A Sabbatical

In 2025, my wife and I were in the fortunate position to be able to take a long sabbatical. We were both burned out from our jobs and decided to take 6 months off to travel around the world. We knew that our life would look a lot different in the coming years with responsibilities beyond our two cats and career goals that might not leave room for pause so we both quit our jobs, packed up in onebag, and got on a plane

Around the World in 180 Days

Three months felt short; one year felt too long. We settled on six months. From there, we broke up those 6 months into 26 weeks and planned for approximately 1 country per week. We started with the countries we’ve always wanted to go to and the experiences we always wanted to have: hiking Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru, beholding the grandeur of the Pyramids in Egypt, absorbing the peaceful chaos of India. After some deliberation (and a healthy dose of flexibility while on the road), our route ended up looking like this:

sabbatical-map.png

Logistically, we planned our next stops while on the road anywhere from a month to a week in advance. It was much easier to be spontaneous in Europe while any major flights like between Argentina <> UK and Egypt <> India were booked as soon as possible. While we would have saved a decent chunk of money had we planned the whole thing in advance, that would have undercut our desire to wander within the bounds of our general plan.

I think that it was this free spirit that led us into serendipitous moments on our trip. For example, we wanted to visit Dharamsala because it’s the home of the Dalai Lama. Based on his public schedule however, we knew that we wouldn’t be able to attend any of his teachings or ceremonies, soo we just picked approximate dates for when we were gonna be there. After a couple days of exploring Dharamsal, a random morning meditation we went to ended with, “…and don’t forget that we won’t be meeting tomorrow because we’ll all be at the Dalai Lama’s long life ceremony!”. We were ecstatic upon learning that we would indeed be able to see the Dalai Lama in person.

We also happened to be in Dharamsala during the Dharamsala International Film Festival which was hosted at a Tibetan Children’s Village which was an awesome experience. Needless to say, Dharamsala was one of our favorite places in the world. Some other serendipitous timing included arriving at Machu Picchu on a sunny day, exploring Patagonia during the off-season and feeling like we were the only ones in the park, arriving in Munich a couple days before Oktoberfest, and really only getting heavily rained on once throughout our 6 months.

Often, we’d come across news about riots or civil unrest in cities we’d visited just days prior. Throughout our trip, there was an undeniable sense that the world was slightly more on edge. Civil unrest in Nepal, conflict in the Middle East, tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, and severe flooding in central Vietnam all shaped our route, leading us to skip destinations we’d otherwise had strongly considered.

While we were never in any real danger, the threats felt tangible. Days after leaving Munich, we read about a bomb threat at Oktoberfest, reinforcing the idea that our timing was full of good fortune. The bomb threat was thankfully unfounded; while we were never in any real danger, the risks felt tangible. The world, it seemed, was becoming a harder place to navigate as a tourist without a healthy dose of luck.

Highlights

inca-trail.jpg patagonia.jpg nice-france.jpg morocco.jpg oktoberfest.jpg egypt.jpg diff.jpg meditation-room.jpg

Tea Time

We’re back home now and the trip was great. We were definitely getting exhausted towards the end and longed for the familiarity of our own bed and shower. There were some things we missed and other things we wish we had done, but all the more to inspire and fuel our next travel adventures.

For now, after some deep meditation and a healthy dose of boredom, I think we’ve become tea people. There’s just so much tea and tea culture in the world: coca tea, mate, high tea, maghrebi tea, masala chai, butter tea, milk tea, oolong tea, each embedded with its own culture and history. While we brought back the habit of drinking tea, we can only hope that the stories and new perspectives we’ve experienced continue to steep.

Some Numbers

I like numbers, here are some numbers:

PS: We visited my grandfather in Korea as well. He told me to write a book on my travels. I don’t think I have the knack for writing, but I do think there will be some things that I want to write about like the gear we took, logistics we found complicated, and maybe a compilation of the food we ate. I’ll definitely be continuing to edit the footage that I took along the way, though that’s been slower than I would have liked.