What types of travel career breaks can you take?
There are a ton of different types of career breaks out there, but a new type is getting a lot of buzz these days: travel career breaks. You’ve probably heard the terms: mini-retirement, adult gap year, travel sabbatical. Often these terms are used somewhat interchangeably, but they can be different, and we’ll break down how they vary in this article.
There's a ton of good information in this article, so to make it easier to review, we've added bookmarks below. If you want to jump ahead, simply click on the bookmark you're curious to review:
What is long-term travel (and how long is it)?
Wait a minute - is that a whole other term we just added in? Yup! All of the travel career breaks we mentioned - mini-retirements, adult gap years, and travel sabbaticals - are types of long-term traveling.
Here’s the interesting nuance - you can also enjoy long-term and skip the career break. I know, it’s confusing. But these days, with remote work still hanging on strong, some travelers take advantage of the fact that they can do their current jobs from anywhere and travel freely. In other cases, they use allotted “global travel days” - a policy some companies have adopted to allow employees to work from anywhere for a set number of days in the year - and travel for a month or two before returning home. Instead of taking a career break, they take advantage of weekends in new countries and plan grand adventures on Saturdays and Sundays.
At its core, long-term travel is simply travel for more than 2 weeks. Whether you’re a full-time traveler launching a travel blog in Bali or someone who’s saved up vacation (and negotiated with your boss) to take a 4 week trip, you fall under the umbrella of long-term travelers.
Unfortunately, in the US, taking more than 2 weeks off is sometimes hard to do. American hustle culture has really destroyed our sense of work life balance. After all, if you’re American, doesn’t the idea of taking 2 weeks and one day off still take you a little bit out of your comfort zone?
But long-term travel also includes the three types of travel career breaks we mentioned above, so let’s get to those.
What is an adult gap year?
Ok, our first term: the adult gap year. You probably guessed the origin of the word. Long jealous of high schoolers who took gap years before starting college or the unemployed college graduates who put off starting work to take time to travel, us “older” adults co-opted this term for ourselves. (Seriously, I did high school wrong...)
The “adult gap year” typically refers to those who have participated in the workforce for at least a few years and are now taking an extended break. Whether that break ends up being a year, slightly less, or slightly more – well, no one is tracking that. The key is: you’re not working.
You may even take time towards the end of your adult gap year to figure out what your transition period back into the workforce will look like. For example, my own gap year ended up being 361 days and ended when my husband and I both got new job offers on the last day of our trip.
Adult gap years typically involve one of two types of travel:
-
Slow Travel
-
Adventure Travel
Slow Travel:
Because those on gap years have so much time, they can take on major endeavors while traveling – like volunteering, studying a new language, or learning new skills. Those activities typically keep them in one place. Plus, the trip’s extended duration can lead to travel burn-out, and those on adult gap years will spend long periods in each location to avoid exhaustion.
Adventure Travel:
On the other hand, some adult gap year takers are all about getting WAY out of their comfort zones, experiencing vastly different cultures, and checking off bucket list locations. These travelers go on safaris, conquer fears, and try new food before asking what they are. They’re ready for adventure, plain and simple. With such a long time to commit to travel during an adult gap year, some travelers decide their best bet is to explore deeply and go on the grand adventures they don’t have time for while they’re working. That might mean going on a 3-month long camping safari or hiking to Everest base camp. Or it might mean spending 2 months in India or China exploring every nook and cranny of the country.
On my own adult gap year, I combined the two types of travel (and I recommend this to others.) We traveled slowly in Italy and went to an Italian language school. Parliamo molto bene. Then we camped in East and Southern Africa, enjoying dozens of safaris. We did a lot more, but I think you get the gist: on adult gap years, you can pick the type of travel that suits you best (because you have the time) or you can combine the two.
What is a mini-retirement?
Popularized by Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4-Hour Work Week, which challenged the idea that retirement should be experienced in one fell swoop starting at the age of 65. Ferriss argued that those breaks should be distributed over the course of one’s life.
Since then, the term has taken on a life of its own. In my own experience, mini-retirements are to corporate America what sabbaticals are to academia. That is, mini-retirements have these defining features:
-
They’re short! Unlike the adult gap year, a mini-retirement is probably less than a year, maybe even less than 6 months.
-
They’re preceded and followed by work. In fact, you might even return to the same job (though whether or not you do that depends on what motivated your trip in the first place.)
-
They represent a reset from your corporate job. They’re a time to relieve all of that work stress and to make space for work life balance once more. Plus, taking time to see things from a new perspective (in a new location, with less stress and noise around) might even make you more effective in your corporate job.
Technically, a mini-retirement might not involve travel, but in my experience they very commonly do – and don’t necessarily skew strongly towards slow travel or adventure travel.
What is a travel sabbatical?
A travel sabbatical is probably the term that was most foreign to you in this post. “Sabbatical” seems to be a term reserved for academia, though us corporate junkies are starting to steal it…
The most defining feature of a travel sabbatical is that - if you’re taking one - you’re most likely returning to the same employer. Those on travel sabbaticals have likely negotiated a leave of some kind - paid or unpaid - and have a defined period to travel before returning to their old jobs.
In fact, some companies actually offer sabbaticals in their employee benefits.
Because those on travel sabbaticals are typically returning to the same employer, they may be using their travel sabbatical to complete a personal or professional project near and dear to their hearts. For example, a journalist might take 4 months in Europe to write a book. An academic might take 6 months in Singapore to conduct research.
So to summarize quickly:
-
Adult Gap Years are around a year-long and are done by those who have at least a few years of work experience under their belts. Those taking gap years often exit and re-enter the job market to take their trip instead of negotiating a leave of absence.
-
Mini-Retirements are shorter and all about “pulling forward” retirement instead of waiting until you’re 65.
-
Travel Sabbaticals typically involve returning to the same employer and may even be employer-sponsored. Those taking sabbaticals may return with new and improved professional skills to show off too.
Now that you know all of this, you might be wondering: who takes these travel career breaks to begin with?
Who takes these career breaks? And...
What do people who take travel career breaks do for a living?
In my experience, people from all different walks of life and all sorts of different careers. From my own experience, I see a few common threads in the people I know who have taken travel career breaks (and I know dozens):
-
They value hard work. In fact, they might value hard work too much and have come to accept that a career gap is worth taking in order to avoid serious burn out.
-
They’re open minded. They seek out new perspectives, new cultures, and new people (though that’s not to say they’re extroverted.) Simply put, they’re comfortable getting out of their comfort zone and aren’t really bothered by cultural differences, even when they’re profound.
-
They’re savvy with their finances and career. Not all travel career breaks are super expensive, but they all involve a degree of financial risk. Why? Plenty of reasons. For one, being willing to step away from work for a few months might make your boss think you’re a flight risk. If your company layoffs while you're away (and you remain employed there), will they prioritize retaining someone who’s on leave? If you leave your job to travel, how confident are you that you’ll find a new job quickly when you return? These travelers are comfortable with the career risk (and financial risk) and feel confident that their networks - or their long history of hard work - will offer them plenty of cushion.
And just for the sake of dispelling a few myths, these travelers are NOT:
-
Exclusively 25 years old. I’ve met plenty of travelers enjoying travel career breaks in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Certainly there are physical restrictions that impact how (and to where, and under what circumstances) someone travels. But I can think of a reason why traveling at any age can represent the “perfect time” to travel.
-
Exclusively rich. Yes, it is easier to take a travel career break if you have significant disposable income. Travel is a luxury in and of itself. But, I have met plenty of travelers who are decidedly not well-off but are simply thoughtful with their budgets while they travel long-term.
When is the best time to take a travel career break?
I hate to break it to you, but there is no perfect time to take a career break. The perfect opportunity will almost never present itself. Worse, whether you want to take a year of travel or eight weeks, you’ll find no shortage of trade-offs and potential sacrifices to consider.
You might need to leave your current job to make it happen. You might have practical considerations at home that leave you feeling queasy – like what to do with pets or your rent-controlled apartment. You might worry about your career prospects if you leave. Will you be able to climb the corporate ladder as effectively with a gap on your resume? Or are you just inviting new challenges?
Let me offer you a fresh perspective you probably haven’t heard: if you’re already thinking about taking a travel career break, you will regret not taking the leap.
And - even more importantly - you may end up better off in life – financially, professionally, and emotionally - because you took the risk and traveled.
It’s very easy to see the risk in taking a career break. It’s hard to think about all the things that could go right. For example:
-
With time to decompress, you might decide to take your career in a new direction and end up happier.
-
You might meet the love of your life while traveling.
-
You might – with time to prepare for hard interviews – land a job you love that pays you way more than your old job.
-
You might have such a good time that you talk about the trip for decades to come.
When we only think about the risk, it’s easy to put off planning our dream trips. But there are plenty of rewards.
For example, in my case, I:
-
Gave up a rent-controlled apartment I loved but returned to an even better one.
-
Left a high-paying job that stressed me out and got a job offer on the last day of our trip for a role that paid more. (That one still stressed me out, but way less.)
-
Fell even more deeply in love with my husband, which I didn’t think was possible.
-
Learned some uncomfortable truths about myself (hello, workaholic) that made me a better person.
And that’s not even including all the cool things we did on our trip! Like going to pizza school, learning who to blow glass in Venice (something I kept up with when we came back to the US), or standing 15 feet from rhinos in the wild.
So, let’s come back to the question: When is the best time to take a travel career break?
I’m going to rephrase this. The question really should be: “When is the best time to start planning my travel career break?”
And the answer to that question is simple: right now.