I’ve got confidence that my skills are in need and will continue to be in need when I get back. I’m sure yours are too.

I like this guys blog about travel http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/ but there are plenty of others. You shouldn’t need as much money as you’ve stated unless you spend all of your time in europe. . .

Matt

With my first (and last) engineering job out of school, I worked for a company that sold engineering equipment to Asia. I got to travel 12 times in 5 years, including several 3 week trips to Asia. Some of these countries were too expensive to visit as a tourist (Japan, Hong Kong) but I got employer to pay for it all, and plenty of time to see the sites. Had I been available, I could have had long term expat employment in Singapore, China, or Philippines.

In the current scary economy, don’t quit a day job! Instead, check out opportunities to work overseas for your existing your company, or others in your field. You might even get a raise for taking on unpopular assignments. If one year overseas is fun, 5 years is even better, right?

I made lifelong friends, gained incredible skills and experienced the Appalachian Mtns hiking from Georgia to Maine. You are obviously in good shape career-wise and sharp enough to figure out the next step once you return. Anyone who can travel extensively has the creativity to figure out how find work when they get back. And if a potential employeer doesn’t like it that you took off to travel for so long, would you want to work for them anyway? Doesn’t matter. You will be a changed person when you return. New goals, ambitions, experiences.
Please do it. We need more people in the world who don’t let fear of the “what-ifs” hold them back.

Paula

Some thoughts:
I had no problem getting a job when I came back, and my husband started his own business rather than looking for a job. This was possible because both of us had built up stellar credentials and lots of contacts before leaving. Something to ask people in your field: what could I achieve in the next couple years that would make everyone want to hire me when I come back?

We also made sure that we saved up enough ahead of time not only to fund the trip but also a very large cushion when we came back in case the job hunt hadn’t gone so well — I think we had enough saved to cover more than a year’s worth of expenses. That was the level we needed to really make us comfortable completely quitting our jobs and doing this thing that is considered so crazy in US culture.

I have to say that after months of traveling I was feeling rootless and ready to be home. Two things in our travels fought against this phenomenon: 1) schedule big blocks of open time, but also have some anchor points — e.g., we had to be in Oaxaca on a certain date to meet my father-in-law, we had to be in Austin on a certain data for a reunion, etc. 2) schedule some times that you will spend an extended amount of time in a single town, getting to know people and either learning something (a language, a skill, a spiritual practice) or volunteering. Others have noted that this makes your travels more explainable to future employers, but for me (and even more for my husband), being ONLY on vacation for a year straight actually has the potential to be soul-sucking and lonely. In contrast, the month we spent living with a family and going to language school was one of the highlights of our whole year off.

In summary — get really ready, then go for it!

Once you’ve proven that you are a direct desecendant of someone on the Rolls, you have to apply with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a Certiticate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB). That will have your blood degree, which you will need to give your tribe in order to gain membership. Some tribes have strict rules as to how much Indian blood you need to be a member.

I think you should try and get tribal membership if you can. You can recieve free health care, and some tribes even distribute gaming revenue among the membership (I mean, you get a check from the tribe). It just takes some time to fill out the paperwork, and the benefits are great. I’m a member of the Chickasaw tribe, and I take a great deal of comfort knowing that even if my husband lost his job and all his benefits, that the tribe would take care of us.

And even then, psychological differences between people mean that no one travel style is optimal for everyone. Some people find long trips exhausting and prefer shorter ones. Some people prefer to minimize the disruption to their day to day lives, whereas other people don’t mind it. Kyle says his dream is to travel for a year – shouldn’t he know what he wants better than we do?

Down the road, which would you regret more? Not following the opportunity of a lifetime or not being able to work for a year?

Some of the answers here are so entrenched in the American ‘live to work’ mindset – it’s depressing.

Thanks for all of the great insights and comments. I understand why Trent says the comment forum is what makes his website special.

@Johanna/Betsy – I would definitely use this trip to learn and not just lay on the beach. The things I want to learn would not be ‘professional’ related per se. I want to spend 6 weeks in spanish speaking nations to learn Spanish. I want to volunteer in less-developed countries for 2-3 day projects. But, I really just want to learn what makes different cultures tick.

@tom – Thanks for your advice. Do you think traveling will hurt my ‘work reputation’? Perhaps I can apply for grad school (MBA) and then defer for a year to travel. Would this be a better idea in your opinion?

@Kris – That is pretty much my current mindset in a nutshell.

@K – I like the work abroad idea quite a bit. I’ll look into that. I do, however, agree with Johanna later that I need a lot more time that 2-3 weeks per continent.

@Jared – I might have to pick your brain about your travels…what worked, what didn’t, etc. Want to grab lunch? Haha.

@Jessica – Health and Medical is a good point. I didn’t really think about that. Do you have any suggestions? Also, I’m not really concerned about getting ‘my old job’ back. I am flexible about where I live when I return and who I work for. I don’t ‘have’ to work at the same company. I know that my current position is not ‘my passion’, and hopefully I can find out what that is on part of this sojourn.

I don’t have particular advice, except I think his career can handle it. I too have an engineering degree, and while those who are fast tracking to management might get hurt by a year off, most people won’t. And what are you going to regret?

Advice for others still in college: DO STUDY ABROAD, even if you think you can’t afford it (you can!). You will never have such a perfect opportunity to travel and really experience another country.