
Why You Should Quit Your Job and Travel around the World - onreact-com
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/why-you-should-quit-your-job-and-travel-around-the-world/
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MicahWedemeyer
* "I like staying at home." - This is another way of saying, "I'm afraid of change and different experiences."*

Bullshit. I find travel very stressful, and none of it is due to fear of
change and different experiences. It comes from living out of a suitcase,
having to re-buy all the toiletries and crap I have at home but forgot to
bring, and being away from my wife and dogs who I enjoy spending time with.

Just remember: _don't like_ != _am afraid of_ I don't like buttermilk
biscuits. That doesn't mean I wake up sweating in the night screaming that
they're coming to get me.

~~~
minsight
I never found that buying forgotten toiletries and crap was a very stressful
experience.

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mtts
Meh. Travel is overrated. The chances of you actually learning anything of
substance by running around from one exotic country to another are very slim
indeed.

Staying in another country for a substantial amount of time, on the other
hand, is of course an entirely different matter but travelling for the sake of
travelling, while pleasurable in and of itself, does not teach you anything
you couldn't have learned from a brochure about the places you're visiting.

~~~
dylanz
Double Meh. Traveling is definitely overrated. Nonconformity != Traveling. The
perks of travelling just to "see" new places is novel, but gets old fast. If
you've travelled a lot, you get to see the hoards of backpackers and tourists
that swarm to the usual (and usual unusual) destinations, and it starts to get
lame, fast.

And I'd agree mtts that you don't "learn" much about just visiting a country.
Sure, you may "see" what a town or city is like, but you're just reading the
cover, not the book.

I moved to New Zealand just for the heck of it with my family, and lived there
for almost 3 years. Everyone that visits there gives the same 'ol schpiel...
"Oh, it's so beautiful there. It's where the Lord of the Rings was filmed!
It's the greenest place I've ever been, and is so environmentally friendly".
Everytime I heard that, I could only let out a hugh sigh. They visited and
didn't "learn" anything. New Zealand dust crops their entire countryside with
poison (1080, which is illegal in the US) quite often, and is "not" very
environmentally progressive. Their marketing department, however, is quite
progressive!

~~~
antipaganda
New Zealand not environmentally progressive? Oh come on. Who else spends so
much money to protect a stupid parrot that lives on the ground and can't
fight?

~~~
movix
Is it fightless or flightless?

~~~
mahmud
it's a pacifist pedestrian parrot.

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Tichy
Doesn't really say why, or does it?

I am not a big traveler, so I am probably wrong, but in a way, traveling seems
kind of passive to me. Sure, you get to see lots of things, but seeing (and
learning) is passive. How am I going to change the world doing that? I would
need some kind of spin to it, like at least being a successful travel writer
or something. Otherwise, what are the USEFUL experiences to make?

Would be great if some travelers could share what useful experiences they
made?

Although one thing in the article made me think: I'd really like to visit
Sillicon Valley, experiencing the culture there might actually be useful to
me.

~~~
phicou
For US citizens, Peace Corps is one way to meet both of those goals. For
people from other countries, there are similar organizations in many
countries, and some that accept volunteers from almost anywhere (such as VSO
and UN Volunteers).

Volunteers spend a long time in their host country, and really get to see
things in depth (not just the tourist view).

Volunteers also get a chance to "change the world". Usually not in a
particularly grand way, but a little education and inspiration can have a lot
of ripple effects.

Of course, being based overseas, and having a fair amount of vacation time,
volunteers also have opportunities to visit other interesting places and
countries near their host sites.

Getting a reasonable living allowance and government-sponsored benefits
sweetens the deal, but of course it doesn't offer nearly as much freedom as
simply quitting your job and hopping on a plane.

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Tichy
That is not traveling in my book, though - it is staying abroad. I have no
problems with working in another country.

I certainly agree that it is worthwhile to experience another culture at least
once. I am not so sure about more than once, though.

~~~
potatolicious
IMHO "staying abroad" is the _best_ form of traveling. You're not going to be
steeped into the cultures of others until you live amongst them. Staying at
the Hyatt and visiting all the mandatory sights by tour bus is probably the
_worst_ and least rewarding traveling experience money can buy.

In college my internships took me all across Canada, staying in each place 4
months at a time. All of those experiences have been invaluable to me, and
taught me far more than any sort of vacation I've ever taken.

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raamdev
I have plans in place to do exactly this beginning of next year. But let me
clarify: I plan to backpack, living on the bare minimum and traveling mostly
by foot and train and using a plane only when absolutely necessary (like when
I visit my parents).

It's possible to travel and live in many countries around the world for
<$300USD a month -- at least that's what I've gathered from my initial
research. I don't have a family to support or a girlfriend so once I quite my
job I'll be quite free of responsibilities.

How will I pay for it? Well, the little on-the-side web hosting company I
started 5 years ago, which I haven't put any effort into growing, is already
close to providing me enough monthly income to live comfortably in many third-
world countries.

But I won't be a tourist. I want spend anywhere from 3 - 12 months in an area,
learning the culture, the language, the local customs, and meeting and making
new friends. I want share my knowledge (mostly technical) and use my skills
(technical and carpentry) to help the community where I can. Since I enjoy
writing, I plan to maintain a blog about my experiences with the hope that it
will help others gain new insights and see that the world is a much bigger
place than the 1500sq mile box that most of us live in.

Why? Because I just feel it's what I need to do next in my life to continue
growing. I've been living in the same area (Northeastern United States,
Boston, MA area) for the past 27 years. Science has proven that the best way
to stimulate new growth in the brain is to expose it to new and unfamiliar
things. My brain is entering the age where many brains begin to settle into a
rut... and it feels like my brain is beginning to atrophy.

~~~
mattm
Definitely go for it.

FYI, my monthly expenses while living in a city outside Shanghai was about
$400 per month. I think $300 would be pushing it in a lot of places. I would
budget $500 just to be safe and to not have to restrict your lifestyle that
much.

~~~
raamdev
Thanks!

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mattmaroon
His fiscal argument, that we could afford it if we reshuffled our priorities
to buy fewer iPods and more plane tickets, is wrong because buying iPods
doesn't require us to quit our job.

~~~
jasonkester
No. Buying fewer iPods _allows_ you to quit your job.

If you live like a college student for just a few years after leaving college
(keep the shit car, live in a cheap studio, don't buy stuff you can't afford)
you'll soon find you've got $50,000 sitting in the bank. I mean look at it,
they're giving you $5,000 every week now to work at this job, when they used
to be _charging_ you money to go to school. If you can't find the willpower to
save a few pennies at that point, there's something seriously amiss.

Anyway, you'll find that your tolerance for a crap job goes _way_ down when
you have $50k sitting around and no car payments or mortgage. Spending $10k of
it hitching across Africa for a year starts to seem like a good idea.

So yes, by reshuffling our fiscal priorities, we can definitely make travel
more doable. I know this because I've done it.

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conorh
I did this recently. Just got back last month. I quit my job and went
traveling for over 7 months, through South America, across by freighter to
South Africa, and by land up through Africa to Egypt.

It was the best experience of my life.

I was hugely nervous about doing it, but it was something I had always thought
about doing. Naively I didn't expect to learn much, just that I'd have an
interesting time, but I ended up learning a lot about myself (on top of
everything that I learned about the countries I traveled through.) Long term
travel gives you the luxury of distance and time to think clearly, something
you do not have very often in life. On returning I've readjusted my priorities
and I think I know better now what _really_ makes me happy. I hope that
everyone gets a chance to do something like this. It is a luxury (although it
really doesn't cost as much as you'd think), but an amazing one that is well
worth it.

I also have some excellent stories :) Let me tell you about the desert in
North Sudan...

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jamesjyu
Wow, this guy has a pretty aggressive modal popup that promotes his other
articles: <http://img.skitch.com/20090902-kcw6ah5sr6mkpk786ny6sq95d.jpg>

Appears when you scroll down past the article to the comments area.

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oink
_“I don’t have money to travel.”

Fair enough if it’s true, but for many people who say this, it would be better
to say, “I’ve chosen to spend money on a lot of other things, so now I don’t
have money to travel.”_

Shall we never forget the lovely Victorian ethic that the poor have only
themselves to blame.

~~~
cubix
I don't see how this Victorian ethic applies. He's not talking about the poor,
but rather those who have "chosen to spend money on a lot of other things",
i.e. the middle-class.

~~~
elcron
He assumes you make more than $2 a day. <http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/you-
are-incredibly-rich/>

~~~
run4yourlives
And given his audience is probably 80% American, he'd be right.

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zaph0d
The question is not about "Why" but about "How". How would I get the money to
travel around the world exactly?

~~~
dagw
By prioritising it higher than any other non-essential cost you have. I know
people who have saved up for 6 month round the world trips while working in
various menial low paying jobs. The question is, like for most things, is how
badly do you want it.

Of course it helps if you don't have a family to support.

~~~
jdrock
..or I could work hard, get my startup to exit, and travel as much as I want
for the many years in life afterward. Why does travel have to be done when I'm
in my 20s/30s/etc.?

~~~
skolor
It doesn't, but it depends on what you want out of life. If you want to have a
successful business, traveling all the time isn't for you. If you want to see
the world though, putting it off until later isn't going to help you any. The
longer you put of traveling, the less you'll be able to do, and the more
entrenched you will be in your work.

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djb_hackernews
I quit my great developer job in January to be a ski bum in Wyoming. I just
got back from West Africa. It will be worth it if I don't end up living out of
my car. Timing.

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idlewords
That site nags for your email address with a modal full-page overlay, so you
can receive more of these 'insights'. Avoid.

~~~
vicaya
That's what noscript is for.

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antidaily
I know someone doing this. He worked for a software company in SF and quit a
year ago. He's been an extra in a bollywood film, stayed with monks in some
temple, volunteered at an orphanage outside of Kathmandu, etc. His pics and
stories show up on facebook every couple weeks. For the record, he has no idea
what he's going to do for money when he gets back. But maybe he won't come
back.

~~~
Ixiaus
Money is overrated, it is pretty easy to survive in the world. Consider that
coming from a western country, you have command over the English language, an
education more than half the world doesn't have, and a passport.

60% of the people the world alone would kill just to have your passport.

That's awesome your friend is doing that, I traveled through India myself.
Money is easy.

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intellectronica
Another option is getting a job (or inventing one) where you get to travel a
lot. Traveling as a tourist can often feel uncomfortable and give you a wrong
sense of the places you visit. Traveling in order to collaborate with people
is a more complete experience, and you don't have to put life on hold to do
it.

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zyb09
Doesn't really sound like fun. What exactly am I supposed to do at theses
places? Yay, I'm sitting alone in my hotel room in Shanghai, now what? Walk
around mindlessly and take a look at the surroundings? Gets boring fast I
guess. Go into a bar and try to talk to strangers in english? Hmmm.. don't
know, maybe I am too uncreative for that.

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dkasper
I guess I agree minus the quit your job part. Why not travel around the world
several times a year without quitting your job? Or wait until you're between
jobs anyway. Unless you have a crappy job you want to quit anyway, I see
little reason to quit a job in order to travel.

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anonymousDan
One problem with traveling he fails to address is the interruption to your
career. What if leaving your job for a while means you miss promotion
opportunities? What if by the time you get back someone else has picked up on
your startup idea?

~~~
dannyr
If interruption to your career is important to you, don't take a vacation at
all. Spend all your time working so you'll get ahead and get promotion.

I used to worry about my career a lot and I ended up burning out easily.
Traveling for me was a good way to take a break and get a new perspective on
things.

I take a few months off to travel every 2-3 years and then I get re-energized
and ready to get back to work.

Yes, when you travel, your career will be interrupted. But what is the trade
off? For me, it was experiencing other cultures. Being in unfamiliar places
took me out of my element and I believe has made me tougher. Adjusting to
different social environments is not easy.

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Guatejon
This guy has an interesting take on travel.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrV68KIbg0&feature=PlayL...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrV68KIbg0&feature=PlayList&p=9F5CBC529DCEF31E&index=1)

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zupatol
So any reason for staying at home is a lie?

Many people get a sense of purpose from doing things that are done more easily
by staying in one place: write a book, build a house, educate yourself, create
a company, raise children, withdraw from society...

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jdbeast00
i think the main excuse I use to not travel is that I have a very stable job
currently (federal govt). Its a risk that I would have to accept that when I
return I would have difficulty finding employment.

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known
I prefer to live and work for at-least 6 months instead of continuous travel.
This way I can empathize with local culture, socio-economical and political
conditions.

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cturner
I think you should get a job that pays to send you around the world. Has
worked for me, YMMV.

