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Interview with Sarah Towle, creator of iPhone Tours of Paris

As a regular feature, Guide2Paris will be undertaking interviews with business people working in Paris, whether they are expats or French nationals based here in France or living abroad. We hope these interviews will inspire you to be creative yourself and come to Paris to live and work.

Today is the turn of Sarah Towle, the creator of Time Traveler Tours...

When did you move to Paris and what were your reasons for coming?

 

I arrived in Paris with my husband (who I refer to in my blog as the Uber-Mensch) and our then 8-year-old daughter (the Lucky-one-and-only, Loo) in July 2004, so we are about to celebrate our 7th anniversary in France. We came with the U-M’s company for what was supposed to be a temporary posting - two to three years. But the crash of the global economy intervened and it became more financially expedient for the company to keep us here, and to expand the U-M’s responsibilities from nation to region, than to move us all back to New York. So here we are still! Now that Loo is 15 and in high school we plan to stay at least until she graduates.

 

Did you speak French when you arrived? And now? Has language been a barrier to how you conduct your business?

 

I did not speak French when we arrived. Neither did Loo. That became a fun project for us to do together and, being a linguist, I threw myself into the effort with relish. For about a year and a half, I considered my French studies to be my full time job. Today, I speak it and understand the language well enough to interface with French colleagues and potential partners. But my business is actually based in the States and employs only US consultants. Our product is targeted, for the most part, to visitors to Paris and temporary Anglophone residents. So, no, language has not been a barrier.

 

What made you decide to start the business?

 

Never in a million years did I envision myself in the role of an entrepreneur. I am a career linguist and language educator. Among the reasons I chose this profession is that it fueled my passion for history, culture and language, but also provided me the opportunity to work all over the world. From 1990 to 2004, I split my time between Asia, Central America and New York, working in primary, secondary, university and community education settings. But in France, my professional choice put me in direct competition with English-language educators holding EU passports. The French government refused to recognize my credentials and would not grant me a work visa. Without the right to work, I couldn’t get a job. Learning French full-time was fine for a time. But then I started to go mad. I had to do something else.

 

I decided to write a book.  It would combine all my interests – history, culture, language, the arts – and be targeted to youth, aged 10 and up. It would be a kind of educational travel guide to Paris told through the voice of the storyteller rather than the historian.

 

I spent several years researching and writing the first three sample chapters and proposal. But by 2009, when I was finally ready to find a publisher, the publishing industry was in crisis. Though several editors stated that the concept was good and the project well executed, they were not in a position, at that time, to take on something so multi-disciplinary. It was too risky.

 

That summer, I picked up an iPhone for the first time. I knew immediately that I had found the right format for my project. Indeed, it was never meant to be a book, but a mobile application.  By September I had incorporated the former title as a US-based limited liability corporation and I’ve been working to build my small, on-line enterprise ever since.

 

Have you had any difficulties with the French administrative system?

 

Yes, as I explained above, it took six years for the French administrative system to finally recognize my former professional experience and educational credentials and grant me the right to work. Though I was devastated for the first five years, I am now grateful that it worked out the way it did. If the French had been more flexible and open-minded, I might never have “found” myself as a small-business entrepreneur forging a new narrative form.

 

Would you do anything differently in hindsight?

 

Yes, in hindsight I wish I’d started blogging the minute my feet touched down on French soil. Blogging really took off at just about the same time as I arrived in Paris. And though I was happily reading and commenting on blogs from that time, I never considered that I, too, could be a blogger.

 

Today, social media provides a remarkable opportunity to promote our projects and businesses. Consequently, I have a Facebook business page and a Twitter handle and a blog. But my blog struggles to be heard amongst all the other blogs about Paris with which I vie for attention and that have a much longer and more established track record. Perhaps if I had started blogging seven years ago, I would be easier now to build an on-line community.

 

What advice would you give others thinking of moving to Paris?

 

My best advice is to be prepared. Start learning the language before you arrive and read everything you can get your hands on about the French people and culture. I did this before I moved to China. I did it before I left for Latin America. But when it came time to move to France I thought, wrongly, that the transition to an affluent western culture would be a piece of cake.

 

It wasn’t! It was the hardest international move I’ve ever made!

 

What do you like most about living in Paris?

 

It’s our lifestyle here that we most love and appreciate with its emphasis on family and on good food make with fresh ingredients. In New York we were rarely together as a family. When Loo was little, the U-M and I tried very hard to share the care-giving duties. This meant that one of us was often working when the other was at home; we saw each other only long enough to pass off the kid. In Paris, par contre, we have two meals together almost every day. We travel extensively as a family, three and four times a year. We spend time with other families. We work to live.

 

Paris is also a clean, relatively safe and very manageable city, very easy to get around. Loo has much more independence here than she would back in the States where she’d need to be driven everywhere. Consequently, she is very independent and as a result hasn’t (yet) been overwhelmed by classic teenage rebellion.

 

In addition, we get a lot of exercise here in Paris. We walk or bike as a form of transportation. Loo and I ride horses twice a week in the nearby Bois de Bologne and the U-M swims almost everyday at his choice of fantastic public pools. So our lifestyle here is very healthy.

 

It’s also fun managing life every day in two languages, being able to swap back and forth between the two as the occasion dictates.

 

What do you least like about living in Paris?

 

What I find most exhilarating is also what I find most challenging: living in a culture that is not my own. There are things about French culture that I will always find difficult to understand and nuances in the French language that I may never, ever grasp. It’s one thing to be bilingual; it’s a whole other thing to be bi-cultural and much harder to achieve. I’m afraid I just came to France too late in life to be truly bicultural. Loo is always setting me straight, explaining the things beyond the words that I fail to pick up on. She’s so patient with me, even though I embarrass her on a regular basis.

 

Describe your experience of living in Paris in 3 words

 

Thrilling, tiring, beautiful!

 

Any other comments / advice?

 

Whether you are living in Paris or just planning a visit, please check out the Time Traveler Tours interactive StoryApp itineraries, especially if you’re coming with the kids: www.timetravelertours.com.

 

Like us on Facebook: Time Traveler Tours

Follow us on Twitter: @ParisAppTours

Consider contributing to our Kickstarter campaign:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2091425754/beware-madame-la-guillotine-an-interactive-storyap

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