vandatubes said:
Like what I am reading but how do you get this time off work?
Or do I need to retire asap?
regards
Simple - quit. Sure, you come back to nothing (job, place to live) and a bag full of clothes you forgot you had but after a year or so everything's back to the same old boring existence that made you want to go away in the fiirst place (I'm not missing it much, honest...).
It may seem like it at the time but giving up a job and mortgage/rented flat (in my case) isn't actually that much of a big deal...or it wasn't to me anyway, depends on your circumstances, obviously. That's all assuming there's no young dependents involved of course.
I was quite surprised to have people emailing me through my blog saying 'I wish I had the balls to do what you're doing but I have a nice job that I'm too scared to leave', the reality being that they could have probably done something similar twice over by now and gone back to the same (or similar) job that they're probably still sat in thinking 'I'd like to go for a big bike ride'.
I suppose I'm lucky in that I managed to come back and change my career, getting work in an area that I wasn't in before but wanted to be in, and never wanted to come back to the same/similar job. When it comes down to it, though, you just have to decide how you want to live your life - I decided to take the risk and quit everything to go away and I'm glad I did. I guess it could have gone the other way but, again depending on your circumstances and the experiences you have, it's hard to see how such an experience could not enrich your life in some way.