WHY I LEFT MY JOB TO TRAVEL

Throughout college, Jenny (alias, “The Bun”) often discussed her dream of going on a long backpacking trip right after graduation. It sounded nice, but I had a decent amount of college debt and limited savings. I was in no position to seriously consider taking a year off without earning any money. No matter how relentlessly Jenny tried to push the travel idea, I couldn’t get with the program. But with each trip we took together, the itch to travel grew harder and harder to scratch. Between visiting beautiful sights, meeting people from different backgrounds, and learning about cultures with little resemblance to my own, the fear of leaving my comfort zone began to disappear as the benefits of traveling became more apparent. After our honeymoon in Southeast Asia, I caved and agreed that if we worked for around five years and saved enough money, I’d consider quitting my job to travel for a few months. And then something happened that changed my perspective and set our plans into motion.

A coworker of mine retired after working at the same company for over 40 years. Sadly, his wife had passed away just weeks before his retirement. He spoke of how he saved a considerable amount of money over the years and was entitled to a substantial pension, but without his wife to share it all with, he had lost his excitement. He closed with a line that really struck a chord (which I can’t remember word for word, but here’s the basic gist)– “You can save your whole life and plan for the future, but what’s it worth if you can’t spend that money with the ones you love? Make sure to seize every moment and enjoy life to the fullest while you’re still able to.” The moment he finished his speech, I realized I had to take action sooner rather than later. Right when I got home that day, I told Jenny that our plans had changed. I’d quit as soon as we reached the agreed upon savings benchmark and we’d travel for as long as our budget could last.

There was more behind our decision than my reaction to a coworker’s retirement speech. For as long as I can remember, I dreamed of working hard to move up the corporate ladder, living out the majority of my life in comfort, and retiring as early as possible. But as each work week went by, I became more disillusioned with the concept of living to work and began to focus on just living instead. I felt so much pressure to do whatever it took to be able to "live comfortably", but what's so comfortable about working 50+ hours a week without enough vacation days to actually take a vacation? There was so much I wanted to see and experience that to not travel when I had the time and money to do so would have been a wasted opportunity. We heard too many people further along in their careers mention that they wish they would have just taken the plunge and gone traveling before the kid(s) and mortgage(s) made it virtually impossible. It became quite clear that the longer we pushed our big trip off, the more difficult it would become for us to get out and experience the rest of the world.

I handed in my resignation last August without an ounce of uncertainty. We had flights booked to Portugal, Morocco and Spain with our eyes set on Southeast Asia. Five months, eight countries and a hell of a lot of mosquito bites later, I can tell you that I have no regrets. We’ve met many people from all walks of life – a Swiss postal worker, a Scottish cartographer, an Italian supermarket cashier, a Canadian pipe fitter, an Irish couple with intentions to open a restaurant, and an 86-year-old man from Kansas who’s traveled the world for the past 50 years by doing odd jobs along the way – who have also left their careers to travel for an extended period of time. While everyone has his/her own personal and financial situations, traveling shouldn’t have to wait for retirement and is certainly not an activity reserved for the wealthy. If experiencing cultures around the world is truly a top priority, all it takes is taking the time to do the proper research, setting a financial goal based on said research, and following a savings plan until that goal is reached. While it may take a few years before you can turn your travel dreams into a reality, I can now speak from experience – the fresh mango juice is worth the squeeze.