Stepping away from my career and normal life to travel for a year was, at the time, the biggest decision I had ever made. I was walking away from a great job with great pay and benefits. I had a great place to live and a nice car, and I was happy with my life. So why did I decide to do it? Why did I take the risk and jump into the unknown of a Year Off?
The Fear of Regret
I was thinking about extended time off for about a year before I actually decided to do it. Perhaps the biggest reason I decided to jump into it was a fear of regret. I understood the potential negative consequences of extended time off. But I also understood the more likely positive effects. And I knew that at some point in my life, I would regret it if I decided not to follow through with my Year Off.
I remember thinking about the money that I would spend for the year and the money I wasn’t earning. I thought about the money I wasn’t contributing to my 401k for a year and how much that would be worth in 30 years. But then I thought about how I would feel at the age of 65 with a lot of extra money, but no stories to tell from a year of traveling. I knew that in old age, I would be more thankful for the time I had to do what I absolutely loved doing instead of all the extra money.
At some point in my life, I knew that I would deeply regret not cashing in on the opportunity I had created for myself to travel for a year.
I wasn’t sure when that regret would hit me, but I knew it eventually would. Maybe in 5 years, or 15 years, or at the age of 65, or on my deathbed. I knew regret would pop up, and I wanted to avoid that. That’s ultimately one of the biggest reasons I decided to leave my stable life behind to pursue my dream.
There is one quote that I would constantly refer to when doubt crept into my mind. It helped remind me of the potential for regret if I didn’t follow through with my plans.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
I wanted something other than the “normal life”.
There seems to be a normal progression of life nowadays, and it’s been this way for quite some time. You go to school, then you graduate and get a job. You find someone to marry, then you buy a house and have kids. The years go by and you eventually retire, at which point you let off the gas pedal and finally sit back and relax and enjoy the slow pace of life.
I was on that very path myself. I had graduated from college, had a good job, and was in a long-term relationship that I thought would turn into marriage. But something didn’t seem right. I felt influenced by the societal pull of marriage and a family, but I knew deep down that the relationship I was in was not what I wanted and that I wanted to break out of that normal progression. And I wanted to do something different.
I have never thought, nor will I ever think, that happiness cannot arise from this normal progression. I see it every day in friends and family and colleagues and acquaintances. But I felt my path had to be different. I wanted out of a relationship that I felt wasn’t totally right for me, and I needed a good reason to get over the huge mental and emotional hurdle of ending it. That reason was my year long sabbatical.
I wanted more time to do what I love doing.
I have always enjoyed my job as a pharmacist. The challenge of the job and the fact that I’m helping people lead happier and healthier lives is what I like the most. And the benefits and pay are great. But working as a pharmacist is not what I absolutely love doing. There are other things that, given the choice, I would much rather do.
I love traveling and exploring new places. America’s National Parks are my favorite places in the world. And I love camping in them, hiking through them, and backpacking in the wilderness areas. I love climbing mountains and exploring canyons and watching the sunsets from a beautiful backcountry campsite. The thrill of stepping off a plane in a foreign country is something I yearn for. I feel most alive when I’m exploring some remote wilderness with no one around or blending in seamlessly with the crowds in a foreign city.
When I decided to stop working as a pharmacist for a year to travel through America’s great national parks, Europe, and east Africa, I was deciding to do more of what I absolutely love doing. I wanted to spend as much time as I possibly could while I was still young and in good health doing what brought me the most pleasure and happiness in life. I didn’t want to wait until retirement for it.
Travel is better when done long-term.
There were several alternatives to a Year Off that I considered before ultimately deciding on going through with it. I knew I wanted to travel as much as possible, so I was thinking of alternative ways to do that without leaving my job for a year. I thought of transferring my job and moving to a different state closer to all my beloved National Parks. Maybe I could take a few more unpaid weeks off through-out the year and just make travel more of a priority in general. I considered joining the military as a pharmacist.
All of these options were appealing to me, but I decided that removing the job was the alternative I wanted the most. All of the other options were still not going to provide the time I really wanted to pursue my passions of outdoor adventure and travel.
I wanted to slow down and really immerse myself in the places I wanted to visit.
I wanted to “live” in National Parks for months at a time. And I wanted to “live” in several foreign countries for an extended time. One or two week bursts of travel are great, but I wanted to slow down to get the most out of my travel experience.
And I thought about the cost savings of extended travel as well. I figured it would be much cheaper overall to travel for a year continuously rather than break that travel up into one or two week segments. If I wanted to spend a lot of time in Europe, for example, it would be much more cost effective to buy one round-trip plane ticket there for 10 weeks of continuous travel as opposed to buying 5 different round-trip tickets to break the travel up into 5 two-week segments.
And by traveling long-term, you’re able to eliminate your monthly expenses at home, like rent and utilities. That’s not possible with only a few weeks of travel spread throughout the year.
So if you’re considering a Year Off, even if you consider it an impossibility, I encourage you to think hard about your reasons for wanting to do it.
Come up with a list of things you want to accomplish while gone. Dream about the places you would want to travel to. Think about what you would do with all that extra spare time and the weight of your job and daily grind removed.
Dream about it every day, then eventually start taking some actionable steps towards making it a reality. You never know what’s possible until you actually try.