plans a range of trips: One client booked a Disney weekend cruise for their entire family to celebrate an 85th birthday and spent $21,000 for a long weekend; other clients need help planning a $1,000 trip to Las Vegas.

Some clients are her grandparents' age, while others are younger Gen Z and millennial travelers.

As it turns out, people of all ages are exhausted by information overload online.

"The internet is just so full of information right now, it's really hard to plan a trip," Smiley says. "Picking a restaurant at home can be hard because you might have 15 TikToks that tell you to go there, and then you've got 12 really bad reviews, and you're like, 'Do we like this place? Do we not like this place? What do we do?'"

Travel advisors can give clients first-hand recommendations about a destination, whether they've gone themselves or have sent previous clients who can attest to their value.

"Plenty of experienced travelers will reach out to me and say, 'I could do this myself, I just don't have the time anymore. Can you help me?'" Smiley says. "People just want to turn their brain off a little bit when they when they think about vacation."

She says it's important that she stays up to date on how AI can streamline the travel-planning process, whether it's sketching out itineraries or assessing reviews of a certain place. But sometimes the technology falls short in ways only humans can address.

"AI can tell you what the best restaurant is according to internet data, but they can't tell you what the fresh pasta tasted like in Venice," Smiley says. "I've been there. I've had the actual experience, and I don't think that a computer can take that away."

Meanwhile, some AI itineraries may include what highlights to visit in a destination, but they're not always the most efficient ways to spend limited time, she adds.

Travel as a perk and a career essential

Smiley says being her own boss is both rewarding and challenging: She sets her own schedule and can work whenever she wants, wherever she wants. Sometimes that means working until 2 a.m. one day so she can spend the afternoon with her grandma the next. Her hours vary by week and also by season — the early part of the year involves a lot of planning and booking, while her summers are spent being on call for clients going on their trips.

Frequent travel is both a perk and a necessity. Smiley estimates she goes on roughly two trips per month. Sometimes, it's personal: She went on a road trip to New Hampshire with a friend last fall and worked throughout.

Other times, it's part of the job when suppliers send her on trips they hope to sell to their clients. One of Smiley's favorite "familiarization trips" was touring eight different properties in the Dominican Republic so she could then share firsthand experiences with clients.

"These trips are not a vacation by any means, though," she says. "You're networking, touring, taking classes and more."

"So I still prioritize going on trips," she adds. "If I didn't, how would people trust me to plan theirs?"

Gen Z and millennials fuel the travel agent comeback

Travel agents are making a comeback, especially among the youngest travelers.

Some 38% of Gen Z and millennial travelers said they prefer to use a travel agent to book trips rather than do it themselves online, according to a 2023 survey of 2,000 travelers by IBS Software, a software provider for airlines and cruise lines. Just 12% of Gen X and 2% of baby boomers said they use a traditional travel advisor.

Young travelers often want a travel experience that'll set them apart on their social media feeds, Smiley explains: "You hate that it comes down to this, but you're scrolling and you're like, 'Oh, there's another person that's gone to Cancun. Do I want to go to Cancun? Or do I want to go somewhere that nobody's heard of before?'"

More often than not, younger travelers would rather pay for "something unique that will blow me away."

What's more, "a lot of people's first big trip is that honeymoon," Smiley says, and "Gen Z and millennials right now are that honeymoon age."

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