Why a Sabbatical was the Big Step of My 20s -

At some point during my sabbatical planning, I was having dinner at my parents’ and my mom finally got it. We had actually let the conversation shift away from my travel plans for once, but suddenly she looked up and said to me, “This trip is like your baby.”

My mother spent decades as a childbirth teacher. Everything comes down to pregnancy, birth, and babies with her. She’s always known that I have no desire for children myself and been completely understanding of that. But my wanderlust was a harder ticket to sell to an anxious woman without her own experience or desire to travel.

I have deep roots in Virginia. I lived in Charlottesville (with brief exceptions for college and study abroad) my whole life. My mother’s lived there her whole life. Her mother practically died on the same hilltop where she’d been born. My mom’s first time outside the United States was to visit me during my semester in England. If not for that, she probably still wouldn’t have a passport. With that kind of background, wanting to leave home just isn’t an easy thing to wrap her brain around.

I don’t know what it was that finally clicked in her mind that night. It certainly wasn’t anything I said. I had been focusing more on the what and the how than the why. But she was right: travel was my next big step, the major life event of my 20s. It’s where I put all my money, my time, and my energy.

I could have been working to buy a house instead. My sabbatical budget wasn’t terribly far off the average down payment at the time. But a year of travel wasn’t going to tie me to a mortgage for 30 years and there wouldn’t be any maintenance issues to fret over.

I could have gone to grad school. That amount of money might have covered tuition… or I might have wound up saddled with student loans for a degree I might not use.

I could have gotten married. My eventual wedding many years later cost only about $5,000 more than my sabbatical. But at 25, I couldn’t imagine spending that kind of money on just one day, when I could have 365 days of travel instead.

Long-term budget travel was less expensive and more valuable to me than any other major life event I could have chosen to pursue in my 20s. Instead of burdening myself with debt, I learned to manage my finances and got to enjoy incredible, unique adventures for an entire year.

Instead of pouring my energy into maintaining a house or a marriage that early in my life, I felt like I could make the most of my youth and freedom. I got all the memories from a life-changing experience without a lifelong commitment that I was barely old enough to make.

There are many ways I’m privileged, and a lot of people will never be able to embark on this kind of trip. But anyone who can justify spending thousands of dollars on a house, a degree, or a wedding needn’t ask me how I afford to travel. Taking a sabbatical was my baby. The life step of my 20s. And with it, I was able to work on myself in ways I don’t think I could have done otherwise.

Maybe you’re facing a crossroads in life. But you don’t have to be. Your reasons for taking a sabbatical to travel the world can be as simple as “I want to.” As clear-cut as “This is just what’s right for me now.”

The commitment you would put towards buying a house or getting a degree can be directed to your other goals in life. But you need to have that commitment to make them happen.