Fortunately I was in the middle of planning the career break Michael and I would be taking. During our trip, we kept a blog as well (called appropriately Briefcase to Backpack) and received envious feedback from friends and family. So much so that we felt like we needed to do more with the name and concept.
When Sherry Ott grew tired of her corporate life, she decided to pack her bags and hit the road for 16 months. At the end of that journey, she learned new things about herself, which helped her in developing new life goals – which included saying goodbye to corporate life as she knew it. Among her goals listed were taking ESL classes and staying in the US no more than 6 months out of the year. And within months of her return, she was on her way to Vietnam to live and teach English.
The first and foremost thing to keep in mind when packing is that you can get just about everything you need on the road. Which translates to: don’t worry about forgetting anything. That said, I offer up some other tips to keep in mind.
1. Pack Only What You Can Carry
After her first 16-month journey, Sherry reflected on the experience through numbers.
“Hello my name is Sherry and I’m a bean counter.”
Yeah – it never quite fit me, nor my personality, which is probably how I ended up in Information Technology. However, there was something about numbers that I liked which seems to fit with my Type A personality.
As I spend my days reuniting with old friends in New York, I am constantly asked to summarize my 16 months for everyone. This is not an easy task – therefore I started to actually prepare for this question in advance. I made lists…lists of countries, airlines, money, experiences, and anything else I could anticipate being asked. It provided me a summarized look at my travels through numbers…and I love numbers. So here it is – my around the world travels by numbers.
While visiting Egypt’s ancient past, I was reminded of my very own past. Here is an excerpt from my blog.
The movie wasn’t my only source of knowledge of the Nile River though – I have 4th Grade geography to also thank. I know the Nile is the longest river on the globe at 4,100 miles long and it runs south to north – that makes it unique and memorable. However, I still have this image burned into my brain from the Ten Commandments movie where the Egyptian princesses, Miriam, was bathing, washing, and socializing out along the Nile River when a little basket came floating by amongst the reeds with a baby in it…Moses. Therefore the Nile conjures up images of the decadent royal lifestyle, gold jewelry, and femininity – peaceful, yet grand. This is one of the reasons why I chose to tour through Egypt and not simply go to see the Pyramids. I wanted an adventure on the Nile!
Borneo was one of the destinations I visited during my 16-month career break. Following is an excerpt from my blog.
The literature about the climb said that a reasonably fit person could summit. It takes two days to make the 8.5km climb – the first is spent going up, up, up from 5000 ft. to about 10,000 ft. where you hunker down in a lodge/hut.
The hut is basically an unheated wooden structure that pretty much resembled most of the hostels I have been staying in. Bunk beds, shared bathroom, luke warm water at best. On day 2 you are to get up at 3AM and start on the summit route in the dark. You make it to the summit (13,435 ft.) by sunrise. The temperatures around the summit are normally right around freezing – 32 degrees – and the wind is brutal.
