Take Your Big Trip | Travel Advice, Inspiration, and Stories

It started with a question in a dark bar. Over manhattans and margaritas, at a friend’s birthday happy hour, my friend A and I were talking about traveling. Her last international big trip was to Australia in 2011 with a group of friends, mine was to Peru in September. A few days before this conversation, [...]

Lavinia Spalding, overall inspiring writer and editor of Best Women’s Travel Writing Vol 8, sent an email out to her contributors. After I read it, I wanted to share. The seven tips by writer Laura Fraser summarized most of what I learned about travel writing in courses, conferences, and books. Personally, I know these tips [...]

Photo Credit: Photo on Flickr by Carole Mage At a travel panel  last summer, a couple came up to me afterwards and asked me questions about how I did my own big trip, specifically on my work. “What did you do with your job?” Well, I had to quit it to take the first big [...]

Recently, I received this email from a reader of my blog. I think a lot of points are relevant to big trippers as this young person considers his future. Letter reprinted with permission. —— “I’ve just recently started to think about colleges I want to attend, as going to college is just what is expected [...]

After my first big trip in 2008, I called a psychic. Referred to me by my sister, she had a good reputation of doing readings. I don’t usually rely on otherworldly advice, but it was a time of need. I called her because I had just returned from a trip that changed my life and [...]

Guest Post By Fran Wickner, Ph.D., MFT, speaker at 2012 Meet Plan Go San Francisco on October 16, 2012. Round The World Travel (RTW) works well for some people on a career career sabbatical,  but being able to “Go Local” by staying in one place is another excellent option for those taking career breaks.  Staying [...]

In the midst of Meet Plan Go planning activities for the San Francisco event on October 16, I took a break in the day and stopped by AFAR Media’s offices in downtown San Francisco to host a chat on career breaks with AFAR’s followers on Facebook. Davina Baum, the digital director, welcomed me, and walked [...]

In early 2011, Robin and Pierre Devaux traded in their corporate jobs for a couple of backpacks and hit the road. They spent the next eleven months visiting and sampling the local beers of 24 countries on five continents. This essay is an excerpt on how their big trip and career sabbatical changed their lives. [...]

In July 2011, Molly Last began a trip of a lifetime after being awarded a paid sabbatical from her school district. The mantra of her wonderful trip was “Living Life With Arms Wide Open.” Molly is one of the speakers at this year’s Meet Plan Go event in San Francisco. Here is her essay on [...]

In preparation for the big Meet Plan Go event I’m hosting in San Francisco on October 16th, I get to meet all these big trippers: people who have decided to take time off from their life and careers and take a big trip. Completely, wonderfully inspirational. In prep for the event, I asked them: “How [...]