Not Just a Vacation: The Philosophy Behind Our Year Off

Hello from Whitianga, New Zealand! We’ve been here for two days now, shaking off jet lag faster than expected, taking in coastal views, and already knocking out 5 hikes (some short ones to be fair). Follow Claire on Strava if you want more specifics. Tomorrow, we head south for our first big trek on Saturday—the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Everything we’ve read says it’s one of the best day hikes in the world.

Before getting into the meat of today’s post, we wanted to express our sincere gratitude to the 100+ of you—friends, family, and former coworkers—who have subscribed so far. Whether you’ve been cheering us on since day one or just stumbled upon our journey, welcome! This is where we’ll be sharing our experiences, reflections, and all the wild (and probably ridiculous) stories that come with a year of full-time travel.

Cathedral Cove on the North Island of New Zealand (this morning!)

Why Take a Year Off?

Some places are just hard to visit when you’re working full-time. Even with the generous 20 PTO days a year we were getting, between weddings, holidays, and family visits, there are barely two weeks left for an actual vacation. For places like New Zealand, Peru, Kazakhstan, and Madagascar, that just doesn’t cut it (see our full itinerary). We didn’t want to fly halfway across the world just to rush through—we wanted time to fully immerse ourselves and experience what it’s like to travel as our full-time “job” for the year.

Why Now?

We’re pushing 30, and we know we won’t always have the same energy (or knees) we do now. This trip is packed with physical challenges—van life and day-long treks in New Zealand, hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro, and trekking through Madagascar’s rainforests. Just today, we did four different hikes, and that’s not something we’ll always be able to do so easily.

But it’s not just about physical ability—it’s about having the mental and emotional bandwidth for this kind of travel. Long-term travel is exhilarating but also exhausting. You’re constantly adapting, solving problems, and navigating new environments. Over the course of a year, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be canceled flights, a flat tire or two, and, of course, food poisoning. Right now, we’re more curious than averse to the highs and lows of this type of problem-solving, but we don’t want to assume we’ll always crave it in the same way.

Rather than wait, we’re making the most of our passion for adventure while we have it.

Diving in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) back in November 2024

A Dream Years in the Making

Even though we only met in 2022, we’ve both been dreaming about a year of travel for a long time. Since our first paychecks out of college, we’ve been setting aside savings for this exact purpose. We wanted to feel established in our careers—both as product managers—before taking a step back to focus on other parts of life. Having worked for 8+ years and establishing both a strong foundation and network in the tech industry, now felt like the right moment. If anything, this experience will make us stronger product managers. You can’t build global products and only understand American users.

An Investment in Us

Beyond the adventure, this trip is also about investing in our relationship. We got engaged a few months ago, and while careers will always be there, uninterrupted time together like this is rare. Other than a honeymoon, when do couples ever get a chance to step away from the daily grind and just be together? For us, this is that opportunity.

Recognizing Privilege & Choosing to Go

We know how lucky we are to be able to do this. Not everyone has the financial freedom or career flexibility to take a year off, and we don’t take that for granted. But we also know many people who could do something like this and don’t. The one pattern we’ve noticed after sharing this news with all of our friends, family, and colleagues is that most people older than us wish they had done something like this. Especially before having kids.

Claire’s been reading Die With Zero, which argues that people often wait too long to prioritize experiences, only to realize later that they’ve missed their window. The idea is that money can be earned back, but time and physical ability can’t. The earlier you have life-changing experiences, the longer you get to carry them with you.

That’s why we’re doing this now—because we know this journey will change us, and we want to take those lessons forward into whatever comes next.

Thanks again for following along—we can’t wait to share more soon!