Financing a career break or other long term travel is not easy. For me, it required a combination of cutting back on spending and saving more, earning extra money, and dealing with at-home expenses that would remain while I am on the road. I own my condominium and still have student loan debt, but I …
I first thought of taking time off from my career to travel back in 2006 – a full five years before I finally made it a reality. When I got serious about planning my current trip, I had never even heard the phrase “career break.” I didn’t know anyone personally who had done anything similar …
E-Book Review: How to Take a Career Break to Travel Read More »
One of the questions friends asked me the most before I left on this trip was about packing – how would I pack for a year’s worth of traveling? The answer? Very carefully. I had several factors working against me when I started the massive task of trying to pack: I decided to bring the …
It has been about two years since I first started dreaming of taking time off to travel. Now that my departure day has arrived (eek!), it is finally starting to sink in: I am really doing this. At various points over the last several months, I have felt stressed, scared, sad, confused and generally overwhelmed. …
When I set the appointment to give notice at work – to quit my job to travel – I almost immediately went numb. I stood up from my desk and my legs wobbled. I tried to send a text message to a friend and my fingers were shaking. I was more nervous than I was …
“All of that hard work paid off! Congratulations!” This is the kind of message I would’ve expected to receive when I graduated from law school, got a well-deserved promotion or finished my first marathon. It isn’t the kind of message I thought I’d receive from my insurance agent informing me that I had just been …
As I prepare for my trip, the one piece of advice I keep hearing over and over again is that I should not plan too much. This is a major problem for me because I am a planner with a capital P. When I traveled in the past (usually for about 2 weeks at …
**Note: visa procedures have changed slightly since I wrote the post below. Please scroll to the bottom for information on the current application process for U.S. citizens. I assumed one of the biggest headaches in preparing for my trip would be getting my Russian visa. I didn’t do myself any favors by trying to obtain …
I’m catless. For the first time in about 13 years, I don’t have a cat living with me. It feels a little weird. Our family cat lived with me during my first 2 years of law school and after he passed away during the summer of 2000, I headed straight to the local humane society …
Although I just gave notice at work and publicly announced my upcoming trip last week, I started preparing much, much earlier. Here is a look at the massive RTW trip to-do list that I have been checking off over the last year, approximately in chronological order. Change bank accounts. I moved my primary checking and …
