June 18- The Age- by
Okay, here's the deal: clear out your desk. Now. Grab your coffee mug, the pictures of your family, and any stationery you think you can get away with stealing, and get out of the office.
You're going travelling. A whole year overseas. Wherever you want.
Oh, and when you get back, your job will still be there waiting for you. In fact, you'll have been promoted; maybe even given a little pay rise.
Sounds pretty sweet, huh? And I doubt there are any readers of this blog who wouldn't jump at that, given the opportunity.
Trouble is, that's not the way the world works...
As all of us know, when you choose to travel, you make sacrifices. Sometimes that's time spent with family or friends, sometimes it's leaving partners behind ... but it's usually your career that suffers most.
If you want to go away for any decent amount of time - to really get into that carefee travelling mode - you're going to have to quit your job. (Or, at best, get a year's leave without pay. Even then, you'll find the world has moved on by the time you get home.)
And leaving your career for, say, a year, is certainly going to have some sort of effect. For starters, you'll be 12 months further back in your progression, meaning that that promotion is a year further away; that car you wanted is 12 months further away; that house deposit you've been saving up for is 12 months further away.
That's best-case scenario. There's also every chance someone will have taken over your position and will be doing an annoyingly good job. Or that not having you around will have made everyone at work realise they don't actually need you around anyway.
Or, if you're in an industry like IT, or law, you'll find a lot's changed in the 12 months you've been away, and you'll be playing catch-up, or going back to a lower position than the one you quit to go tootling around the world with your backpack.
So: travel or career? Which one do you sacrifice in order to pursue the other?
I've got a track record of pretty much always choosing travel, going under the assumption that the gaping, year-long holes in my CV will shout, "here's an adventurous go-getter with plenty of life experience", rather than, "this guy's a lazy, employment-commitment-phobe who'll shoot through at the first sign of a Qantas fare sale".
I've been relatively lucky in that it's usually been the former, but I'm sure that's not the same for everyone. After all, potential employers are much more likely to ask, "What was your role in Company X?", than, "What was it like that time you went trekking in the Andes?"
The way I see it, those grappling with the travel/career conundrum have three choices.
The first, and probably easiest, is to take that high-paying job and settle down. Earn the cash, take short, sharp two-week holidays where you can, and spend the rest of your time reading half-rate travel blogs on news websites. You'll still get to see a bit of the world, and you'll progress in your career.
The next option is take a deep breath, book your tickets, and chuck in your job. Accept that you're setting your career back, and go out there, see the big wide world, and have the time of your life. You mightn't end up with quite the career path you thought you'd have, but gee you'll have some great photos.
And the last - and probably best - option is kind of a combination of the two. That is, attempt to pursue your career somewhere else. I think that's what so many Australians are doing in London - it's the kind of place you can garner some experience for your CV, earn good money, and see something of the world at the same time. Not only are you living in a foreign country, you're on the doorstep of about 40 others.
There are plenty of people from all walks of life (accountants, lawyers, IT nerds, construction managers, tradies, teachers, stockbrokers), in all parts of the world (Dubai, Hong Kong, New York, Mumbai, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires), managing to combine travel and a career.
It's not quite the same experience as having a year of complete freedom, but it sounds like a pretty good compromise.
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