Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your Job to Travel

I’m here to tell you why you shouldn’t quit your job to travel the world. In fact, that’s pretty much what my whole blog is about. I want you to travel more, but not at the expense of the other things you love in your life.

It seems nearly every blogger out there today is peddling the myth that you need to leave your job if you want to see the world. Well I’m here to prove to you that’s just not true.

In fact, I believe you can live your best life with just the right balance between a job you enjoy that supports the lifestyle you want, and plenty of travel opportunities to satisfy that wanderlust.

For me, my dream has always been to travel. But it has also been to have a well paying job I enjoy, a comfortable place to live, and a dog (or two) at my side.

So if your heart is telling you it wants to travel, but your mind is telling you to hold onto the stability of the life you’ve built at home, here are 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Quit Your Job to Travel the World that will show you it’s more than possible to have both.

That’s right, you can keep your job and travel too.

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your Job to Travel the World

Because you have a job you love.

Contrary to popular belief, not everybody hates their job. It’s also not true everybody wants to travel full time and work remotely from a hostel in Thailand (I would totally do this for a month though, just sayin!).

Many of us have worked hard for the careers we have. Whether by going to college, taking on night school to get that Master’s degree, or simply putting in long hours to get that much deserved promotion.

Since I did all three of those things to get where I am today, I’m not about to give that up. I’m proud of my career and how far I’ve come, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Since I also love to travel and want to spend as much time abroad as possible, I intentionally sought out a career with great benefits and learned how to maximize my vacation time.

I use the money from my job to fund my travels and maintain the life I love at home. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a minimalist as well, so I try to save money for experiences instead of buying more stuff. Which basically just amounts to more money every year for travel.

Because you want to be close to your family.

Another reason why you shouldn’t quit your job to travel the world full time is to be close to your family.

While I don’t have the closest family in the world, I still like to be around for holidays, birthdays, and special events. These moments are important to me and provide the opportunity to check in and catch up with family members I don’t get to see often enough.

If you’re traveling abroad all the time, you’ll find yourself around for these moments less and less. So for me, I choose to attend as many family events as possible, and just plan my travels around those times. This way, I get my family time, and my vacations too.

I will say, now that programs like Zoom and Google Hangouts have become a thing, I think staying connected with family will become easier.

Because you want to maintain your friendships.

It’s hard enough to maintain friendships as the years go by and we get older. That becomes even more complicated as marriages, children, and careers start taking up more and more of our time. But add full time travel to that mix, and you’ll find it nearly impossible to maintain some of those friendships.

Unlike family, friendships are voluntary. So if you choose to ignore your friends, they likely won’t stick around. But even if they do, you won’t be as close as you used to be.

To add to this, full time travel bloggers often report returning home after months of long term travel and finding they no longer have much in common with their friends. After missing all the happy hours and hangouts, they’re out of the loop and can find it hard to relate.

If you haven’t already, you’ll quickly discover that nobody wants to hear about your bucket list travels. Friends and family will usually ask a few polite questions and be genuinely interested in a story or two, but beyond that, keep your stories to yourself.

People aren’t being mean, it’s just hard to relate to stories about places they’ve never been and things they’ve never done. People only like talking about travel if they’re the ones doing the traveling. So keep your stories brief and just share a few highlights.

Because you have a pet.

Sure, it’s possible to travel with a pet. But it’s not always practical.

Truth be told, I love my dog Melvin to the moon and back. I just don’t want to travel around Europe with him.

I really wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving my dog in a hotel room for 12 hours at a time while I’m out exploring a new city. I’d just be worried about him all day and wouldn’t enjoy my trip.

Plus, I don’t think it would be fair to him to drag him across the world just to leave him sitting alone in a hotel room all day.

So my solution was to find the best doggie day care that I could find, and that’s exactly what I did. So now when I travel, I keep my trips down to two weeks at a time at the very most, and Melvin gets to have daily play dates at doggie daycare while I’m gone.

He gets to socialize with other dogs and hang out with the lovely ladies that run the place, and I get to travel freely knowing my dog is well taken care of and having a good time.

I don’t ever see myself without a pet, and if you don’t either, it’s just another good reason why you shouldn’t quit your job to travel the world.

Related: Travel Tips for Dog Owners

Because you like having a homebase.

Now for my favorite reason why you shouldn’t quit your job to travel the world.

There’s nothing like coming home after a long trip abroad and getting to sleep in your own bed.

For me, after I’ve been on the road for a while, I’ll start looking forward to returning home and sleeping in my own bed in my own room. And it’s not that I don’t want to continue traveling, I do. I just need to take a break and recharge for a bit.

Then, after a few weeks, I’m ready to his the road again.

How about you? Do you think about leaving your full time job to travel the world? Or are you like me and prefer to travel part time while maintaining a life you love back home? Let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

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