 Travel Sabbaticals: It's Time To Re-Discover YOU—By Tara Russell Published: June, 2007  Tara Russell Have you ever dreamed of "taking time off" and wondered how to make it a reality? Travel writer extra- ordinaire Pico Iyer once said, "To travel is — to believe anew in many of the deeper qualities that get mislaid on the office desk." Perhaps now more so than ever, travel is essential to maintaining our balance and perspective in life. Our office desks are no longer stationary items that we can leave behind after 5pm. With the introduction of cell phones and PDAs, many of us are forever wired and always accessible from the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night. In an age when we are hearing more and more about work /life balance, it seems increasingly difficult to truly "unplug." Nonetheless, many people today are doing just that. Eschewing their daily routine and stepping out to travel for months or even years at a time, busy professionals are rediscovering life on their own terms and you can, too. Here are five tips for planning your next travel sabbatical. 1) Know Yourself Before making plans for a sabbatical, it is important to establish what exactly you want from your time off. Do you want to rekindle a sense of adventure? Need time for calm reflection or to rediscover your roots? For some people, the perfect sabbatical is river rafting and sky diving — for others, ten weeks spent in a hammock with nothing but a stack of books to occupy their time fits the bill. In order to have your experience be most beneficial to you, it is important to be clear on what you want before looking at where you might get it. 2) Reframe Yourself What if you could change your perspective completely and re-define who you are against a different geographical, cultural, emotional and spiritual backdrop? Hitting the road means stripping away a lot of the artifice of our daily habits and getting down to the marrow of what truly makes you, YOU. What if you could suddenly say, "I'm the amateur photographer living in Prague," "I'm the ESL teacher in China," or even "I'm the vagabonding backpacker with no itinerary whatsoever?" Work from the space of possibility that opens up when you give yourself permission to dream and redefine what you want your life to look like. 3) Recalibrate the Way you Look at Money When preparing for time on the road, it is often necessary to re-examine one's finances. Saving for a long-term travel experience doesn't need to be painful, however. Small changes in your everyday life can add up to big savings. Here are some strategies for helping pennies add up to Rupees (or Baht or Yen): | ||
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