5 reasons to leave your job and travel around the world

Have you ever considered leaving your job, jacking it all in and heading off on a round-the-world-trip? Then what are you still doing sat at your desk in front of your computer screen!

It’s time to make some changes and take a few risks in life. There’ll always be at least one reason you can think of to NOT hand in your notice, pack your bags and see where your spirit takes you. Leaving a job in order to go traveling is a really difficult decision for many people to take because it’s in many ways completely irrational and goes directly against conventional thought and lifestyle ideals.

“I’m going to leave my job and go traveling,” is normally received with frightened exclamations such as, “But what will you do for money?”; “What happens if you get back and you can’t find work?”; “What will you do with your things and your flat?”; Rarely do friends and family respond with, “Wow! Yeah! Great! Go for it!” and so the inspired long-term-traveling-wannabe closes the window on his or her computer screen, puts the travel guides back in the draw and signs up for another month at the local gym. It’s a sad, sad story, but one which has the potential to reach a much happier ending with a lots and lots of courage.

Here’s five reasons to help you find the courage and the faith that you so desperately seek…

1.Refresh, recharge and gain perspective: Long-term travel is the perfect remedy for stress. It’s the best way of recharging your batteries and gaining a little perspective on life. Leaving your job, taking some real time out and traveling to new places will give you the space you need to view your life objectively.Your experience might reveal to you a hidden love for a particular kind of physical activity that you hadn’t tried before. It might also inspire you to study something new. Many people discover a change of career from taking time out to travel. All these changes could end up being some of the most positive changes that you make in your life.

2.Learn, appreciate and live consciously: Travel allows you to see other people, places and cultures with your own eyes. Relying on information that you come across in the media and on the perspectives of others is dangerous. It’s always best to experience how a country and its people/politics operate first-hand. Travel will also help you to see how your own country is truly perceived around the world. You will be able to consider the decisions made by the people who control your country and watch how those decisions affect others in other parts of the world in real time. Travel is all about living consciously and generating a conscious aware of the world as a whole. This consciousness is priceless.

3.Teach others: In a similar way, long-term travel gives you the time you need on other countries to start sharing the truth about your people and your culture. You can use the opportunity to put myths about your traditions, or the way in which your country works, to rest.

For example, I’m a Londoner and I can safely say that we’re not “cold” as many people from other cultures seem to believe. We might be quieter than most on public transport, we might keep ourselves to ourselves and we might find displays of public affection a little much a times, but we’re certainly not “cold”. In fact, I always find it important to set the record straight when it comes to the differences between Londoners and Brits. I may be British, but I don’t know as much about the British as I do about Londoners. I was born in London and lived there for 27 years. London is definitely something that I know a lot about. Britain is a place full of different cities and regional quirks. I enjoy speaking with people from other countries and highlighting the differences between the Londoner and the Brit, because to me they’re certainly not the same

It’s also really positive when returning home after long-term travel and being able to educate friends and family about what you’ve seen and experienced. Your first-hand experiences can help others who don’t have the opportunities to travel to question preconceived ideas that may have been put into their heads by media coverage and hearsay.

4.Twelve months is nothing: Many people fear leaving their jobs because they worry about not be able to find another one. The problem is that nothing is forever anyway. Nothing can be promised to you for certain. What’s to say that one day in the future you won’t be made redundant? It’s important to live for the here and now in life. The future is far too unstable.

Take a look at the 2013 statistics posted about global life expectancy posted by the Central Intelligence Agency. Out of 223 countries listed, the worst case scenario is a life expectancy of 49.07 years. At the other end of the scale, 89.63 is the best average life expectancy and happens to be in Monaco.

Any way you look at it, twelve months in the duration of a lifetime, long or short, is nothing. Whether you live for 49.07 or 89.63 years, doing the same thing day in, day out, leaving your job and taking time out for a year or two isn’t going to affect your life’s progress or detain you in your “goals” in any way. 

5.Why not?: Travel is fun, enlightening, invigorating, educational, character-building, humbling, entertaining, the list is endless, so why shouldn’t you just leave your job, pack up your bags and travel around the world for a while!