Have you ever fantasized about leaving your job and your life behind, packing up a bag, and embarking on the adventure of a lifetime? I know I do all the time. Well, Someone over on Quora asked, “What is it like to quit your job and travel the world?” Here’s what people said.
1. “My wife and I have been on the road for seven months. We quit our jobs last June, sold everything, and packed our stuff into two big backpacks. We walked about 1000 kilometers in China and 700 kilometers in Vietnam so far, and we will travel mostly on foot in the next few years…”
2. “In short, it is heaven, and it’s also hell. I never thought traveling the world would be as hard as it was. Quitting my job, giving up on my career, and facing uncertainties was way easier than expected. Back then I was so frustrated that I wanted to know what life has to offer. I had a good job and a very decent salary. It didn’t make me happy. But it helped me to save enough money to make a dream come true. The journey itself was heaven. I lived in a flow-like state for a year. Coming back home was quite the opposite. I felt like a stranger in my own country…”
“…Everything was so familiar, yet I did not feel any connection to my environment. I was an alien in my own country. This was not the end of it. Things became even more challenging. Although I began feeling ‘at home’ again after a few months, I was still trying to understand how my journey shaped me. From an outsider’s standpoint, I explored some countries and cultures. But for me, it turned out to be a journey to find myself. It took me years to integrate this lesson.”
3. “’Alex, someone has taken a shit on the floor. Can you go clean it up please.’ Call me crazy, but this was the moment I knew it was time to leave my bartending job behind. Sure, bartending was fun. It was easy to slip some vodka into a glass of soda water and act like you weren’t drunk at work. And the odd phone number on a coaster was always appreciated. But when your boss hands you a mop and points you to an actual pile of shit on the floor, that’s when you know. So I quit. I’d saved a few thousand dollars over the previous months and I had nowhere to go and no one to answer to. I did something I encourage you all to do at least once in your life: I bought a one-way ticket to a place I’d never been and I just let life happen…”
4. “By the time I was in my final year at university, I was exhausted from running the rat race. I still remember my six-year-old self under pressure to be at the top of the class. And it never stopped. Board exams. Joint Entrance Examinations. University exams. College placements. I wasn’t running away from hard work, but I hated the fact that life was all about grades rather than knowledge and salary rather than job satisfaction. So, I decided not to apply for any job. I knew if I got a job, it would be immensely difficult to quit. I knew I would be swayed away by the baits of promotions, comfort, and predictable income…So I quit my job before I got one. I still don’t have a college degree…”
“I’m traveling full-time and visit home only to meet my family and get visas. I always wanted to travel slowly so traveling isn’t all about ticking off the touristy attractions of a place from an itinerary prepared by travel agents. I immerse myself in its culture and local life when I spend 20–60 days at a place. I rent a room, get a scooter, and make local friends. I feel a part of the community. I feel I’m no longer being seen as an outsider. I feel accepted. I feel connected. This would have never been possible with a regular job. I’m never in a hurry to return home. Living this lifestyle, I feel every place I visit is a home…
I never run out of exciting places to see. As I can choose where I want to spend my time, I pick the ones most appealing and gain a new perspective. People say travel broadens your outlook towards the world and people. And it isn’t easy to know until you see the world from a different perspective. Sometimes you get surprised by the differences in cultures and sometimes you are amazed by the similarities….You are surprised by how some stereotypes of places its people are shattered and how some of them are strengthened.
For me, traveling is always more about the experiences than the destination. Despite being an unmatched brilliance, the Taj Mahal doesn’t evoke any emotion in me. However, I have sentiments attached to diving and exploring the magnificent underwater world of corals and sea creatures, biking through the clouds in the mountains, braving heavy rains, getting high on local drinks, losing my way in the forest, and many other experiences (some of which I won’t mention publicly).
Finally, traveling is all about the people. ‘Happiness is only real when shared.’ A good company can lighten up even a wrong place. I’ve met people from around the world and made many friends. I made a friend in Chiang Mai, and I met her again in Kuala Lumpur. I have friends all over the world.
Ultimately, ‘I took the road less traveled, and that has made all the difference.'”
5. “The night before my 24th birthday, I decided to do something I always wanted to do. I hated my corporate job. My favorite way to pass time at work used to be updating an Excel file containing my tentative itinerary to travel the whole country of India. It used to be my only source of entertainment amidst the mind-numbing, monotonous routine. Three days after my birthday, I put in my papers. My boss was more confused than angry. Those few days, while I served my notice period, were awesome. Surprisingly, my body aches vanished. I got my voracious appetite back. My parents came to terms with the idea of me traveling alone. And then I left Mumbai…”
6. “In 2017, I was 21 and working for a very informal company in San Diego. I wouldn’t say I liked it, but I needed the money. I saved for a while. One night, one of my best friends sent me a screenshot of plane tickets to Iceland and persuaded me to have a trip this summer with some other friends, and magically, without thinking about it, I said, ‘screw it, yes, I’m in.’ We went to Iceland, which was not a common destination for vacations then. After that, we flew to Switzerland and visited the most popular cities. Amazing country. It is beautiful, peaceful, and well-organized…:
“…After that, we went to Paris. It was like a dream. Meeting a place you have only seen in a lot of movies, seeing the Mona Lisa, Eiffel Tower, etc. Our last city was Amsterdam, a very chill place. I bonded a lot with my friends in there. We had a lot of fun in Dam Square at night. A very pretty downtown! After that trip, I returned to Mexico with not too much money but many memories. I met new people, made stronger friendships, and started to meet a new person, me, based on the experiences I had. Changing money for memories is the best investment, and now I understand it. If I have the money again, I will do it one more time. Traveling while young with your friends is the best experience you could ever have.”
7. “This past April, I quit my job at Dell, crammed some stuff into a backpack, and went to Southeast Asia (and a few other places) for about six weeks. It was not exactly ‘traveling the world,’ as we only went to a few countries, but it was more of a backpacker/adventure travel experience than I had ever had. (Last month, I made another two-and-a-half-week trip with a backpack to Australia and New Zealand, which has gotten much less scary since then). The trip was much more modest than others described on this thread, so I won’t act like it was some kind of transformative experience or anything. That said, I did learn a few things…”
8. “I was 28, single, had a high-paying job and a new mortgage. I was also running out of time. If I didn’t move quickly (before I turned 30), I’d lose out on the working holiday visa opportunity forever. Then, the guilt kicked in. By 30, I should have had a good job, a house, a wife, and kids…During that time, I learned a valuable life lesson: There is nothing scarier than settling for a life that is less than the one you can live. I had a well-paying, respectable job that didn’t light me up. I had a mortgage. And I felt trapped. I realized that staying in my comfort zone was not comfortable at all. So I asked myself, ‘How might I make this work?'”…
“…First, I researched where I might move and got excited at the possibilities. Then I nervously asked my company for a transfer overseas, and surprisingly, I got it. I explained my decision to my dad, and he said something that has always remained with me…’ Son, go now while you can. Don’t have regrets like I have now when you’re my age.’ With his encouragement, I booked a one-way ticket to Toronto. A month before my departure, I put my house on the market and found a tenant to cover my mortgage repayments. I felt liberated by deciding to chase my dreams and listen to what ‘I’ wanted.
Ten months later, I was on a flight to Toronto. Over the next two years, I made wonderful lifelong friendships, traveled to places I never knew existed, flash-mobbed, free-hugged, and hitchhiked across Canada, became an entrepreneur, and grew in more ways than I thought possible. Now, I’m on a mission to empower creativity, freedom, and connection so we can make a positive difference in the world. So, if you’re debating whether to chase a dream and follow an opportunity right in front of you, ask yourself: Are you settling for a life that is less than the one you have the chance to live? If yes, how does that sit with you?”
9. “It was exhilarating, exciting, exhausting, educating, confusing, boring, frightening, and humbling (not necessarily in that order). You will see things in a new light. When you return, things that were ‘big problems’ before you left will seem petty and insignificant. You will have to confront your preconceived notions about people and places. You will learn a lot about other cultures and yourself. It’s one of the best things you can do. I wish more people would do it. Then the world wouldn’t be so full of hate and bigotry.”
10. “I just resigned for the third time in the last ten years to travel. I’m going to rewind to 2012 when I’d visited around four countries. I had been working for the last few years with the same company in multiple roles, getting a good steady income, but I knew I was young, hungry, and passionate to see more than my little city in England. I come from an Indian background, and it’s unusual in our culture to leave a good job to ‘travel.’ I know in my family it’s almost unheard of…”
11. “Perhaps the single greatest feeling in my life came on the first day of my first (of three) ‘quit your job and backpack the world for months’ trips. My friend and I had arrived on one-way tickets to London the night before. It was a beautiful day, and we were sitting in St. James Park, trying to decide what to do. And not just what to do that day but what to do in the coming weeks and months. It was exhilarating. With no plans, we were just throwing out ideas: let’s go to Marrakech; they say Prague is beautiful; can we get above the Arctic Circle? Could we take the Trans-Siberian railroad? We did all those things, and I saw and experienced things that changed (and I think improved) me forever…”
“But to be honest, none of those topped that incredible feeling of freedom we had that morning of infinite potential. I don’t believe there is any other way to get that feeling than to commit to a step-into-the-void, open-ended, I’ll-know-where-I’m-going-when-I-get-there adventure fully. One of the worst feelings I’ve ever had has happened to me on all three of my multi-month trips. And each time I felt it, I knew it was time to go home. It is the flip side of the freedom coin. The first time I was in Shanghai—seven months into my trip—walking to the train station.
Suddenly, I became acutely aware that everyone hustling along that sidewalk was going somewhere or doing something that mattered. Except for me. They were going to work. To meet friends. To see the doctor. To play soccer. Whatever. I felt rootless, decadent, and parasitic, spending my days, weeks, and months wandering through museums and temples. I could not wait to get back to work, relationships, family, and permanence. I don’t believe there’s any other way to appreciate the importance of purpose and community than to consciously cut those ties and float free of them for a while.”
12. “Deciding to quit my secure and reliable job in the finance industry to travel the world was one of the most exhilarating feelings I’ve ever experienced. The scariest part of it all was realizing and deciding that this was what I needed to do. My journey is not exactly typical, but it proves you can figure things out along the way…”
13. “I quit my job to travel, and it was the most rewarding experience ever. On so many levels, I tested myself, challenged my prejudice, met new people, discovered new cultures, and (kind of) learned about myself too. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s the truth. I can’t recommend it enough. I always knew the rat race wasn’t for me, and my travel experience confirmed it to me…”
14. “It was fun but stupid. I got away with it for a few reasons: I was in my mid-20s when a flaky ‘pursue your passions!’ attitude was tolerated in the young; I came from a privileged background so mom and dad could bail me out if need be; The economy was still pretty good, and I was practically assured I’d get a decent job when I re-entered the workforce; and finally, I was healthy as a horse and didn’t really ‘need’ health insurance…”
“I flitted about Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Canada, parts of Central America, and the interior of Mexico, and also jotted all over places in America that I wanted to see. The ‘rents did have to bail me out financially a few times. I don’t know what I would have done without the family money. I settled down at age 28, got serious about my career, and limited my travel to the vacation time I’d earned. It might seem more limiting, but it’s great, knowing that I have an apartment, a job, and a paycheck to come home to!”
15. “I quit Microsoft, got an around-the-world ticket, and went on a solo nine-month, 13-country trip. It was the best thing I’ve done. I’m back to working for Microsoft, but the experience opened my eyes to many things…”
Have you quit a job or left something comfortable behind to travel the world? Do you have any regrets? Tell us about your experience in the comments or in this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
