My Sabbatical » My Status

Is 2010 the Year of Nothing? Or the Year it All Comes Together?

Scott — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:05:54 +0000

Source: fainmen at flickr

Here I sit, in the middle of February, looking out at the year ahead. Our goal is still, as the blog tag line suggests, “six months in a warm locale.” We pretty much have the locale nailed down. The timing, however, is not looking good.

First September 2010. Then November 2010.

The latest date in our minds? Pushes it into 2011.

Like, next year.

Ugh.

Why so long? Well, part of it is practical. We want to spend winter in a warm locale – no sense spending summer there and coming back to Canada for the snow and cold weather. And winter in Canada is almost over now. So it’s next winter. And then we want to be here for Christmas and New Years, to be with our families instead of having to interrupt our vacation to come back, or worse, miss it. Plus May and June are lovely times in Spain. So the plan is early next year. January or February 2011, coming back in May or June.

So where does that leave us for 2010? No vacation. Working. Saving, getting things ready.

There are still decisions to be made. What is my wife going to do with her job of 20 years? What am I going to do with mine of 6? How do we take this break? Will they let us?

Those are not easy decisions. As with anything, having time is both a blessing and a curse. If we were leaving next month, the decision would be easier somehow, the decision might be different. With a year, we have time to plan and make things smoother. Time passes quickly (second week of February!) so it’s not as much as we think.

And so, there we are. 2010. Happy New Year! Gong Hai Fat Choi! Now get back to work, making 2011 happen.

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Annual Review: 2009 Was the Start of Something

Scott — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:41:58 +0000

Source: flydime at flickr

Feb 9 Update: I found that post I was looking for. Linked below as well.

I was inspired by Nora Dunn’s The Professional Hobo 2009 annual review to create one of my own. Of course, I did not lead as exciting a life as Nora did, since this blog basically started a year ago. So without further ado…

The blog launched in January, and by then I already knew I was taking some time off work in the spring. We had a number of friends and aquaintances pass away late in 2008 – a really odd cluster of several in a row looking back – and that led to the decision to change our lives, which led to this blog being launched.

In February, I was deep in the planning stages. Laying out a calendar, I had put city names in several spots, making sure we had enough time in each place and not too much time. We had made the decision to try to do a whole month in a single villa, and February was when we started making inquiries to various owners using a UK holiday web site. Bank drafts were sent to the landlords, and reservations were set in concrete.

March was a blur, the checks were received in the UK and Spain, and plans were finalized. Final plane tickets were secured. Car was rented. Oh yeah, we also sold our condo that month just as we were pulling it off the market.

We left for our trip at the end of April. A slight mix up on my part caused me to have a hotel reservation in Barcelona a night earlier than we actually arrived. No cancellations or changes allowed, so in effect we arrived in Spain a day before we actually did.

May was spent in Barcelona, Madrid, and Nerja. All three places had their charms. We loved Barcelona. What a magical city. And Nerja stole our heart with it’s quaint sea-side charms. Waking up with the view to the Mediterranean blew us away. We spent the final week of May in Portugal, another wonderful place. I’m running out of superlatives.

We started June off in Javea, a small city in Spain that’s closest to Ibiza. We enjoyed Ibiza, but not the boat ride. Flying next time. We really enjoyed Valencia, which is an up-and-coming city about 90 minutes drive from Javea. A recent picture of the week highlighted Valencia.

We came back down to real life, Toronto, in June as well. Back to work at the end of June. Starting on setting the next goal in life.

By July, I had made my mind up. “My goal is to spend six months a year in Spain. And six months a year here.” There it is in black and white. You can call that an epiphany I guess. We really want to do this. Or at least try it. My most popular post of the year also happened in July, “How Long Can You Stay in One Place“? Visas are always a thorny issue I guess.

In August, I thought I was on to something with my idea to get into the t-shirt business. There is big money in t-shirts, and people definitely buy them online. There are several popular sites now, including http://shirt.woot.com and http://threadless.com. Ultimately though, I didn’t have the passion to see it through. I still might come back to the idea of selling a product online, but for now, Your Mom Shirts is gonna have to wait a bit.

September had me thinking about money, and I posted a sample sabbatical budget for people to comment on. I appreciate all the thoughtful feedback that post received. I’m going to be doing a post like that again, as I work through my thoughts on how much money it takes, whether I should plan on having ANY income or just enjoy the time off, and issues like that. I recently saw an amazing blog post on it, and now I can’t find it. Ahhh, not even Google can help with that one.

Quite honestly, October and November were quite busy for me at work – late nights in the office. I couldn’t devote much time to the dream or the web site. I did get a few posts up, and so it was not a total disaster.

Finally, December has been a big month to reflect for me. Where I am going in 2010, where I have been, and most importantly, how.

Thank you to everyone who visits here, reads, comments, sends email, posts to twitter… Your contributions are invaluable to me. Please keep sending your feedback.

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Back from the Trip

Scott — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:37:17 +0000

Source: visualpanic at flickr

What a trip!

I spent all of May and most of June in Spain, and the trip left quite an impression on me. Where do I start?

First of all, time passes so quickly. I saw so much, and did a lot of travelling within Spain itself. Even two weeks in a relatively remote location went by in the blink of an eye. I could have used some more time there.

I didn’t miss home at all. I didn’t miss work, and I kept MORE in touch with my friends and family than I normally do at home. I would call my mom once a week just to tell her how I’m doing. I was updating my twitter and facebook daily, and had tons of comments from the dozens of pictures I uploaded for others to see.

I didn’t have as much free time as I had hoped. I expected to read a lot of books. I expected to come up with some business ideas and have time to implement them. I expected to have days where I was bored. None of that happened. While I did read some, and I did contemplate business some, I did not have a lot of time with nothing to do. Going to the beach is hard work.

I enjoyed the food immensely. The people were friendly. The weather was amazing. It wasn’t too busy. (I’m glad I went in May and not in August however.) The prices were not bad. I am sure I could have done this vacation a lot cheaper, and if I lived there I certainly would have to eat at home more. But I can’t say a bad thing about the experience.

I came back with a new focus, a new drive. I suddenly have a raison d’etre. I have a goal, and am laser-focused on achieving that. It feels real and doable.

My goal is to spend six months a year in Spain. And six months a year here.

I am convinced I can do that. Lots of people do.

Now, how am I going to do that? Still working on the plan.

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Closer and Closer

Scott — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:05:08 +0000

Source: trent_maynard at flickr

As the old TV show says, it’s takes different strokes to rule the world. My mom used to say, “Different strokes for different folks”. All a fancy way of saying we’re all different.

So when planning a vacation of more than just a couple of weeks, there are a couple of different ways to approach the task. You could simply make short term plans, hop on a plane, and take a “see as we go” approach. Or you could sit down and plan each week before you leave. And either way you’re taking a risk.

If you don’t put too much thought into anything beyond week one, you could be forced to take “what’s available” or “what’s convenient” and also end up paying more for not having as much choice available. Through proper research, you could potentially uncover some very nice places to visit and stay, but without that research find yourself sticking largely to the popular tourist spots and miss out.

There are advantages to this approach too, as you may not know what you want to do until you get there and get acquainted with an area. Maybe one week is not enough there and you’d like to spend two? Or maybe after the first week you’re tired of the place and can’t envision staying another week. And you won’t know that til you’re there. It’s nice having some flexibility because after all the point of it is to enjoy yourself and relax.

I guess in the end it comes down to personality types. I once saw an entire family in Santorini who had all their luggage with them, and two small kids, and watched as the father found them a hotel for the night. What if there is nothing available? What if there was truly no hotels with rooms to rent? My brain can not comprend a vacation where you don’t know where you’re sleeping that night until 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

But I don’t want to stick myself to a rigid schedule either. I have two months to travel, and one month of it will likely be in one spot. It’s hard deciding what that one spot should be, and how long is long enough. I might be dying of boredom and restlessness after 3 weeks. How do I play it by ear if that’s the case?

So much to think about. So much planning to do. But we’re defining zeroing in on the details. The dates are set, we have only 3 or 4 places to choose from. It’s likely we can’t go wrong with any of them. We’ll see!

Can’t wait!

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Welcome to My Sabbatical

Scott — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:53:52 +0000

Over the past few months, I’ve come to realize just how much humans are like trees. Well, some humans more than others I guess. If you stay in one place long enough, you develop roots. You find yourself tied to that spot by a house, a family, a job, and the comforts of life.

Moving from that spot becomes tough. Tougher as the years go by. You’re rooted.

Let’s say that you happen across the idea of trying something new. Of going away for a while, exploring far off countries, learning new things, meeting new people, living for a bit instead of simply “getting by”. That idea grows in your head slowly over time. You meet someone who took a 9 month vacation. And your desire to take such a trip grows. But how? HOW? That’s the big question, and for many there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer. It takes time for the way to show itself.

One day your spouse has a particularly stressful day at work, and you bring up the long vacation idea. “Let’s do it” she says with a gleem in her eye. “Really?”, you say, “Reallllllly?” “Yes!”

And then you have a bad day, and she does again. Someone your own age passes away. And you get another chance to ask, “Why am I spending the best years of my life, and the majority of my energy, doing THIS?” And you realize it’s just for money.

You’d be surprised at the number of people who decide the rat race is no longer for them. Far from being rich and independently wealthy, many people who travel and explore are just resourceful or have only a few thousand dollars saved up before they take their trip. If you’re planning on staying at $300 a night 5-star hotels in Rome, perhaps you will need a lot of money saved up to do this. But if you can rent an apartment for $750 a month instead, your money will go farther. How long can $5000 last in Europe? It can last only a week, or it can last for months depending on how you spend it.

This blog is about my sabbatical in particular. But it’s also about the process of deciding you have had enough, and the plans to take an extended break from your life “here” to go live over there for a while. It’s not only doable, it may even be easily doable. Depends on your attitude really. Doesn’t it?

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