First off, I should probably give up a disclaimer. This isn’t a primer on how you should quit your job and travel the country, this is just how I’ve gone about doing it. Not everybody is at the point in their life where they can quit their job and become willfully homeless. Laura and I saved and scrapped together money for two years to get to this point. Also, not everybody wants to quit their job and travel the country. If this isn’t a priority in your life then you probably shouldn’t quit your job.
I couldn’t quit my job without a financial plan for my future. Two years ago I never would have been able to do this because I was broke, in the middle of a lease with wonderful roommates, and painfully unemployed. Then my car was stolen and had to be scrapped which made everything worse. I spent the last two years with my priority being to save as much as I could with my new job. I kept living like I was making half of my paycheck and over the course of two years earned two promotions without letting my monthly costs increase. So half of my paycheck went directly into my savings account; That money paid off student loans and kept growing while I didn’t even acknowledge that I had it. I have now saved up enough to live the same life I was living in the city for a year and a half, except now I have less monthly bills. No more rent, utilities, student loan, and home internet. Plus with being out of the city I won’t need $50 haircuts anymore because Laura bought scissors.
We’re also not spending the entire year without working. We’re already getting house-sitting and pet-sitting jobs, looking up farms to work on, and photo gigs for Laura. When we’re able to get internet there are many different sites where we can do remote work. There are also sites like coolworks.com where we can get connected with seasonal jobs.
Now to the actual quitting part. I was really nervous because I had no clue how people would react. It was hard to not tell all of my coworkers about my plan before I committed to a date. Once I picked a date I typed up a letter of resignation and printed it out. The entire morning leading up to the touchbase with my manager I was really nervous. I’ve only quit a few jobs, most of the time I get laid off (a lot!) so this isn’t something I’m used to. I handed her the piece of paper with my resignation and waited for her to read it. To my relief, she was completely cool with it. With an “I can’t fault you for wanting to travel while you’re young.”
Now the task was telling the rest of my team over the next two weeks. I had a bit of practice telling family and close friends about my crazy scheme to quit my job and travel with my girlfriend, but this was my team, I saw them every day. We played pranks on each other and gave each other ridiculous nicknames. We had potlucks or brought in doughnuts for even the smallest occasion, and were always asking each other where a document was located on the Google Drive. We know what their kid stuck up their nose last week or when their band’s next gig is. We’re a weird and semi-functional family from all sorts of different backgrounds.
There are a few different ways people react when you tell them you’re quitting your job to travel for a year. Most people were excited and jealous. This really surprised me because I feared everyone would think I’m nuts, but I got so much support from everybody that the entire process was way easier than I could have ever hoped. All of my nervousness and worries were for nothing.
I quit my job on good terms because I like the people I worked with and who knows where I’ll be in the next five years. My manager and other managers on my team all said that if I ever finish traveling I’m always welcomed back. My coworkers even threw me a potluck!
