We all know all of these inspiring travel quotes and shareable images scattered across social media screaming:
“Quit your job and go backpacking!”
“Dear Sirs, I QUIT and GO TRAVELLING!! Sincerely, ….”
“SCREW YOUR JOB, BUY A TICKET, GET A TAN, FALL IN LOVE, NEVER RETURN”
“Life is too short to work. Go traveling and never look back.”
They are all brave, inspiring and make us think that the lives we have are boring, pointless and so miserable. Why? Because instead of sipping beer at one of the Thai beaches, we are enslaved by 9-5 jobs we are not even happy with. Because instead of enjoying the sun somewhere remote, we get stuck in the office feeling pressured and stressed.
The thing is that ….
- you don’t have to quit your job to travel the world!
- you don’t have to give up on your career to see places you always wanted to explore!
- you don’t have to say goodbye to your work colleagues to sip beer at the beach and get your tan!
You just have to find the right team to work with, a company that provides travel opportunities and make sure you keep developing yourself. A work place where you feel like working every day, where you fit and can work remotely from any place you like.
That’s all you need…
My story
Over 1,5 year ago I moved to Amsterdam. Eager to learn more things and develop myself further, I was finally ready to start my Master’s Degree at University of Amsterdam and stay in one place for longer than 3-5 months. Nobody could actually believe it. Me, a digital nomad and wanderlust girl, who managed to combine full-time job with long-term travels in the past, was going to settle down in one place to study and get this boring and miserable 9-5 job. INSANE! It scared the hell out of me, but at the same time it was a challenge that I wanted to take and experience.
During my studies I was offered a fantastic opportunity to work with Poki. They are a cross-platform game publisher offering easily accessible and free web game experience on mobile and desktop. I should actually say “We”, not “They” as I’ve been a part of Poki’s Marketing and PR team for nearly 9 months!
I’m mentioning Poki here not for promotional purposes. It is just an example of the company that:
✓ was truly flexible with my working hours during my demanding master’s course and traveling
✓ offered a chance to build my career while still traveling and exploring the world
✓ gave me the opportunity to work with talented and self-motivated people who always cheer me on my travels
✓ take me to different tropical places from where we can work and travel!
This is what happens when your bosses love traveling themselves. They will always find the way to create a great working environment and provide endless travel opportunities for their team.
It can sound crazy and unbelievable, but Poki is taking us to Thailand on a company retreat for over 3 weeks followed by a week of pleasure and fun! Sebastiaan, one of Poki’s co-founders, has recently published a blog post where he explains the whole concept of Company Retreats on a Tropical Island and How Poki Makes it Work!
Why quitting your job to travel might be your biggest mistake?
Money, money, money – must be funny
The first thing to be considered is the money. None of these “quit your job and travel the world” images and stories actually tell you how and where you should get the money from. Unless you have impressive savings on your account, rich parents or mountains of cash under your mattress, quitting your job might be simply mindless.
If you have a wealth base that generates enough passive income to last indeterminately, that’s excellent, the airport is in that direction. If not, feeling financially unstable can ruin your perfect vagabond trip.
Yes, you can become a travel blogger and make money (trust me, I was there and taking my blog to a level where I could earn some money from it while traveling takes a lot of time and effort) and yes, you can work as a freelance or teach English, but … are you skilled enough to do it? Are you a good writer, teacher, designer? Are you capable of working online and combine it with constant travels? If not, think twice before you get too excited about quitting your job to travel the world.
Value of your life
Just because you hate your job isn’t really a good enough reason to spend the next years wearing your backpack and float from airport to airport. If you think of traveling as a way to escape from the life you are not happy about, change your lifestyle! Find a new job, join the right team and then travel. Stop running away and make chances that are best for you. What if the life of a nomad is not for you?
If I could find my happiness at Poki and still manage to travel, you can definitely do that as well.
Career
A big thumb up, you quit your job and you are traveling the world. But where do you see yourself in 5 years assuming that you hated your job but you still enjoy what you were doing? You hated working in a bank, but you are still passionate about accountancy (hello Cez) or you disliked marketing company you used to work for but marketing is still your thing.
It may happen that having a big gap in your career, just because you hated your job and went traveling, may effect your future enormously. Imagine you chance your life and decide to get back home – 5 years older with a gap experience in your field, but tones of memories from your travels. Would you get hired quick enough? Would you be able to work with the dream team again?
Solutions
Quitting your job to travel the world can be the most inspiring and brave decision. It can be also the stupidest one. Regret of your life? Could be.
But life is all about balancing adventures and reality. Incorporate adventures into your daily life. Live a life of freedom, travel and endless adventures while having a permanent home-base. How?
✓ Start exploring local areas and do something fun each week that will make you appreciate the place where you are living at
✓ Use your weekends wisely – fly to countries next to you and take advantages of long weekends to explore the world
✓ Plan big trips each year that will charge your travel batteries for few months
✓ Negotiate for more vacation time with your boss
✓ Join Poki or any similar company that will allow you to travel a lot and work online!
So, do you have enough money to quit your job to travel the world; what are your expectations? How about career? Are you ready to take such brave step? If so, take the leap. If not, maybe give it a second thought!
Your turn, guys. What do you think about quitting your job to travel the world? Is it inspiring and brave or maybe mindless and stupid?
46 thoughts on “Why Quitting Your Job To Travel The World Might Be Your Biggest Mistake”
Well written! I think there is too much of this mainstream narrative started with Quitting your job to travel the world. What I hate most about it is blaming hard workers 9-17 as if this was the worst what can happen to you in your life. There is so much more on traveling than this overrated slogan. I deeply appreciate your sincerity. Keep going!
That’s true, Agata. I’m glad you pointed it out.
What a great and realistic article!! It is so important to incorporate those trics in our daily lives in order our tyravel-soul does not to feel stuck in a place :)
Greetings from Greece!!
http://www.livealittle.gr
Thanks, Debbie.
i am really appriciate to you all but let me know all details about thats,and how I partici paiate.
Thank you very much
Regards
Tariq
Italy
Thanks for this. A positive, practical look at travelling, but with clarity and a refreshing down to earth-ness. It’s SO true that the mindless ‘let’s quit everything and fly!’ mentality are often from ‘ego’ = ‘make myself look better as I’m more adventurous by travelling around the world in comparison to xyz lifestyle”. Travel can be great BUT it doesn’t neccessarily mean you are more ‘adventurous’ than the next – it may mean you are more selfish or less responsible or that you just have the resources temporarily that others may not!
An ‘adventurous Life’ is one that is independent, that stand sup for its own individuality regardless of how others may see it from the outside. It’s one that creates something meaningful to that individual which also benefits the rest of society.
Let’s face it, Life itself is often the scariest ‘adventure’ for many without even stepping off the road.
The perception of freedom is internal and we create it from this space. You can feel free at home surrounded by dogs and meditating or ‘trapped’ ‘trying’ to be adventurous and travelling solo in Cuba or working abroad in Canaries- believe me I speak from experience. Many who travel, yes are doing so with the confidence money inherited brings, or are young and are doing it with the support of family and/or friends at home taking care of their animals or dependents? This is not freedom to me? This is how majority of society usually operates when it doesn’t wish to be independent and take responsibility singly.
I was about to quit my job for the same reason. Thanks for saving my life. No one ever told me such a thing.
“Unless you have impressive savings on your account, rich parents or mountains of cash under your mattress”. What you said isn’t really true…I’ve read several travel blogs that traveled without a job. They weren’t rich. You don’t have to be rich to travel.
Thanks for sharing your opinion, Samantha! :)
Well, i got nice reference link for some peoples around me who always scream “I want to quit the job and go for vacationssssss” ;)
Thanks