Think You Can’t Quit Your Job to Travel? Here’s How Three Women Did It

When facing yet another tirade by your boss, seasonal depression, or a grey abyss of cubicles, it’s hard not to find yourself fantasizing about leaving it all behind to travel. For me the decision came when I realized the office fire drill was the most exciting thing to have happened to me all week. My co-workers were clearly thrilled to be out in the fresh air and away from the fluorescent lights. I thought to myself, “I cannot live this life,” so I applied to graduate school abroad and six months later I was living in Budapest.

While fantasizing about the vineyards of Provence or the beaches of Brazil may get you through a day of Excel spreadsheets and your office mate reheating fish in the shared microwave, for too many women, travel remains just that, a fantasy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Plenty of people, including myself, have taken the leap to travel the world. No, I didn’t inherit money or win the lottery to do it, and neither did these three kick ass ladies I was lucky enough to chat with. Let’s take a look at some of the excuses you might be giving yourself for why you can’t travel.

1) I Can’t Afford It

Maybe you can’t afford to travel right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t afford to travel period. Very rarely will the perfect opportunity land in your lap. Making this life change requires planning, persistence, thinking outside of the box, and saving up money.

You don’t have to save up enough money for a year of travels and then set off on the open road. There are plenty of ways to make an income while you travel, or even build a career around your experiences. I got funding to come to graduate school in Europe. Afterwards, I decided to turn down a job offer in the US and stay in Budapest. I made it work by starting a career as a freelance writer, something that at one point seemed impossible, but necessity forced me to make work.

If the written word isn’t for you, you still have plenty of options. Many people elect to become English as a second language teachers. This is a great option if you love helping people and plan to stay in one place long term. When Tuula, blogger at Belle Provence Travels, decided to quit her steady job at a university and move to Rome in her 30s, she started working as an English teacher. There are plenty of ways to get certified as an ESL language teacher, but there are also a few ways to teach without a certification. For one, you can make up to $35 an hour teaching English online to kids.

I know I said golden opportunities rarely fall in your lap, but for Michelle, an experience creator for Remote Year, that’s exactly what happened. After a stranger commented on one of her pictures on Instagram, she checked out his profile and found he was looking for someone to work on his yacht while he sailed around Croatia. At first she was trepidatious, but after checking references and doing lots of research she took the plunge into her dream life and jumped on board. Afterwards, she found she just wasn’t ready to go back to the US, so she started teaching yoga in Indonesia and eventually got a remote gig planning events for Remote Year, an organization that helps people travel while they work.

Starr, who runs the blog Black Girl in Budapest, didn’t even need to change her career when she decided to travel. Because so many companies are learning about the benefits of a remote workplace—including employee satisfaction and lower overhead costs—she continued her career with a company back in the US.

Want to travel and still afford to eat? Michelle recommends staying humble, seizing every opportunity, and working your personal network. Check out which companies and NGOs offer remote work places. Get certified as a yoga instructor or English teacher. Take a course on copywriting or grant writing. If you’re a people person, start offering unique walking tours in your city. Get a scholarship or a loan for graduate school. Search for a fellowship. Or if you love your job, convince your boss you can work remotely.

2) Traveling Will Be Bad for My Career

If you plan on returning to a 9-5 after traveling, don’t assume that your travels will be bad for your career. Traveling teaches you how to plan ahead, stay flexible, and take calculated risks. It also helps to develop intercultural communication skills, creative problem solving, and cultural sensitivity. If you come back from your travels fluent in a new language, that’s a major bonus. Keeping a travel blog can also show off your social media prowess, writing expertise, and ability to cultivate an audience. With a little thought you can translate your time traveling into a killer cover letter.

But don’t assume that you’ll want to return to the office life after your time abroad. Now that I’ve tasted sweet freedom, I can’t imagine working for someone else. Michelle shares the feeling that traveling and working abroad has changed her perspective. She no longer feels the social pressure to climb the ladder. Instead, she pursues her passions:

“I can hardly remember what I was like back when I was working 70 hour weeks in tech and stuck in what I call the American dream hamster wheel. I know I was stressed out, anxious and not really living my life for me. I think the biggest shift has been mental: I now realize after family, friends and health, not too much is worth stressing over. Losing an attachment to possessions, identities and societal pressures equals ultimate liberation… I’m also a lot tanner and stronger from surfing all the time, that has certainly been a welcomed side effect!”

Your career goals don’t have to change though. Back in the US, Tuula was managing a department at a university. Now she manages a language school for adult learners in the South of France while blogging about her life in Provence. 

3) It Will Be Lonely

Ok, this one is unavoidable. You will be get lonely. You will miss birthdays and holidays and major life milestones. Some friends you will even fall out of touch with. But loneliness isn’t such a bad thing. Hear me out.

I got lonely while traveling. I even spent one month entirely alone while doing research in Poland. I had a lot of time to think about myself, my life, and what I wanted. In the stillness, a lot of things became clear to me and I ended up making some major changes in my life. I also learned to be my own source of entertainment and best friend.

Through my self love journey, I discovered new passions, cleared up my acne, and lost 20 pounds without consciously trying. Eventually, I even made the decision to stop taking antidepressants. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t hellishly painful at times, but falling in love with myself and my life was certainly worth the challenges.

Tuula also thinks loneliness was the biggest challenge when moving abroad. She recommends checking out language schools as a way to connect to other expats. Attending a women’s circle, heading to yoga classes, joining expat communities on Facebook, checking out pub crawls, volunteering with an NGO, joining a workspace, and yes, even Tinder, are other great ways to create a community when you move abroad.

Outside Your Comfort Zone…

We’ve all heard the cliches, “The bigger the risk the greater the reward,” ”Outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens,” but these aren’t just lame inspirational posters, they’re actually true. Tuula agrees, “If you ever want to get out of your comfort zone and learn what you’re really capable of, the best thing you can do is pack your bags and hit the road.”

Getting outside of my comfort zone forced me to look at my life and career in a new way, which opened up opportunities I had never realized were there. Tuula actually met the love of her life at a party. Now they’re married and living together in the South of France. Michelle is actively traveling the world while working for an inspiring company and Starr is blogging about travel and working remotely while preparing for the birth of her first child with her Hungarian husband.  

You deserve the life you’ve been fantasizing about and much more. If these ladies can make it work, so can you! So what’s stopping you from taking the plunge?