Many people have asked or wondered – why are you taking time off without pay to take this crazy trip? We could have taken a 2 week vacation and might have been further ahead in many ways. Well…here was/is our thinking:

1. Saves Money!

Traveling on a Round The World (RTW) ticket is actually much cheaper than visiting your top 5 places in 5 consecutive years. Here is an example:

-We have always wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand.
-A round trip ticket to Sydney is generally around $1,200.
-If you want to see a lot of Australia and New Zealand, you have to buy additional in country flights. These can often be a few hundred dollars per city/stop.
By the time you do that you at talking about $2,000 – $2,500 or more per person!
At this point you are approaching 40-50% of a RTW ticket in just one trip!

2. Cultural Comparisons

We had not thought about this prior to the trip, but it has been one of the highlights! On a daily basis you get to experience new cultures and compare/contrast. When you visit just one spot, you experience that culture versus your own only (or what you remember from other trips years/months ago). While this is great, we could compare many cultures in a short time span!

It is awesome to have a small understanding of many cultures and countries when you hear media reports on a country. Maybe the report is 100% correct or maybe not…but once you have some insights, you can now draw conclusions.

3. Visit A Spot That Makes No Economic Sense

You can visit a lot of places that sound interesting but don’t seem worth a full vacation. We wouldn’t have wanted to pay a fortune to visit Easter Island, but when you can essentially stop for no added cost why wouldn’t you stop?!?

4. Jet Lag!

When you travel around the world, you generally don’t switch more than 4-5 hours at a time. Unlike most Americans we felt great on our first day in Australia vs acting like zombies!

You also save a lot of in transit days vs. taking several individual vacations. For example, visiting Hong Kong cost us a 2 hour flight. Flying from home would likely burn up to 2 vacation days to fly there and back.

5. Better Understanding of Those Visiting America

After living outside of the US for almost three months, we now have a better understanding of what it is like to be far away from home. Those that were unexpectedly kind to us will never be forgotten. We will go out of our way to help those who look lost while traveling even more than before!

6. Personal Reflection/Time to Relax

We all know that it takes about two weeks of work (in one week) to prepare for a one week vacation. Once you make it over that hump, it is nice to have longer than a week to decompress. We have been on 24/7 since we started grad school in 2010. It was nice to be most worried about our next blog post or whether the next chef truly deserved two Michelin stars…you know…the huge worries of life!

We also took the opportunity to read multiple books recommended to us over the last three years!

7. Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)

You only live once. How many times have you heard people say “I always wanted to go to X, but now I am too old, I am too scared to go, etc.”?

Taking such trips is expensive (we don’t argue that), but if you have the financial means and potential flexibility (as we fortunately did!) – why not? If there is something you really want to do (it doesn’t need to be traveling), put the goal on paper and ask anyone you know that can help make it happen! We are forever grateful to our management for giving us the opportunity to pursue this awesome experience!!

Plus….we don’t think our money comes along with us once we die!

If anyone has questions on our crazy journey or would like tips/help, let us know! Just leave a comment on this post, and we will respond via email privately.