I quit a job to travel for the rest of the year
See you in 2026, America.
Before I tell you the whole story: I published a podcast episode where, back in April, I asked Decision Coach Nell Wulfhart: Should I quit my job to travel? Spoiler alert: I did!
Listen to this episode to hear us discuss: What kind of questions do people use decision coaches for? Should I quit my job even if it's super scary? Am I financially safe to do so? And what do I actually want my one precious life to look like?
Don’t miss Nell’s newsletter and podcast, too!
I’m writing to you from Spain. A trip a year and a half in the making (at least) is finally happening. On Sunday, I start hiking the full Camino Norte — more than 500 miles (about 15 miles a day with a lot of elevation gains) along Spain’s gorgeous northern coast in about 47 days (the route is 37 days, and I’m building in time to rest and sightsee). Then I plan to spend November in Guatemala, and December in Mexico City.
I want to walk. I want to learn Spanish. I want to connect with my ancestors and my dead loved ones. I want to be alone.
I started hiking solo during the early days of the pandemic, when I spent three months in Las Vegas. I’d wake at 5am to drive to Red Rocks and hike alone before the heat set in. I loved it. Then I went on a solo road trip to a bunch of National Parks in the fall of 2020, and I loved that.
Once I moved to Austin, I didn’t really find my backcountry boyfriend like I hoped I would (that’s more of a Denver thing). I discovered Austin’s not really a hiking city at all, unless you want to walk mediocre trails with leaf blowers blaring in the background. I did make it camping in Big Bend a couple of times, but I mostly settled on walking around Lady Bird Lake hundreds of times, which was pretty good!
Still, I wanted hiking to be a bigger part of my life. I told myself I would take my first backpacking trip by the time I turned 35. I’m 37 now, and it never happened.
Yes, this is a grief walk. My brother died nine months ago. I fucking miss him.
I had planned to spend a month in El Salvador (where my paternal family is originally from) in February ’25, but then my brother passed away over Thanksgiving weekend in 2024, and my world tilted, and frayed. I decided to stay home and cocoon into mourning, which was the right choice. But as I slowly emerged from grief’s first numbing months, I felt a new urgency to live. What if I die in a decade from now, like my brother did? What if I die in a year from now?
I thought about what I yearn for the most. It came down to two things: to travel, and to finally learn Spanish.
I have been a freelancer for five years now, yet I have never taken full advantage of my flexibility to work from anywhere. I sat my ass in Austin for four years, and I loved much of that time, but my High Priestess has been calling my away for a long time now.
I also knew that, as far as life goes, this was the “right” time to take this trip. My parents are getting older and will need more of my attention. Everyone is generally healthy. My sister is a newlywed. My responsibilities are few.
What was I waiting for?
At first, I thought I’d just hike the Camino for the month of September. Then I realized I wasn’t dreaming big enough. I decided I’d travel for four months, and I’d quit one of my jobs to do it.
The thought of quitting this job kept me in fear and doubt for months. In many ways, this stable editing gig at a tech company that I held for almost three years had been a godsend. It paid well, I only worked 12 hours a week, and I could take time off easily. It made up about 60% of my income and singlehandedly kept me in a middle-class pay bracket.
Which is why it was so hard to give up. We all know times are hard right now, in general, and especially on editorial freelancers. Even though I quickly understood that quitting this job was the right thing to do so I could be fully present for this special, brief time of travel, I was terrified. I negotiated with myself for so long.
“What if I just ask to take one month off? What if I just work one day a week? How stupid am I to think about quitting this job a lot of freelancers would kill for in this economy?”
But I knew it was right. I knew this job didn’t align with my values and was keeping me comfortable and small. I knew I was utterly dispensable to them, and that they would lay me off eventually. (Imagine if I had rearranged my entire schedule to work daily shifts at this job, then they let me go as soon as I got home? I’d never forgive myself.) I could be grateful — and be ready to move on.
So I did. My last day was August 29. Logging off for the last time felt like this:
I left Austin August 4 and spent a sweet month in California with my family (for the third year in a row) — so I won’t be back home for five full months. I am on a full work sabbatical for September and October. I shipped my laptop, inside of my suitcase, to the end of the Camino. (I’m hiking with only a painstakingly packed 15-pound, 26-liter backpack for two months.) Luckily, I was able to do work ahead of time for my excellent newsletter editing client Pooja Lakshmin MD, and I’ll return to active work with her in November. That’s the bulk of the work I plan to do through the end of the year. It’s not much, and I want it that way.
I’ll be making 33% of what I usually do ($7,378/month was my average monthly gross income this year, so far) for the foreseeable future. I’ll share a longer post about finances and how I planned for this trip another time, but the Cliff Notes are: My cats are with my parents. I am subletting my apartment, which helps a lot. I have about $8,500 saved for this trip. I’ll still be making about $2,500/month, which should cover a lot of my trip expenses. And I have eight months of work savings I’ve never touched that I can live off of if I need to. I plan to realistically be making less through at least Q1 of 2026, and I’ll readjust based on where my work life is then.
Plus, I really want this time to be creatively fertile. I plan to be mostly offline through October, but I will journal daily. I want to dream more about what my life as a freelancer, entrepreneur, and creative writer could be. I’ll share my secret wish with you: to receive the book idea I’ll be ready to commit myself to for the next 2-5 years.
I’ve also been feeling a huge itch to create social media content for the first time in many years, so I will be recording content along the way to make that a reality — follow me on Instagram and TikTok for my (eventual) trip updates.
I want travel to be a bigger part of my life and career, and a year from now, I’d love to be the kind of content creator who gets flewed out to fascinating places. Why not me? At the very least, I’m going to try.
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A lot of legwork went into making this trip happen — many long months of physical, mental, and emotional work. Even once I left, I spent a morning doing client work in Madrid. I worked on publishing the podcast and finishing up this newsletter in the final hours before I shipped my suitcase. I’ve been nervously navigating an unfamiliar country in a language I speak shakily at best. I have a knee injury I’m worried about. I’m still not quite in that relaxed and excited mindset I hope to be in during this quest.
But I am happy I am finally here. And I have zero plans for the next four months — I’m going to learn to be a Type-B girlie! All I booked before this trip was my flight to Spain, and my first six days of hotels and getting around.
On the Camino, you generally book your accommodations (albergues, or hostels set up for the many thousands of pilgrims that hike the Camino) the day of or the night before. My approximate end date for the Camino is October 22. I have no tickets for trains or planes afterward.
I am open to what the Camino has to teach me, to whom I will meet, to what I will learn.
I hope you get a lot of insights out of your pilgrimage! Your story reminds me of the Martin Sheen movie The Way (which is an El Camino film). I have a similar bucket list item with the Shikoku Pilgrimage, a path with 88 temples and various sacred sites in Japan.
Go for it!!! Camino was on my bucket list too and I never made it during my sabbatical 😢