I quit my corporate job in mid-January 2025, and decided to take the whole year of 2025 to travel and not work. I was 32 years old (now 33).

Many people told me that taking a year off was “insane”. How could I leave my blossoming career? What about my life here in the US? But then I met a ton of other people had the opposite reaction, and told me how inspired they were.

I am here to tell you that, yes, you can take a year off. And yes, it is 100% worth it.

Mongolia with my mom - a trip 6+ years in the making, and one of her dreams

The stats

Let’s start with the numbers, shall we?

Countries visited: 10
US National Parks visited: 9
# of ski resorts shredded: 7
# of scuba dives: 69
Planes taken: 56 (not proud of this one, but oh well)
% of Nights abroad: 50%
% of Nights traveling in the US: 16%
% of Nights at home: 34%
Hardest thing I did: Motorcycling through mud pits in middle of nowhere, Vietnam
Place I would 100% go back to: Raja Ampat, Indonesia and Red Sea, Egypt tie for the world class diving and untouched nature
My budget: $80k
My actual spend $71k

Sailing in the British Virgin Islands, December 2025

Why a year off?

Everyone comes to a point in their life or career where it’s time to take a break. I had a number of reasons that 2025 the right time for me to do this sabbatical, and I knew that I could not achieve my goals with a full-time job. My main reasons were:

I had an exponentially large travel bucket list, and I wanted to hit some of the more adventurous ones while I am young and healthy
I was not happy in my job, and I couldn’t see it working out long-term
I came out of a multi-year stressful financial situation (on top, so in a good way), but it really took a toll on my mental health
I was burned out in every aspect of my life, and I was struggling to see the positives in my day-to-day life
I just wanted to do it!

Originally, I had planned to take 6 months off, but when I looked at my finances, I knew I could take a full year. So I decided that the full year would be a perfect amount to complete the things I wanted to do and not be too hard of a transition back into the workforce.

My goals

It is so important to be intentional about big decisions like taking a year away from your career and life. Unlike some other people I have met who have taken extended time off, my goals primarily centered around travel experiences and bucket list items. Was I burned out? Yes, absolutely. For me, the way to deal with the burnout over the past 5+ years was to live and see the world.

Pausing my financial independence journey was definitely a concern. In the end, I realized that youth and health are so essential, that it was more important for me to take this journey and work an extra few years in the future than wait.

Going into 2025, my main goals were to:

Travel to as many bucket list items that made sense given budget & timing constraints
Work my schedule around friends and family that could join me
Not have KPIs, metrics, or any tracking (this included a workout schedule, because as a competitive athlete, I also wanted to take a step away from such a regimented schedule)
Maintain and cultivate my friend / family relationships

So in short - the goal was to travel extensively and let go of regimented expectations and schedules. Sounds easy, right?

What I learned: Expectations vs Reality

What did I expect? As anyone does while traveling the world, with essentially no restrictions for a year, I expected:

Daily adventure, bliss, and happiness with no life stressors
Constant daily energy to tackle ALL the things
Travel would never feel tiring

While some of these were true, my reality of taking a year off was:

I was really lonely at times. While I am an extrovert and tried to meet people every day, sometimes it was really hard (especially in your 30s!)
It was a LOT of work. Each one of my trips took extensive planning and decision making, and when you’re by yourself, you have to do all the planning
Decompressing from my burnout took a really long time. Partially because all the travel planning was causing some burnout in itself, and partially because I underestimated how exhausted I truly was after many challenging years.
I got homesick. When you work from home, the time feels like it drones on. But I really like my house, and my life in Colorado. Even the best global adventures still means I left a lot of that life behind.
I still stressed. Sometimes it was about the future, or making a mistake for taking all the time off. Other times it was something that was so not important, but it became a stressor because I had nothing else to stress about. A lot of times it was about impostor syndrome / never being able to find a new career.
I had to face some hard, introspective moments. How do I perceive myself? What do I really want? Am I actually living by the ethos that I think I am? How am I giving back by spending all my money on frivolous things?
Maintaining relationships was hard. Shout out to my partner who supported me through this whole thing (and watching the pets). He deserves the world.

Skiing in Niseko Japan with friends (& crashing a honeymoon!)

But through all this, I learned that:

The world is full of fascinating, kind people.
Sometimes, in the craziness of our world, I forget about the good nature of humanity. You may have heard me joke that “I hate people” and travel to nature to avoid them (which is not necessarily true, but it’s not untrue either…).
It’s not about “checking the boxes”
I have lived in a world of optimal efficiency since college. Every hour is scheduled. I work at 200% capacity to finish work early, perform above expectations, and then can use the time I saved for other things on my to-do list. I functioned in this semi-robotic manner for 10+ years. And the thing is - it worked! I got promoted. I made it through college, and grad school. I bought a house. I checked ALL the boxes. Until this year, when I gave myself no boxes to check. Just “this could happen” and “why not see where the wind takes me”. I woke up to no alarm most of this year, and had a cup of tea on the patio. I went on hikes with no thought to how long it could take me. And I remembered that this is what life should really be about. Coming from a type “A” person, this was really hard for me. But I hope to continue this feeling for the rest of my life.
The life I’ve grown up in accentuates artificial stress
This builds on my thought above, that I have always felt that the American system funnels you into these standard expectations. Get good grades, don’t get in trouble (especially with the law), get into a good college, get good grades again, get a job, buy a house, save for retirement, consume consume consume, possibly deal with life-ending medical debt because your insurance doesn’t cover you going to the doctor, and then you retire and eventually that’s it. The “American Dream”. Oh, and a side of “deal with crippling anxiety” and being told “you are never doing enough” and feel like “you are inferior” along the way, every day. But the rest of the world doesn’t live that way. I met nomadic people in Mongolia who just herd goats and sheep and enjoy nature daily. I met people (mainly Europeans) who quit their jobs like me, but this was their 3rd or 4th time and they didn’t need to worry about health insurance. This world isn’t new to me, but I really understood this year how much pressure the bubble I live in puts on me, and how I just go with it.
…and my path to inner peace is about deprograming external expectations
After all these experiences, I changed my mindset. How do I remove myself from the rat race, and stop worrying about what other people think? Again, it’s harder said than done. As I mentioned earlier, I still dealt with a lot of stress through the year off, and it’s something that I hope to work on in the future. I want to focus on what’s important to me, and never deal with that “why didn’t you respond to my weekend email” conversation ever again.
I want to build a life where I have the freedom to travel months on end
More on this to come… but I am working on structuring my future goals on this thought. That the adventure doesn’t need to come to an end, and that I can find a way to continue this while maintaining my relationships and doing all the things I love to do.

Where I’m truly happy… underwater. Red Sea, Thistlegorm wreck, June 2025

How to manage life logistics

A big question that not many people talk about on their blogs is… how do you deal with life?! I own a house, so there’s mortgage, health insurance, pets that need love, car, other bills… what the heck do you even do?

Mortgage: I co-own a house with my partner, and part of the deal of taking the time off was I would not impose a roommate on him to pay for my bills. Therefore, I budgeted to pay my portion of the mortgage for 12 months, even though I was not going to be there. This was fine with me because I planned for it, but as you will see below, it was nearly half of my yearly expenses! Other ways to deal with this expense would be:

Move out of your apartment and sell your things / put things in storage
Use furnished finders to rent your place out monthly fully furnished. Note that you ideally should find someone for the whole duration you are gone, otherwise you will need to manage finding someone new while traveling

Health Insurance: This one was tricky, and it really depends on your situation. I had health insurance covered for 3 months after my last day of employment by my old company, and then switched over to state-covered insurance, which charges you based on your income expectations for the year. And since my income expectations were low, my cost was low as well. Other options for you could be adding on to a partner’s health insurance or finding a private health insurance company.

Pets: My partner and I traveled together for the first 2.5 months and were gone. We paid a friend to watch the pets for peace of mind. Since then, my partner had to go back to work so he was around to watch them (I was very lucky!) You can also look at TrustedHousesitters, where you allow someone to live in your house for free while they watch your pets. This takes away an option to rent your place out for income like in #1, so you’ll have to weigh your options!

Car: For me, since my car is paid off and I don’t have any expenses outside of car insurance, I just left my car at home and paid the insurance. You can call your car insurance company to lower the coverage if it’s in a garage, or you can rent it through an app like Turo if you have a friend or someone that can manage the car logistics.

Other Bills: In general, make sure everything is on autopay! If you know how much you’ll be spending, you can have auto transfers go through to accounts, but I didn’t have an issue accessing my accounts abroad. I had to use a VPN a few times in countries like Mongolia and Vietnam.

How much did I budget and spend?

I budgeted $80k for my year off. Since my 2025 goals were mainly travel related, I didn’t want any limitations to not be able to do the trip that I wanted to. The budget included expenses for traveling and my mortgage, which split up into approximately $24k for home mortgage / insurance / etc, and $56k for travel expenses.

In 2025, I ended up spending $71k all in, approximately ~88% of my budget.

This may seem like a lot (or a little, depending on your perspective). Scroll down to “my itinerary” section to see how many things I did. Personally, I think I absolutely crushed it.

When you’re thinking about your budget, keep in mind the places that you are going and the way that you want to travel. For example, if you’re spending all your time in southeast Asia, your daily cost will be less than if you are heading to Europe and want to stay in a private room or 5 star hotel.

My top cost saving tools

E-Sim: If you don’t already know about the e-sims, you have been missing out! International data plans through your phone provider can be $10-$12 per day, so if you’re traveling a lot, that can add up! E-Sims through platforms like Airalo are ~$10 for 5GB (of course this depends on what country you travel to) and 30-days of access. You can save hundreds of dollars by doing this in advance of your trip!
Find hotel deals using booking.com or Hostelworld.
Book flights on Points! This was a HUGE one for me. I got over half my flights on points from my credit cards. I could spend hours talking about this… check out my blog on Gaming the System: Utilizing Credit Card Points for Travel (to be written, sorry team) for a full guide on how to do this.
Set flight alerts on google flights to find great deals.
Try to spend your time in one area of the world and avoid traveling back and forth (I did not do this, lol)
Stay flexible with your travel plans. You’d be surprised how many non-refundable cheap flights you’ll scrap if you plan too far in advance. Pay the extra $50 and make sure you want to go to a certain place. Plus you can get sweet deals on accommodation last minute! Of course plan in advance for popular destinations (i.e. Dolomites, Niseko skiing)
Open a Schwab debit card for zero ATM withdrawal fees
Similar to above, open a travel credit card for no foreign transaction fees (like the Chase Sapphire or the Capital One Venture X) - note these are my personal referral links, and I can get points back if you sign up for a card.
Travel light. Many airlines have strict bag fees for size and weight, and these can really add up. I used a variety of bags while traveling, depending on the activity, and my favorites were:
1. Osprey Ariel 60L backpacking bag (while motorcycling through Vietnam - perfect for strapping to the back of your vehicle!)
2. Gregory 30L hiking bag (for the Dolomites and carrying around Europe). Be careful with the frames of hiking bags though, because they’re hard to fit in the Ryan Air sizing bins
3. Patagonia 40L duffel bag (for my last Asia trip). The soft-sides for squishability and backpack straps made this a total winner. Plus it’s carry-on size approved.

My suggestions for anyone planning a year off

Set an 2-3 intentions for your time off
Save 20%+ more than you anticipate spending
Have a way to back out if you need
Try not to think about what’s next
Take advantage of every moment
Have an open mind and learn something new every day

Backcountry skiing, Colorado, April 2025

My itinerary

I split my year into 6 sections. I linked all relevant blogs below, but I am still working on writing some of them! Check back later for more content.

Daily Noodles - Asia part 1

Vietnam

6 weeks motorbiking through Vietnam from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi

Japan

Skiing in Sapporo at Niseko
Tokyo & Kyoto with friends
Biking across Setonaikai National Park: Onomichi to Matsuyama
Hiroshima & Miyajima
5 days in Kyushu

2. Ski Bum & Road Tripping

United States

San Diego & Santa Barbara: family & college rowing runion
Skiing in Banff: Sunshine & Lake Louise
Colorado Skiing - including an Everest day (>30k vertical feet) at Copper Mountain
2-week Desert National Park road trip (Canyonlands, Arches, Petrified National Forest, Mesa Verde)
- Backpacking Rainbow Bridge in Navajo Nation

3. Euro Trash

Portugal

Lisbon & Porto
A week in Madeira

Scotland & UK

Train from Edinburgh to London

Egypt

1 week scuba diving in the northern Red Sea from Hurghada

Croatia

10 days island hopping from Split to Dubrovnik

Slovenia

A week in Slovenia: Ljubljana, Lake Bled, Lake Bohinj, Triglavski National Park

Italy

Alta Via 2: 10-days from Brixen to Feltre (trip report & budget planning tips)
Lake Garda

4. Chasing Mountains and Bears (with a touch of rowing)

United States

Beach Sprints rowing camp in Long Beach at the US Olympic 2028 course!
Scuba dry suit scuba certification course
Katmai National Park in Alaska: camping guide & tips
4-day Alaska Roadtrip: from Anchorage to Seward, Kenai Fjords, Girdwood, Whittier, and more
Shenandoah National Park