Confessions of a Tango Jet-Set (Minus the Jet, Minus the Set)

Travel, tango, and the art of explaining your life without boring people to death.

From the outside, being a traveling tango teacher can look like pure glamour: constant travel, endless dancing, being received like part of the jet set. And it does feel like that, most of the times. But the truth is more layered—equal parts privilege, fatigue, gratitude, and a few very real laughs at your own expense.

Doing What You Love (If You Really Love It)

If you truly love tango and teaching, you are fortunate (I am one of those!). You get to make a living from something that lights you up. Not everyone in this profession does—some lose that spark along the way—but if you keep it, it feels like living inside a blessing. And what makes it truly special is the love of the students. To be welcomed with open arms, to feel their warmth and gratitude, is one of the most powerful rewards of this job.

Free Days and Waiting Rooms

Your “days off” can be magical: a morning walk through Central Park in New York, a sunset by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, a tram ride through Lisbon, or an energizing run by the Golden Gate Bridge in a San Francisco. Sometimes it’s a hike through the New Mexico desert, or an unexpected day on a Florida beach. These moments feel like gifts from the road. But more often, your “free time” is the long wait at the airport gate, surrounded by fluorescent lights, boarding calls, and the sound of rolling suitcases. And funny as it seems, you learn to love this bits of "alone" time. Glamour is mostly a waiting room.

Being Welcomed Like Jet Set (But Doubting You’re Really Not)

As a visiting artist, you’re received with extraordinary generosity. People open their homes, sometimes even mansions with comforts you don’t have at home. It’s heartwarming, humbling—and a little surreal. Because in your mind, an “artist” is Picasso or Paul McCartney. You teach the ocho cortado. Really? Artist? And yet, yes. Tango is an art, one that has captivated the world for nearly two centuries. You may not be hanging in the Louvre or selling out stadiums, but you do teach and perform a form of living art. That’s what people see when they welcome you. And at the end of the day, you learn to embrace your small contribution to the world being a better place (that's what art is for, right?).

Belonging Everywhere, and Nowhere

In each city, you’re there just long enough to meet everyone, but never long enough to really know them. You belong everywhere, and nowhere. And when you leave, time in that place freezes for you. Life moves forward for everyone else, so when you return, you feel out of step, out of place, out of time. This happens even at “home.”

The Invisible Work

Behind the tango magic, there’s training to keep the body strong—less for the dancing, more for the luggage. Suitcases don’t lift themselves into cars, up stairways, or onto airport belts. There’s also the constant mental juggling act: trying to keep up with friends and students across multiple time zones. You don’t want to lose touch, but you can’t keep a perfect “file” of everyone, everywhere. All this while you're also trying to keep up with "your life back home", your future endeavors, your current projects, your e-mail and your bills.

And then there’s the calendar. When most people are out enjoying their Friday night, you’re at work teaching. Saturday night? You’re working too. When you’re finally free on a Tuesday afternoon, your friends are at the office. Want to go to the movies? Do it by yourself. This job flips your weekends into weekdays and your Sundays often disappear into airports. The rhythms of your life rarely align with anyone else’s.

At the Milonga: The Awkward Truth

Here’s one people often misunderstand. At milongas, people think the visiting teacher is there to “have fun.” And sometimes, yes. But often you’ve just finished hours of teaching, your feet ache, and tomorrow promises more of the same. Saying no to a dance isn’t arrogance—it’s survival. Your idea of a “fun tanda” might also be very different from the general expectation. When your job is dancing all day, your definition of fun shifts.

Returning Home

Coming home isn’t as simple as dropping your bags. You often return in a different season: leaving summer behind and landing in the middle of winter, adjusting to new hours of daylight, your body still set to another time zone. Your friends and family are deep into their routines, while you arrive full of stories from the road. But sharing them is always a puzzle: Am I boring them with details? Are they really interested? If they are, do they actually understand? And how well am I even explaining what life has been like for the past three months? You end up wondering whether to talk about it at all, or just smile and nod as life moves on around you. Rebuilding your local milonga routine also takes time—sending out little signals to your partners that you’re back, and hoping the connection is still alive.

And Then… Dating

Ah, dating... Imagine trying to meet someone when you’re constantly packing, flying, or living under someone else’s roof. It’s hard to tell your host family, “Don’t wait up, I’ve got a date tonight.” Privacy is scarce, schedules are tighter than tango shoes, and your sex life quickly turns into a comedy sketch. Let’s just say… “complicated” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

And dating at home? That’s not much easier. You know you’re going to be gone again soon, sometimes for months. Who wants to commit to someone who’s never around? Most people imagine your life is one big “getting laid” opportunity in every city, when in reality, you’re probably just icing your feet while watching a Netflix show in the one quiet hour you manage to carve out for yourself.

Why You Still Love It

With all the challenges, I wouldn’t change this life I love so much. Teaching tango is not only sharing steps—it’s a constant exercise in creativity, in self-exploration, and in empathy. It pushes you to grow, to find new ways to connect, to expand your communication skills so you can reach more people all the while you're walking the streets of the most beautiful cities in the world. And above all, it fills you with joy to see students blossom, to witness their breakthroughs, and to know you played a small part in their journey.

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So what does it mean to be a traveling tango teacher? It means living in a suitcase, being welcomed into homes more beautiful than your own, missing your own bed, belonging everywhere and nowhere, juggling time zones, saving your body when others expect you to dance, and laughing (?) at the impossibility of dating.

It also means carrying the love of your students in every suitcase, and finding, in each embrace, a reason to keep going.

It’s exhausting, disorienting, sometimes lonely—and at the same time, profoundly beautiful. A life made of airports and embraces. A life I wouldn’t trade for anything.