I started telling close friends and family about my future career break about nine months before my ‘D Day’ (Departure Day). I did this for a few reasons. First, I wanted to give my parents time to adjust to the thought of me giving up my job and traveling. They needed every bit of those nine months to go through their stages of shock, anger, and eventual acceptance. In addition, I felt that by telling my close friends it would make me actually follow through with the crazy idea. Finally, I told people so that I could start to mentally and physically prepare for this break and begin to ‘shut down’ my life as I knew it in New York City.

Everyone I told, except for my parents, were excited and intrigued by the idea – even a bit jealous. I accepted their excitement cautiously because in the back of my head I had a list about a mile long of what I would need to do between February 2006 and my D Day of September 6th; it wasn’t going to be a picnic. I attacked this list as any good project manager would – I actually built a project plan. Just think of all of the to-do’s you normally have to do to simply go on a two-week vacation. Now multiply that times 30! It’s a good idea to get organized and start early.

I broke the list of to-do’s into groups:
Apartment | Financial/Legal/Medical | Travel Arrangements | Packing