Last fall, both me and my husband quit our jobs to embark a year of heavy traveling. My husband left his job in August to prepare the way (imagine house projects and catching up on life things). I left my job in October and became a full-time travel agent (it felt like). We immediately jumped into a new routine, consisting of daily walks in the neighborhood, weekly planning sessions, house projects, errands, and non-stop travel planning.
For a bit of context - both me and my husband are recovering work-a-holics. My husband more than myself, but both of us had relatively high-responsibility tech jobs, and as with everyone, covid WFH blurred the lines even further, making it more difficult to unplug and feel fulfilled in our daily lives.
We also have been planning this gap year for many years. Initially, we didn't have it set as strictly a year but we knew we wanted to travel and be away for a length of time. We brainstormed different ways for years, including working remotely from different countries (we both felt our jobs wouldn't be okay with the time changes and schedule conflicts). At one point, we were contemplating if we wanted to move to Europe full stop (we decided we didn't really want that level of commitment). We landed on a year without having a job to define our lives. We then decided we didn't want to travel constantly the entire year as we both like our home and like being at home. So we decided we would take 12 trips, one a month, each roughly two weeks. This would give us time to recover in between trips and mentally prep for the next one.
Rough outline of our trips:
January: Western road trip, visiting national parks
March: Rome + Athens
April: Scotland & Ireland
May: East coast road trip, maybe retracing some of a road trip we took early in our relationship
June: Norway + Sweden
July: Vancouver, and possibly an Alaskan cruise
August: Gencon + Chicago
September: Japan
October: NYC and Paris for our 10 year anniversary, retracing our wedding + honeymoon
November: Barcelona & Marseilles
December: Christmas markets in Germany & Austria
The planning process
We planned this sitting on a park bench in Savannah Georgia during a short weekend trip.
Sketching on an ipad
Our very rough first sketch of the plan (not real dates, just putting things on paper)
Some sentimental odds and ends:
2025 is our 10 year anniversary (specifically in October). The whole year is a celebration of us. (awwww #totallyokaytoeyerollthisone)
We got married in NYC and went to Paris for our honeymoon. We intend to recreate that trip for our 10 year annivesary.
We originally wanted to go to Australia and/or New Zealand. After some research, we decided to swap it in favor of going to Christmas markets in Germany in December
We took a roadtrip early on in our relationship up the east coast - we're thinking we might recreate a version of that trip as well. because why not.
GenCon is a board game convention (yes, that's a real thing) we go to every year. Gotta keep up with traditions. This year, we're throwing in Chicago because we've both tragically never been. It must be corrected.
Lastly, I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to take this time and plan these experiences. We've both planned this for so long, both financially and mentally. We've made trade-offs and sacrifices to make it happen, including deciding not to remodel our home or buy a new house all together. When our cat passed away from cancer, we decided to wait on getting another pet because we didn't want to leave them alone for huge amounts of time. We will do these things eventually but for now, we're going to enjoy the break and make the most of the the year ahead of us.