[quote=kev374]My situation, no debts, mortgages, loans or any other commitments, single, no kids.
Work in IT (Sr. Java) with a decade+ of experience. Got laid off 2 wks ago in a brand new job I started, was there just for a month and the company had financial troubles from decreasing revenues..hmm.
Thinking of taking a year off, 6 months traveling middle east/africa/s.e. asia and 6 months in spanish language school as i’ve always wanted to work on my spanish to gain fluency.
Do have savings to tide me over when I get back.[/quote]
I see no downside.
I have a friend who was burnt out at her job and had no mortgage, etc. She arranged to be part of the next layoff – and then spent a year travel/volunteering before picking up her new career. She started with an intensive spanish course in Madrid – then saw a bit more of Europe, then started the volunteering part of her year… South America. She arranged to volunteer for schools/food banks, etc in exchange for accomodations at host families. When she finished that portion she headed to Australia and New Zealand.
It worked for her to stretch her budget AND have more interaction with locals to do the volunteer/host family thing. Her typical volunteer commitments were pretty low hours – allowing her lots of time to explore the area in depth.
