I quit my job to travel for a year. Here are 5 things I'd do differently.

Maria Laposata quit her job and traveled around the world with her husband for a year — there are a few things she'd do differently.

Provided by Maria Laposata

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• Maria Laposata quit her job and traveled around the world with her husband for a year.
• Looking back, there are things she would do differently.
• She would have bought a different type of backpack and better budgeted their return home.

I retired at 29. Well, sort of. I took a "mini-retirement" — sometimes called an "adult gap year" — and traveled around the world with my husband, Nick.

To say the trip was life-changing feels cliché, but that's exactly what it was. I stood 15 feet from rhinos during a safari in Zimbabwe; I took a pizza-making class in Naples; I learned to haggle like a pro in Morocco. I accepted uncomfortable truths about myself that made me a more compassionate partner to my husband.

I also made plenty of mistakes along the way. The trip was sometimes exhausting; we navigated a lengthy medical drama, and I missed a big opportunity to rethink how it would impact my career going forward.

If I had to redo our trip, here are the five things I'd do differently.

1. Planning like long-term travelers, not vacationersTrying to do too much during her trip left Laposata feeling exhausted.

Provided by Maria Laposata

I'm a planner at heart. So, of course, I made a robust plan for our trip around the world.

I forgot one important thing: weekends.

It had never occurred to me how important they were. Once a week, for nearly our whole lives to date, we had slowed down for two days. But throughout our trip — not wanting to "waste" any days on the road — I had planned a new adventure for every weekend.

The result? A month into our trip, we were whooped. So, we changed gears. We added "buffer days" to each city we visited so we had time to rest.

We also sought advice from fellow travelers who'd already been where we were heading next. That firsthand knowledge was instrumental.

We said yes to the sights and experiences that would be meaningful to us and no to everything else.

2. Picking the right gearHer husband helped carry all of the bags after she sprained her back.

Provided by Maria Laposata

The worst thing that happened during our trip was spraining my back. I was in pain for months, and on the worst days, I could hardly move.

The sprain was also preventable. In short, I bought the wrong backpack.

Though my husband, an experienced mountaineer, cautioned me to buy a backpack with good back support, I had other thoughts — primarily about pockets, organization, and "anti-theft" features.

I learned the hard way that long-term travel is rough on your body. The only thing I look for now in a travel backpack is great back support.

3. Planning a "last hurrah"The couple flew to the Caribbean for a "last hurrah."

Provided by Maria Laposata

At the end of our trip, after visiting over 70 cities in 22 countries, Nick and I were in Buenos Aires, spending most of our time on our job search.

We had agreed to return home as soon as one of us landed a job. It wasn't until we were nearing offers that I realized how empty that idea felt. "We'd just go home, and that would be it?"

We needed closure — something to give our trip a sense of finality. So, we spontaneously flew to the Caribbean for a "last hurrah." If I could redo this, I would have planned for this in advance, picking a grand adventure to close out our trip.

4. Budgeting for our return homeThe

Provided by Maria Laposata

We budgeted meticulously for our trip and tracked our spending daily, ultimately staying very close to our forecasted travel spend.

We set a $75,000 budget for the trip, covering everything back home that had to be paid while we were away — things like our Netflix subscription and the storage unit we rented.

At the end of the trip, I realized I had overlooked one massive expense: the cost of returning home.

Putting a deposit down on a new apartment, paying the first month's rent, hiring movers to get our stuff out of storage, and restocking groceries added up.

We should have set aside a budget for those expenses. Instead, we ate into savings we hadn't planned to touch.

5. Rethinking my next stepsThe trip inspired her to start her own travel company.

Provided by Maria Laposata

I knew I had changed because of our trip, but I had no idea how much.

Then I started work. Back in the same demanding environment, the scope of my personal evolution suddenly became clear, as did my mistake.

Fueled by fears that my career break had made me unemployable, I focused my job search on roles where I felt I could make the strongest pitch for my candidacy. In other words, I sought out jobs similar to the one I'd left. I never took the time to consider if I might want to do something different.

If I could do this over, I would have asked myself why I was on autopilot, returning to my old life. Instead, it took getting laid off years later to convince me to try something new.

Only then did I return to the idea I'd first considered during our trip: building Travelries, my own travel company.

After a year of travel, I can confidently say that taking the plunge comes with its fair share of exhausting moments, disasters, and regrets. It also brings an ever-ballooning sense of pride for having done it — for taking the big trip. That's something I would never want to change.

Do you have a story about taking a gap year that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: [email protected].

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