Dear Mom:

You once asked me when I was going to get serious and find a "real job." It has taken a few years, but I wanted to let you know that I have found something really useful to do with my life. Mom, I am a travel agent.

We travel agents have come out of the vocational closet now, and we are openly admitting what we do for a living. We are rediscovering our collective voice, and we have discovered a new pride.

The media say we are dinosaurs. They say that the Internet is putting us out of business. Please don't let those reports upset you, Mom. I eat the Internet for breakfast. I pick at it and spit out most of it, using it to my advantage. I am a human travel agent. I speak to and with my clients, I feel their pain and I share their joy.

When I fill out forms for insurance companies, banks or the government, few who read the occupation "travel agent" know what it really means. So let me tell you what I do.

I am a merchant of travel, but I am also a purveyor of dreams. I work on the best moments of people's lives. I get folks from place to place as they work. My job description reads "worldwide business travel hassle remover." I am an enabler.

What would surprise you most, Mom, is how good I am at keeping track of details, an ability I might not have demonstrated as I was growing up. Now, believe it or not, I keep track of the lives of others. They depend on me, and I exceed their expectations.

I am the engine that drives travel and tourism. We send people around the world, and we help bring the world to our shores. We help people clear their minds for a weekend, and we help people use their minds to discover the infinite possibilities that await all explorers.

I suppose I could have been a doctor, an accountant or a lawyer, and perhaps I would have made more money. But then I might spend every waking hour dreaming about what it would be like to explore this world of ours. Eventually, I would spend my money to try to find out. And, truth be told, I would lie in bed wondering from time to time what kind of life I might have had if only I had gone into travel.

Instead, I've done things others only dream about. I have scaled Kilimanjaro and walked with the Masai. I've gone swimming with sharks off Moorea and stayed in a maharaja's palace in Jaipur. I have 34 friends in Paris, seven of whom manage hotels, and I have a favorite table whenever I go to Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's.

I've been to Cabo, but unlike the lawyer or doctor, I see and experience seven or eight properties in one visit. I know the best room numbers in hotels around the world. I know where Letterman goes for hamburgers on St. Bart's. I am honestly not sure the lawyers or doctors I meet are as thrilled with their work as I am with mine.

My clients typically spend far more at our agency in a year than they spend with their attorney, physician or accountant. In return, I offer them the best moments of their lives, those special weeks they have worked so hard to enjoy. After 49 weeks of toil, they come to me for the times they have been dreaming about. I plan the days that really matter in their lives. I design lifetime experiences for them to enjoy.

I pay particular attention to clients who have retired. They have worked a lifetime to finally live their dreams. I make those dreams happen, and as I help them I never forget they are on a fixed income.

I work out of my home, I work in a mall, I work in an office building high above the din. Wherever I work, I am in touch with the world.

Honeymooners come to me for the most important trip of their lives. Sometimes I get to plan two or three honeymoons for the same folks.

I have a shop, and it is stocked with the entire planet. Clients can ask me anything about anywhere. No other occupation carries with it the responsibility to know the whole world. I read constantly, and when I am not studying brochures, reading travel magazines or watching the Travel Channel, I am thinking and worrying about my clients, who may at that very moment be anywhere in the world.

People depend on me, Mom, and I must be able to turn on a dime from aggressive advocacy on behalf of my clients to compassion and empathy.

I had a call from a woman whose husband had died diving on a cruise shore excursion; the ship had sailed, and her husband was in a mortuary on St. Kitts. Another call was from a grief-stricken woman whose husband had been killed while standing under a tree on a golf course in the rain. Their family tour to Europe was two weeks away.

I am on call 24 hours a day. My clients have my cell, my fax and two or three office numbers. I am often awakened in the middle of the night.

We travel agents have been abused by the airlines and had our commissions mutilated by smiling marketers of all persuasions. But we will no longer be victims. We have learned, finally, that we have worth, and we are not going to give it away again for free. Our theme song used to be "I Will Survive." Now it's "We Are the Champions."

People pay to talk to me now, Mom, and they stand in line to do it. We have to be planners, directors, financial consultants, psychologists and lifestyle advisers.

I'm part of a profession that was among the first to fight racial and lifestyle prejudices. Our workplace is open to all, and we are dedicated to the proposition that the world will be a better place if we all get to visit one another as often as possible.

I am a shopkeeper, Mom. I sell the world. And because I do, the worth and value of the people who live on this planet has taken on new meaning.

So, when the lady in the next hair dryer asks what your daughter or son does for a living, I trust you will explain, with pride, that you have raised a travel agent.

Contributing editor Richard Turen owns Churchill and Turen, a vacation-planning firm that has been named to Conde Nast's list of the World's Top Travel Specialists since the list began. Contact him at rturen@travelweekly.com.