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Gap years are usually associated with the brink of adulthood. For those with the time and resources, taking several months to travel, volunteer, or simply relax is one way to reset before pursuing higher education or entering into the workplace. But some adults are breaking the mold by embarking on their own long-term adventures in the form of an adult gap year, also known as a career break. It can mean anything from a three- to six-month-long company-approved sabbatical to abandoning everything to hit the road for a year or longer.
Take Amber J. Adams, who, at the age of 34, quit her job at a documentary company in New York City. After spending extended time with family, she went backpacking for seven months around South America and Europe. She drank wine in Mendoza, Argentina; spent time at a slow living retreat in Portugal; and partially funded her trip through Workaway—a platform where travelers can find free accommodations and meals around the world in exchange for a few hours of work at hostels, hotels, farms, and more.
The details of who, when, where, and how vary widely when it comes to adult gap years, but the why is often some variation of a desire for freedom.
“I wanted to know what it would feel like to just be without any worries, without feeling like I needed to check my email or that someone’s going to call and want something from me,” says Adams.
And while the lure of freedom was a big draw, she says the benefits of her time off went much deeper: It allowed Adams the time and space to reflect on what she wanted for her life—and how to change it—once she was back in the U.S.
It’s a common sentiment in the career break community, and one that led Roshida Dowe, 41, to realize that she didn’t want to return to her old life as a Silicon Valley lawyer once her gap year ended. Instead, she now lives in Mexico City and runs a business offering one-on-one consultations to help people plan a gap year. Through her virtual event series Exodus Summit, she also does group coaching specifically for Black women who aspire to take a gap year, or even move abroad more permanently.
“It’s a chance to press reset on your life,” Dowe says of taking a career break, noting anecdotally that she sees a greater interest in doing so among women—men she has spoken to say they feel a pressure to continue earning money. “[It’s] a good opportunity to be with yourself without any outside influences and spend that time figuring out: If you could be anyone, anywhere in the world, who are you? Where are you? How do you spend your days?”
How to start planning a break
A fair amount of planning is required to pull off a successful adult gap year. According to Dowe, the work starts with addressing the most frequent concern for people considering a sabbatical: money.
“I always tell people to do the math,” Dowe says. “We often think we can’t do things because they cost too much, but we don’t actually know how much they cost.”
While a combination of factors—including last-minute planning, accommodation preferences, and moving around too quickly—left Dowe paying about $3,000 per month during her gap year, a friend of hers only spent $1,200 per month. Others spend even less, using resources like Workaway, Adams’s platform of choice, as well as similar websites like HelpX and WWOOF. House sitting through websites like TrustedHouseSitters is also a way to lower costs by taking care of someone’s home while they’re away on vacation.
After crunching those numbers, Dowe says picking a departure date is the most important step as it gives you a deadline to plan around—a plan that should include a strategy to pay off debt and boost your savings. To add another layer of accountability, Dowe recommends choosing a special date that won’t pass by quietly, like a birthday or anniversary.
Then comes the fun part of choosing where to explore—and the somewhat tedious part of researching tourist visas. For American travelers, most countries offer visa-free entry or visas upon arrival that typically allow for a three- to six-month stay depending on the destination.
“Our biggest hurdle when deciding to go was actually choosing a country,” says Tenaj Melendreras, 42, who used YouTube to document her gap year with her husband and teenaged son. “We really needed a country that met our needs in regards to affordability, length of visa, and, of course, beaches and warm weather.”
They eventually settled on Malaysia, where a luxury condo overlooking the beach cost them $500 per month, and a tourist visa lasted 90 days. Every three months, the family would go on “visa runs,” leaving the country for at least three days and then returning to reset the clock on their 90-day tourist visa. It’s a common tactic used by backpackers and some digital nomads, though Dowe doesn’t recommend relying on it—many countries actually forbid the practice.
Instead, Dowe suggests looking for countries with longer tourist visas like Georgia (12 months), Mexico (six months), or Panama (six months). And if that’s not enough, Dowe says it may be time to stop living in limbo and consider applying for residency. With the pandemic pushing so many countries to offer temporary residency through digital nomad visas, there are more options than ever before.
Yes, it's possible to bring the family
With many kids and teens having grown accustomed to online schooling this past year, the Melendreras family is an encouraging example for those who may want to continue remote learning as a way to travel post-pandemic. While abroad, their son, Daniel, who was 13 at the time, entered eighth grade as planned, but with an online school instead.
“We were able to enjoy travel, work, school, and experience it for our first time as a family,” says Tenaj’s husband, Faustino. “We hope that we were able to open [our son’s] mind up to the world beyond the borders of what he thinks and would see in the United States.”
Although Dowe and the Melendreras family did not return to their “old lives,” Adams is back in the U.S. and says that she’s proof that taking a break does not have to stunt your career growth. In fact, she’s in a better position than before her trip, crediting not only the resume-building experiences she had abroad thanks to volunteer opportunities she found through Workaway, but also the confidence she gained to pursue the kind of work she wanted upon her return. She now works as a senior director at a digital marketing company and prioritizes creating boundaries to maintain a healthier work-life balance. She also works remotely, and her post-pandemic plans include traveling while working.
Although each individual has their own set of factors to consider when it comes to taking a career break, the most important advice, according to Adams, is to take the leap.
“You have to just trust that you can figure out a way [because] you can’t plan for everything, but you can grow the belief that you can solve everything that comes your way,” she says.
For those who have the financial freedom and flexibility to make such a change, there's little reason to wait, says Dowe. “If you don’t love your job, why are you so worried about holding onto it? If you don’t love your life, why are you so worried about letting it go and building a new one?”