Budgeting for Your Traveling Sabbatical
Every single person who has gone to the trouble of buying themselves a passport has done the same thing as soon as it arrived in the mail. They opened it up, checked the information to ensure that it was correct, and then they thumbed through all of the empty pages, dreaming of filling them up with stamps and Visas from all sorts of exotic countries. It took me five years of intense business travel to fill my first passport, but some people want to do it much more quickly. More and more Americans are discovering that they don’t have to take a year after college, or wait for their retirement years to travel abroad. Lots of companies offer their employees sabbaticals or unpaid furloughs from their jobs, to take a large chunk of time away for personal reasons. This is the perfect vehicle to use to make that dream trip a reality.
A woman named Sherry Ott and two of her business partners quit their middle-management jobs in New York and did exactly that. They also started a new business called "Briefcase to Backpack." This group offers seminars on how to practically take a "career break" to do some extended traveling abroad. Obviously I can’t reproduce their entire seminar here in one article, but I can publish a few highlights.
When it comes to budget, you can spend a little or you can spend a lot. There is an incredible range when it comes to the cost of travel. Sherry and her panel estimated that they spent between $1,500 and $2,700 per month for a calendar year away from their home in the U.S.A. That’s roughly $20,000 per year and it could easily climb higher if you were to move around a lot. When it comes to budgeting, you need to pick your destination carefully. Renting a villa in Florence, for example, is going to set you back a lot further (financially) than staying in a hostel with a community kitchen in South America or Asia.
Another option that a lot of travelers overlook is the "volunteer" option. Opportunities to help build housing, distribute food, and provide basic medical care services abound in many countries. Most of them offer housing and meals for a fairly low overall price, and they often throw in an opportunity or two to see the local sites. IdeaList.org is an excellent resource to use when looking for such an opportunity. I found one called "Peru’s Challenge" that offers a 6-week opportunity to help with children’s education. They offer some Spanish courses to get you started, housing, and a trek along the Inca Trail for around $2,000.
There are even ways to do some extended travel for almost no budget at all. Some people rent their house while they’re gone to finance their trip. Others take opportunities to work as paid employees. There are many opportunities to get hired as English teachers in Vietnam and other Asian countries if you’re able to stay for a full semester.
EXTRA: If you have questions for Ken regarding business travel, hotels, airplanes, etc, please send him a “Tweet” on his twitter account. You can also follow Ken on Twitter @foodbreeze!
