We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Federica Bruniera. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Federica below.

Alright, Federica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with something countless entrepreneurs have had to figure out on the fly – how have you dealt with the rise of remote work?

I am a solopreneur, and I specifically built my business with remote work as my priority. The freelance translation business is not something you get into overnight, it takes time to have a pool of clients big enough to allow you to have full-time work. I started out when I still had an office job, working on my business on the side, and took the plunge when I was making enough money to be able to support myself in my travels. I’ve been working and travelling ever since. The main pitfall was that at first I wanted to live both lives in one, travelling and partying as the tourists on vacation do, but also giving my availability for full-time projects. It was exhausting. I think all the benefits are obvious: the flexibility and being able to work in any time zone because my work is deadline-based and I rarely have work meetings. Efficiency could be a non-obvious benefit. When I’m at home and I have all day to do something, it will take me the entire day. But if there’s something interesting I want to do and see outside, I’m much more efficient with my time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a neurodivergent, nomadic, polyglot translator, travel writer and blogger, and climate educator. I’m also a scuba diver, a hiker, a tea drinker, a karaoke lover, an explorer. I love maps and the ocean, and pizza with a lot of mozzarella (or vegan equivalent).

I studied languages and translation at university, so getting into the translation industry almost felt like the obvious career path for me. With my business Ikigai Translations, I help small businesses with a purpose overcome cultural and linguistic gaps and make sure that their message gets through in the most efficient and convincing way. I offer translation, editing, transcription and subtitling from English, French, Spanish and Japanese into my native Italian, specializing in the travel and environment sectors.

In the travel space, I also do some copywriting and blogging for clients and as a personal side project. My travel blog The Globetrottoise contains informative articles and travel diaries written from the perspective of my crochet turtle Matilda. She’s curious and opinionated, so her articles are quite unique. I’m also writing a memoir at the moment about my 3 years of solo travel across the Americas in my camperized car.

In the last couple of years, I’ve also invested in my climate and environmental education and doubled my efforts as a workshop facilitator to support my activism journey and spread awareness about climate change, biodiversity loss and related issues. I organize workshops on climate change, biodiversity, the impacts of the textile industry, circular economy and conscious evolution, hoping to get as many people as possible on board for a green revolution.

Ultimately, my strength and what I think sets me apart from others is the synergy of my interests: at the intersection of languages, translation, travel, writing and environmental education, there is a desire to be a bridge and amplify messages that make the world a better place. It’s multilingual storytelling at the service of our planet and its people.

I’m most proud of my journey so far: the geographical one(s), the self-acceptance one, the business one. I hope to get it all down in my book soon enough.

Lastly, I’d like clients, colleagues and fellow business owners to remember that professionalism and quality are not tied to fixed working hours or a fixed location. We are our best selves when we feel inspired, joyful and motivated, and that rarely happens glued to a monitor for hours on end. As long as we comply with deadlines and good quality work, we should be free to do that from wherever we feel more at ease.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My life and creative journey goal is to visit all the countries in the world in the least invasive and most regenerative way possible. The different points of focus in my business are all geared toward this: translation is the core of my business and my main source of income; travel writing is what enables me to tell the stories of places and people and amplify them; environmental education is a volunteering activity and a way to give back to the communities who welcome me all over. I didn’t have this clarity at the beginning of my journey, and it took years of learning and unlearning, questioning and doubting to realize and find a way to make my interests work together in a way that served my purpose but I’m getting there and perfecting it day by day.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Success in life is tied to money, hard work, stability, material possessions and reproduction.

That’s what society taught me throughout my life and the example of people around me reinforced this idea. Having a stable job with a good or great salary, buying a house and a lot of stuff to fill it with, having a partner and having children is supposed to be the dream.

I’ve always known that I didn’t want to be a mother, so that part was off the table very early in my life. When it comes to everything else, however, I felt like a failure for the longest time: I’m not a highly recognized person in my line of work, I don’t earn big money, I don’t own a house. Freedom and adventure are something you’re supposed to yearn for maybe in your twenties, definitely not in your thirties.

I had my first experiences abroad when I was 17, then I went to university to study languages and did about 2 of the 5 years of my studies abroad, in France and Japan respectively. I understood then that travel was going to be a non-negotiable for me, but I still clung to the idea of stability. So I moved to Canada to have a “regular” life and after 5 years of “stability” I was depressed. So I started backpacking in 2018, at 29, while working full-time and in 2021 I moved into a camperized car and spent the next 3 years driving around from the Arctic Circle in Canada to the end of the world in Patagonia. I get admired comments but most people believe this is just a phase, because “you have to settle down eventually”. Yet, despite the many challenges (burnout is a thing on the road as well), I never felt more aligned to my mission as when I was sleeping in my car, eating a cold meal in the passenger seat alone in the wilderness, driving through the best amazing landscapes. I know this may sound cheesy or extreme, but I want to live – now, not in 10 or 20 or 30 years – a life I can be proud of.

I finally accepted that successful doesn’t have to mean the same thing for everyone. Capitalism and the myth of constant growth are leading to the collapse of our planet, to wars and genocides, to deep inequalities. Success to me means being able to live on my own terms and avoiding as much as possible to buy into the accumulation machine. Curiosity and the calling to protect the planet are the fire that ignites my creativity and, as long as I can make a living with that, I can consider myself successful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ikigaitranslations.com https://www.theglobetrottoise.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/federica.globetrotthuman ; https://www.instagram.com/globetrottoise
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/federicabruniera/