It’s been underway for some time, but now I can make it official: I quit my job.
I’ve been called stupid because I quit my well-paying job right in the midst of a financial crisis, where jobs are scarce and as a graduate from 2009 (the lost generation) I should count my blessings for just having a job. On the other hand I have had a lot of people congratulate me for daring to go on this adventure – and there is an adventure underway.
I did not quit to end my current job (but of course that is a side effect), I quit to start a new phase of my life – a travelling phase. November 1. 2010 I’m going to leave Denmark to go travelling Asia with my husband. Not much is planned yet except the departure date, so if you know a place that we just have to see, please let us know in the comments of this blog.
We are hesitant to put an end date to this adventure, but just to be able to tell people something, we have said that this adventure will take a year. This could of course turn out to be 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years or whatever…
The last few months we have started to prepare this trip by giving notice to leave our rented apartment (we had to give a 3 months notice), I have quit my job, I have been going to doctors to make sure my nose will be fixed before we leave (it’s broken – long story), we put all our money in a travel fund and I have been researching places to go and sights to see.
I have arranged with my father that we can stay at his place from the date that we have to leave the apartment and until we leave the country, and our parents are going to store our furniture, while we are gone.
Along the way I will try to get some freelance work, either as a coder (I would love to do some Android, web or Java/C#-work), a photographer (learning something new every day) or as a blogger but if that doesn’t work out, I will start writing some e-books or tutorials and find some funding through advertising. I have also sold how-to videos before and if my nose get fixed I will consider making more.
Just writing this I get butterflies in my stomach – I can’t wait to start this adventure!
Bangkok by night - photo taken by Poul Foged
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Congratulations. You won’t regret it. You have your whole life to work, make money, etc. When you’re 80 you’ll have stories to tell. No one will care in 50 years that ” You wrote a blog post and had 200 page views in an hour” but everyone will be mesmerized when you tell them about the hidden gems you found during your travels.
Good luck.
Thank you Estelle! You are so right – the financial crisis was a wake up call for me, and I started thinking what I would do if I didn’t have my job. The answer was easy: travel. And now I’m doing it.
(BTW: I love your website/blog)
Congrats, that’s a very cool decision and daring.
I have plan to visit Myanmar in October, I think that is a visit worth.
Thank you Kristian – I will certainly look into visiting Myanmar!
Hi Therese,
I think its a fantastic choice you have taken, brave, and fantastic. I’m sure you will easily get another job when you get back, so no worries.
My advices is that you should go to Bangkok, without any extra clothes, and buy it all there, they have some markets, where jeans and t-shirts can be bought for a couple of dollars.
We went to Cambodia to see Angkor Watt a couple of years ago, that is highly recommendable. I even have a phone number of a very good tuctuc driver who will be happy to help you to find your way around, but I dont know if thats in your budget :).
Anyway we will be going to Vietnam and Laos in the spring, so if you are around “there” lets meet somewhere 😀
Hi Kim,
Packing for such a trip is very difficult and I agree with you that buying things in Bangkok could be a great strategy :-).
I would love to get a great contact for a trip to Angkor Watt – hopefully it will be in our budget (I certainly think so). And so will a trip to Vietnam and Laos – we would love to meet up somewhere!
amazing! Envy you already. Hope you will continue to blog+twit about it. I dream of doing something like this when the kids grow older.
@Peter Yes, we are very fortunate that we are in a phase in our lives where we do not have any responsibilities beyond ourselves. I promise that both my Twitter account and my blog will be full of my travel stories and photos, so those of you still waiting for the right time to travel, can follow our trip and find inspiration ;-).
U dont need a job to be a live and you can always get a new one 😉
Have a plesent journey 🙂
Congratulations on making this decision! More people should follow your example. Have a great adventure!
Thank you, Jakob and Tom!
Hi Therese,
What a fantastic choice you took. I think it’s great to take the chance and just travel around the world. Myself i’m very inspired by Tim Ferriss and his “4 hours your week”, which you actually are trying to realise with you decision. Respect 😉
Happy travelling.
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Thank you Christian! I am also reading a few things written by Tim Ferriss these days :-). He was not the source of our decision but some of the things he writes are very inspiring.
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