Quitting can be difficult for anyone, especially career breakers. Doubts can seep in as you start to question your decision. Hearing others stories of quitting can make it that much easier, and now you can on “Quitter to Winner”, a resource for those quitting their job for a career break, sabbatical, entrepreneurial venture or new gig.

The blog was started by Michael Sjostedt, who noticed that “over the last few years people held onto jobs they weren’t satisfied with. But recent stats show that more and more workers are voluntarily leaving their gigs for yet-to-be-determined opportunities.

Job burnout certainly plays a role in the trend. Some might have a little red devil on their shoulders who whispers ‘life’s too short.’ Others have the hutzpa to strike out on their own, thinking they can crack the ‘earn more, work less’ algorithm.

Everyone’s got a reason and a story. I’m curious to learn why people jumped, how they navigated the free fall, and if they succeeded.”

You can read stories like Alice Gray and Lyon Graulty, who are taking several months off between jobs to bike the West Coast and raise money for Posada Esperanza, an Austin-based shelter for immigrant women and their children. Or James Morgan, who talks about his difficult transition from a teaching career into architectural woodworking. And Ryan Fuller and his wife, Jen, who got burnt out from their high-pressure consulting jobs and are now in rehab: via extended vacation in Argentina.

And be sure to visit their Facebook Fan Page as Michael features inspiring career-related stories, blogs, and job boards from around the web.

And even short-term travel with children can be overwhelming. But here are a few sites that offer some great insight into making it a fun and rewarding experience.

Debbie Dubrow’s blog, Delicious Baby, offers advice on “Making Travel with Kids Fun”. Her blog details her own experiences traveling in the US and internationally with young children as well as product reviews, city guides and travel tips like “Ten Tips for Keeping a Toddler Busy on a Plane”  and “Breeze Through Airport Security with Kids”.

Perhaps my favorite tips include the ones listed under “Why Travel?”

Everyone knows that travel with children is unpredictable, difficult, and definitely not at the same pace or with the same freedoms that pre-child travel afforded, so why do it at all?

• Through our children’s eyes, we see the world in a new way.
• You get to immerse yourself in the local culture. Traveling with children forces you to do as locals do… shop in the grocery stores, bakeries, and pharmacies, not just tourist shops. You get to connect with locals in a way that’s difficult to do as adults traveling alone. People love kids. They’ll go out of their way to connect with you and see you as a family rather than just tourists, and you’ll gain insights into what it’s like to live in a different place.
• The kids love getting out of their everyday routine, and being in new situations helps everyone to reconnect. Whenever we travel, we find that there’s a special brand of giggly, silly fun that happens after a long day of travel that we just don’t seem to have at home.
• The kids learn new things. For young kids it isn’t so much that they’ll learn world history as that they are exposed to new experiences, sights, sounds and smells. With a little thought, you can bring those experiences home to make your everyday life a little richer too.
• For school age kids it’s much more engaging and fun to learn history by doing than by reading.

Michelle Duffy’s blog, WanderMom, offers insight and resources for independent family travel. As she says “The goal of this website is to share my experiences as a traveling parent with you and through that to encourage and inspire you to take your children to interesting places far and wide, inside and outside your home country.”

Other blogs that focus on traveling as a family and with children include:

• Ciao Bambino! – Inspiring Families to Explore the World
• Pitstops for Kids! – Getting There Should be Half the Fun!
• The Q Family Adventures Travel Blog
• Traveling Mamas
• Travel Savvy Mom – Where to Stay When You Go

In addition to the 20-month archive of David’s 22-country round-the-world trip, the site offers tips for budget planning, interviews with fellow travelers, book reviews, how-to articles, and news from the online travel community. He has even expanded his site to include several contributors, adding a variety of voices and experiences.

One of the most popular posts is ”Cost of a Trip Around the World”, which is usually the first concern on potential travelers minds.  And by breaking down his daily expenses by country allows future backpackers to understand where their dollar can go farther.

Another popular post is “Final Thoughts – Annapurna Sanctuary Trek” in which David offers great tips based on his experiences to anyone planning a trek in Nepal.  I did the Annapurna Circuit in 2001 and definitely agree with many of his points – although I’d like to add one. Boiled water in a nalgene bottle makes a wonderful bedtime companion. Helps to keep you warm and stays warm throughout the chilly nights!

David also offers a free eBook, “Dare Me”, which details the various dares he was given during his original travels. These dares ranged in “strength” from having his photo taken with various single women and Thai “lady boys” to riding a scooter and on top of a train in India. The rewards were mostly monetary (which was greatly appreciated), and not all were completed for one reason or another. But reading about them and his efforts to complete them make for a good laugh. And it just goes to show how travel allows you to lower your inhibitions and makes you do things you never imagined!

With the success he has gained through travel blogging, David will be launching a new website on February 1 – “Travel Blog Success – Build a Better Travel Blog”. We had a sneak peak of the site and feel that it is a great investment if you want to do more with your travel blog then update friends and family. Look for more on Travel Blog Success soon!

And be sure to vote for Go Backpacking as Best Travel Blog and Medellin Living as Best Latin American Blog in the 2010 Bloggies! Voting ends January 31, 2010.

According to Christine:

I always wanted to travel the world. Who doesn’t? But somehow I ended up trading in my 20’s for a job I didn’t love, money I didn’t need (but happily spent on things I didn’t need), and a burgeoning sleep problem. One night after I ran out of valerian root and melatonin, I stayed up all night looking through job listings in my field. I realized something—I didn’t want to do any of them. None. I could change my job, change my environment, but the work itself had become excruciating.

It was time to take the leap and start over. I would finally pick up that writing career I had been tinkering with for years. I would start living the life I wanted now, instead of waiting for some far off reward. My husband and I would sell everything and move abroad with our two dogs, Molly and Jack.

During her extensive pre-departure research, Christine wasn’t finding a lot of like-minded people with advice to share, so she started “Almost Fearless” to be that support for others.

I never found exactly what I was looking for, but I promised myself I’d document the process for others, as best as I could. In that vein, I’ve tried to be as honest and open as possible – even if that means admitting my own doubts and struggles.

Christine recently presented a great series that we feel every Briefcase to Backpacker will find useful in planning their career break. The 30 Ways in 30 Days to Redesign Your Life and Travel the World series offers practical, real world steps to help you get from wherever you are, to exactly where you want to be – traveling the world and living the lifestyle you want.

Some of these posts include:

• The Mental Shift to Begin the Redesign
• Convincing Your Loved One to Travel Too
• Planning a Travel Budget that Works
• Getting Health Insurance When You Travel
• Telling Your Friends and Family

Be sure to check out this series as well as her new eBook “Twitter for Travelers: A guide to using Twitter to make travel easier, cheaper, smarter, safer and faster“.

Two Backpackers
Jason and Aracely are a couple that understand there is more to life than a successful career. After college, Jason spent much of his time chasing his career and financial goals, which included jobs at Mercedes-Benz USA and Mercer. Likewise, Aracely was groomed into a young professional at Mercedes-Benz USA and as a Finance Manager at American Express. But both find greater joy in being outdoors, learning about the world, and lending a helping hand – activities that better shape and define them as individuals then any job title could.

With no set itinerary other than using Guatemala as a starting point, Jason and Aracely hope this experience will validate their passions, step outside of their comfort zone, and grow as individuals. As Jason writes: “Part of this journey is learning to let go; live in a way that is completely different from the way we currently live our lives. Today, we spend a significant time planning and organizing because we only have a weeks’ worth of vacation from our jobs. Now, there is no need to crunch everything possible into a week, plan extensively or recuperate. You can do what you want, when you want, on your own terms for as long as you want. It’s exhilarating just to say those words.”

In addition to experiencing the history and people of new cultures, making new friends, and giving back to the world community, Jason and Aracely hope to inspire others to follow their true passions – something we can relate to at Briefcase to Backpack!

“If, rather [than travel], your passion is to pursue a different career or hobby, start a business, or do something adventurous, whatever your internal calling is, we challenge you to answer it. Better yet, live it! Equally important to us is our desire to increase cultural, social, and economic awareness, providing a more realistic global perspective. But don’t just follow our journey, instead become motivated to take risks, value your time, pursue culturally enriching experiences, lend a helping hand, and live the life that you truly desire to live.”

Ben and Alonna – Adventures and Trivialities
Ben and Alonna were both engineers at HP but left the corporate world behind in June to travel for a year (Ben left his position at HP while Alonna is taking an unpaid Leave of Absence).

The decision to do this came after they realized they were living their lives on a path that they hadn’t necessarily chosen for themselves. As Alonna writes: “Sometimes we all do things just because we think that’s how it’s supposed to be done. But if you step back and really analyze what you want to spend your time and money on, what you believe in, and what you want out of life, you just might find that you’re not following a path that you would have chosen.”

With that in mind, Ben and Alonna decided to define their own life-path, and part of that was spending more time traveling. “We realized that we didn’t have to wait to get laid off or for it to be the ‘right time’ to make a change like this. After all, there are always obstacles to every goal or dream. Instead, what really drove this decision was realizing that it was even a decision at all. Once we recognized that this was a real option, the decision was easy.”

Ben and Alonna’s plans have them going to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Asia and Africa.

Bert & Patty – Two people, two backpacks, one global adventure
Bert and Patty (aka Christine and Paul), are a couple from Seattle, Washington. Christine is a veteran of travel, having spent time in the Peace Corps and then working as a teacher, where she spent her summers traveling the globe. And up until 2005, Paul didn’t even have a passport! After just three months of meeting, Christine broke Paul of his “safe US/Canada bubble” and introduced him to the wonders of travel – with a trip to Guatemala and Cuba.

Four years later and they are about to embark on a real adventure – starting with getting married in the Cook Islands!

Their plans started out as a 3-4 month journey. “We thought it was a long time to take for a trip, but soon found that there was more we wanted to do and see. Originally, we were going to take a trip to the Cook Islands to get married, then go to both New Zealand and Australia. Then we started to say things like ‘you know, we might not come back to this part of the world for a very long time, while we’re here we should also see . . . ‘. That is how 3-4 months turned into 6-7 months. Then before you know it 6-7 months turned into the current schedule of 12 months.”

They are often asked why they are doing this, and like most who make the decision to take a career break and travel, it’s because they want something different out of their lives. As Paul writes: “We are at a crossroads of our lives and this gets to be one of our paths to choose. We can opt for a life of domesticity and normalcy with a mortgage and weekends spent cutting the lawn. Or before that happens, we can take this time and travel.”

We can’t wait to follow these three couples over the next year and hope that you too can find inspiration in their journeys!

After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs she hated, baby-boomer Barbara Weibel felt like the proverbial “hole in the donut” – solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in her life, Weibel abandoned her career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world, during which she pursued her true passions of travel, writing, and photography. Since returning, she has continued to travel and blog about her journey, both physical and spiritual.

It is always interesting to learn what inspires people to make life changes like this, and for Barbara, it was being diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease. Being practically bedridden for nearly six weeks gave her time to analyze the way she was living her life. During this time of reflection she decided that in order to live a life with purpose, she needed to figure out what brought her joy. And what brought her joy was photography, writing, and of course travel.

When I began to read her entries from the beginning of her six-month journey (March – September 2007) I was immediately entranced.

Being introduced to a new travel blog that has already happened is like being introduced to a new tv series and you’re able to watch entire seasons in one sitting without commercial interruption. With each entry you get hooked even more and can’t wait to see what happens next – and you don’t have to! That’s how it was with “Hole in the Donut”.

Barbara writes with such honesty and her self-deprecating humor and self-described “snarky tone” makes every post a delight to read. More than once did I catch myself laughing out loud with her funny observations (“In order to become a cop in Italy, you must first pass a drop-dead-gorgeous test”). And some of her gutsy moves had me holding my breath until the end of the post, like the time she decided to take on guards at the Cambodian border or play cop to airport scammers in South Africa.

But it was also her style of travel that spoke to me:

So many people, when they travel, limit their experience. They go to all-inclusive resorts and never leave the grounds. Or they won’t try the local food for fear of getting sick. I am not interested in that kind of sanitized travel. I want to fully experience the places I visit. If I hadn’t taken the shortcut through the Buddhist Monastery the other day I wouldn’t have been bitten by the dog. But if I hadn’t gotten off at the wrong water taxi stop in Bangkok and then wandered through the neighborhoods I might never have seen the locals trying to capture a giant monitor lizard that was trapped in the sewer. If, over the years of my travels, I had assumed that everyone who stopped me on the street was a scam artist or a tout, I would have missed out on meeting some wonderful people.
Discovery Versus Danger 

Some of those wonderful people included Ron, a British ex-pat living in a small village in northern Thailand close to the Myanmar (Burma) border. Having traveled to Pai for just four days, four years later he was still there, having fallen in love with a woman and the region and starting a new family – at age 68. His life was a simple one, but one surrounded by love, and he lived with an open heart – taking in an orphaned Shan girl and helping to raise money so another village boy could have much needed heart surgery.

When I read a post dated nearly a year later, I was saddened to learn that Ron had passed. Even though Barbara had only written one entry about him (but continued to stay in touch with him), I felt like I too lost a friend. 

Perhaps the most relatable thing about Barbara’s six-month journey over four continents was the various emotions she experienced. At her three-month mark, she noted:

Along the way I have been intrigued, elated, fascinated, amused, delighted, introspective, questioning, grateful, honored, irritated, challenged, scared, and a myriad of other adjectives too numerous to mention.
Three Month Half-Way Mark 

Good or bad, these various emotions only helped in finding inspiration.

Even though Barbara returned in September 2007, she still keeps her blog regularly updated. Today it documents her journey, both physical and spiritual, focusing on travelogues, travel industry news, stories about the crazy things that happen to her and the interesting people she meets along the way, and inspirational videos.

“Hole In the Donut” is definitely a great inspiration for the Briefcase to Backpack community.

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.

Immediately upon our return we thought about ways that we could capitalize on our experience and name. And then I remembered Otts World and logged on. Appropriately, Sherry had just returned home as well and wrote a touching reflection post on her experience and her “game-plan” for handling her re-entry (including a contract to herself). I knew I needed to get in touch with her.

As luck would have it, she wanted to pursue a way to reach out to others and inspire them to take a career break – thus this new version of Briefcase to Backpack was born.

So immediately I began reading every single post she wrote during her 16 months. And it was addicting. I was drawn in easily and found every post insightful and touching and her openness so refreshing. As essentially a stranger, I felt welcomed into her world and felt personally invited. Even now as I re-read her past entries for this site, I am inspired to pack my bags and hit the road immediately – even during her most trying times.

And now that Sherry has followed many items in her contract (I will take the ESL certification course and go out in the world and teach – I will not stay in the US for more than 6 months, even if it means that I give up my apartment – I will live abroad) her blog is still constantly being updated with amazing expat adventures. She even makes the struggles of adapting to living abroad and starting a new career seem attractive.

Many of Sherry’s experiences are highlighted in this site. But you should definitely take the time to explore the world of “Ott” yourself.

We’d love to hear from you:

Do you have any favorite travel blogs? Let us know! Share here.