Those who have done it - share you experience.
Knew a couple people who did this after working for a few years, prior to going back to school for PhD’s. They both deferred their acceptances. Felt it was worth it.
Never took a work sabbatical per se but took time off before business school to travel the world and it was awesome. I also use all my vacation days because they are meant to be consumed, not to be saved, and always I come back feeling refreshed and ready to generate significant alpha!!!
I think the recurring theme here for most of these are people traveling before a known exit point which is typically school. Not quite the same.
I got lucky, was shifting countries, new job started in the new year so I just handed in my papers at the old place and told them I wouldn’t be serving my notice period and they needn’t pay me.
Left for 3 months, want to do it again but with a month off every year not sure if the hassle is worth it.
I wish I could take a permanent sabbatical from work. Unfortunately I don’t have enough money to do that. But I also hate my job, so there’s that. Thankfully I’m about to take off on a 2 week vacation this weekend.
I did 2 years of travelling after uni. At that stage I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and had no idea what I was coming back to.
This will sound wanky AF but in a lot of ways it ruins you.
Define ruin
Its classic british thought innit guv ;). The whole gap year is pretty mainstream over there it seems.
How did you fund yourself for two years though?
^ You hate your job? Didn’t you start it recently? You were the Canadian who went to the US, right?
EDIT: Meant to reply to Kanuck
Well, after months of hanging out surfing at a paradise beaches, doing everything on a whim, not saying no to anything, experimenting, experiencing new cultures, figuring out that virtually every nationality on the planet is hotter than where you’re from, seeing all the big sights but also the thing that most tourists don’t, etc. etc. going back to a life of office work and duties and responsibilities peppered with a 2 week holiday to Tenerife doesn’t quite seem the same.
It’s like if you became very rich and got used to a lifestyle but then lost all the money and went back to being comfortable but not loaded you wouldn’t feel as lucky as you would have done if you’d never been loaded.
The gap yah is a bit of a british middle class cliche
I inherited £500 from my wee granny which I spent on the first flight out, started out by working teaching english for 6 months and banked a fair bit from that then just picked up odd jobs along the way. I maxed out a few credit cards near the end to pick off some big things I wanted to see and to cover the flight home.
Hotter climate or females
^ I’m guessing females because, according to the stereotype, the average Scottish lass isn’t pretty to look at.
gringo that shoulds pretty incredible - i picture you in costa rica for some odd reason. how’d you get the english class gig? how much $$ did you have saved up?
I did spend some time travelling in Costa Rica (that was where I picked up the nickname that inspired my AF account name) but moved on to other countries in the region as they were significantly cheaper and a bit freer so I was able to pick up some cash-in-hand jobs. That’s jobs that are cash in hand rather than cash for hand jobs.
I got the TEFL certificate before I left the UK and it was pretty easy to find work as loads of places wanted British teachers for whatever reason. It was a tough job though with long hours but I managed to bank almost a $1000 which lasted well as I was 21 and didn’t mind roughing it. I was in the cheapest nastiest hostels, staying at peoples houses, eating street food and I ended up spending a lot of time on buses between places.
Like this guy, I love me them redheads.
#AlrightAlrightAlright
Familiarity breeds contempt
Gringo is spot on on most of what he typed. Did similar things.
I didn’t travel much before I graduated university besides going to spring breaks, visiting family in Cali and roadtrips to New York. I told myself as soon as I graduate I’m doing the 1 year thing of traveling around the world with no plan and just go with the flow. I got an offer for a trading position; the opportunity was too good to turn down and the travel plan was derailed. Although I took the odd week off, there was too much money to be made at that time to travel. The opportunity cost was high, I’m talking tens of thousands of dollars and more on days with surprise news (rumor of Osama being caught, suspicious package in White House, surprise rate announcement, unexpected downgrade of a big company). Once I was no longer in the trading biz, I took the first opportunity I could to take a sabbatical to do what I had planned to do years earlier.
The major difference with Gringo is that I traveled when I had money. I agree it’s not easy coming back after being away for so long. Jim Rogers describes the feeling best in Investment Biker.
I can’t relate though with Gringo’s women comment. There are beautiful women everywhere, but in terms of quantity of HCBs my city takes the cake. I get that comment often whenever I have buddies visiting from out of town and that’s the first thing I hear from people that comeback to town after going on a vacation for the first time. The eye candy here made coming back a tad less difficult.
nice!! The teaching gig is totally true. I met this dude who was making 1k a month in Chiang Rai. Dude was a deadbeat meth addict, Wtf??
did you do the two years in one stretch and just in South America. Surely you can’t survive on 1k in South America for a year even if you’re just couch surfing and woofing ??