“The man who goes alone can start today: but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”
Having a dream is a beautiful thing. For many of us, that’s what keeps us going and makes life worth living. However, unless you take bold action upon your dreams, they simply won’t happen. Simply savoring your dreams is worthwhile in itself, but without consistent action, those dreams are just ardent wishes that may never come true.
Set Your Departure Date. To transition your dream into action, you’ve got to set a departure date. Since you now know your rough travel itinerary, including your preferred travel seasons and chronological order for your chosen locations, you can probably narrow your departure down to an approximate time of year. You also have an estimate of how long it will take for you to save enough money for your trip. Putting this information together, you have enough to figure out your departure time to within a two to three-month period.
Now it’s time to take a look at a calendar. Flip forward to the beginning of the time frame that you’ve determined. Look through all the calendar pages for this time period and choose a date from the mix. Maybe a big milestone like your birthday happens to fall into that time frame. You can also keep the choice simple by just selecting the first day of a month, the last day of a month, or any day in-between. Ultimately, the date can be anything that you want it to be, but you do have to settle on a single day from your calendar. Your dream doesn’t become real until you set a date, so let’s make it real.
Mark that date on your calendar to solidify your departure date in your mind. I find that wall calendars work best for making travel plans, since they allow you to easily visualize the time that you have to work with. It’s extra helpful if your calendar also has inspiring travel photos in it. You can circle your departure with a marker, put a sticker on the day, or pin a photo of one of your destinations to that date. If appropriate, while you’re at it, you can choose a date three to six months before then to purchase your departure airline tickets.
Create a Countdown Clock. Next, count how many days you have from today until the day of your departure and write that number down. Does that feel scary? It should start to feel real to you now, because the countdown to your trip departure has now officially begun! You can write that number on today’s date and then count the days down as you progress through the calendar. Another method is to get a large pad of sticky notes and simply write the number of days on the top of the pad. Each day, you can pull off the top sheet and write the new number of days left on the new top page of the pad. For example, if you start your count at 250 days, then the next day, you would tear off the top sheet and write 249 days on the top page of the sticky pad. However you choose to track it, it’s important to have a daily reminder that your dream is getting closer to coming true.
Post Your Inspirational Materials Prominently. Arrange your vision board, destination photos, and any other inspirational materials that you have next to your calendar and countdown pad. Put them all in a location where you are sure to see them every day (and preferably several times per day) so you have regular reminders of the amazing dream that you are actively working toward. These items will help you keep your excitement level up and your resolve strong while you prepare for your trip.
Share Your Plans Discreetly. At this point, you may be bursting at the seams to tell the whole world about your plans. Telling those closest to you is often a surefire way to share your excitement with others and to have accountability for your goals. Your personality and how confident and committed you are to your goals might all be factors in determining how you choose to proceed. I recommend that you start with telling your closest confidant and then take it from there. While telling your friends and loved ones of your plans does make it real, you also need to be careful to protect your dreams. Some people might not understand what you are doing and they might even try to talk you out of it. This is an issue that is often raised in travel circles, so it’s important to at least be aware that this could also happen to you. For this reason, it’s best in the early stages of preparation to share your news with those who you are confident will be supportive of your travel plans. As you build your tribe of supporters and your confidence builds, you can then branch out to others as desired.
Increase Your Perceived Value at Work. It’s also a good idea to keep your plans quiet at work in the beginning, especially if your departure date is more than six months away. My good friend, Bill, told his employer about his travel plans about six months before his departure and he ended up regretting it. He stopped receiving fun work assignments because everyone else figured that he already had one foot out the door. Instead, do what you can right now to start going the extra distance at work. Put a little extra effort into each of your assignments. Help your coworkers out with their responsibilities when you can with a cheerful smile. Be the kind of colleague that you yourself would enjoy working with. The goal is to be valued as much as possible by your employer as well as your coworkers in the months leading up to the time when you do break the news of your departure. Your bargaining position will be greatly improved and you may be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Make Your Departure Plan. My husband, Witt, and I only gave our employer one month notice of our departure when we were preparing for our career break to travel through Africa. We both worked for the same employer at the time and we had researched our company’s leave policy. The policy, as written, only allowed for up to three months off for personal reasons and we knew that wouldn’t be enough time for us to do the trip as we had planned it. We were committed to our trip and had decided that we were going to do it even if we had to quit our jobs, but we hoped for the best anyway.
We each gave our notice to our respective managers and what happened next blew us away. Our managers collaborated with our company’s human resources department and together they figured out a way to give us more than one year of leave from work. We couldn’t believe it! Not only could we do our trip as we’d planned it, but we would also be welcomed back into comparable positions in the company when we returned.
Maintain Good Relations with Your Employer. Regardless of your circumstances, it is important to exit work gracefully. You want to keep your future employment options as bright as possible. You may decide to return to work at your current employer, but you might not. Either way, leaving for your trip while on good terms with your employer can only help you later. Depending upon your situation, you might consider asking for letters of recommendation from your employer while you are still working there. This is also a good time to polish up your resumé in case you find a great opportunity while you are traveling.
We didn’t even bother to ask for leave from our employers when we were preparing for our career break for our Pan Am trip. We were planning to be away much longer this time and we didn’t feel right about asking for leave when we knew that we’d likely be away for at least one to one and a half years. In addition, I knew at the time that I was ready for a significant career change and making a clean break just seemed to make the most sense. Witt ultimately decided to do the same even though he loved his job and might’ve been happy returning there after his trip.
We’d learned from our earlier experiences that our priorities could significantly change while traveling. We knew that we had no way to know what we would want to do when (or if) we returned. So we decided to give ourselves more freedom this time around so we could follow our hearts wherever they led us.
It was definitely a riskier decision but we are really glad that we did it. When we returned from our travels, we were able to move to a new town and establish a different kind of lifestyle for ourselves. We wouldn’t have been able to do that as easily if we’d still felt tethered to our previous jobs. We made sure to save up a bit more money to help with our re-entry and so we would have an extra cushion to use while we got our bearings.
You can size up your situation now to consider what you might want to do. There really is no wrong answer, but you do need to have faith in yourself and your abilities. Trust in your capabilities. Know that you will figure it all out when it’s time to do so.
Stepping Boldly Forward