Take the Plunge: How to Take a Career Break for Travel and Adventure

Technology and digital innovation transformed how we work, allowing us to adapt to remote and hybrid arrangements when needed. Despite that, stress and burnout remain prominent issues among workers everywhere. In a feature on work stress and burnout recovery, vacations were found to help erase stress and prevent burnout — to an extent. A study carried out on teachers before and after holidays found that they returned to work feeling refreshed and engaged for just a month. To counter the short-term solutions, experts recommend occasional breaks longer than just a weekend for better recovery. However, a career break may be the answer when all else fails.

What is a career break?

A career break is a break from employment. Unlike vacations and leaves, where we spend time away from work knowing we’ll return to it afterwards, career breaks last longer. Essentially, a gap year for the working age.

So why are career breaks necessary? In some cases, taking a vacation as a leader (or even just a regular employee) can be counterproductive, with emails and calls piling on despite your Do Not Disturb settings. Before long, it starts to feel like another vacation is needed from the vacation to catch up with the tasks you missed. Some professionals also get stressed thinking about the work they must do when they return. This dilemma has led to an epidemic of unused vacation time among professionals. After all, why take time off when you know that work will find its way into your vacation anyway?

Instead of vacations, career breaks are the new trend. Proliferated by the pandemic and many reflections while in lockdown, people began reevaluating their career plans while others rediscovered forgotten interests. When the world was put on a seemingly momentary pause, it launched many workers into career breaks they didn’t know they needed and led them to new work opportunities where they were happier or more satisfied. In today’s post- pandemic age, people looking for a way out of toxic work environments or feeling stuck in their career trajectories are seeking career breaks to help them figure things out. Usually, they spend these breaks traveling and discovering the world, which can lead to amazing personal growth.

How to take a career break for travel and adventure

As tempting as career breaks may sound, it still requires some planning. After all, leaving your routine of employment and the security of financial stability is a big decision that shouldn’t be made on a whim. Below are some tips to help you take the career-changing plunge:

Plan your finances

Taking an indefinite break from your employment can threaten your finances. With the added costs of travel, the wrong decisions could end up costing you and causing you more stress instead of providing you time for relaxation and reflection. This means you will need to save up enough for this break, especially if you plan on traveling a lot. It’s not the most fun advice to hear, but it’s definitely essential if you don’t want to end up broke or directionless post- career break. Work on building your fund as early as possible. You can also consider earning on the side as you reevaluate your life. For example, Colleen Attia took a career break in 2018 and worked as a driver for Uber and Lyft and as an Instacart Shopper. This ensured she still had some income coming in.

Utilise your administrative skills

Truthfully, it’s not easy to take a career break without some guilt. Obviously, you don’t want to burden your colleagues by leaving behind a considerable workload and jetting off to your career break—that would be unprofessional, to say the least. As such, proper planning is critical to ensure a smooth transition, and you will need to maximise all the hard-won administrative skills you’ve picked up through your career: attention to detail, excellent communication skills, organisational skills, and a sense of promptness to handle everything well and leave your responsibilities with grace. Anthony Klotz, an organisational psychologist, and professor at Texas A&M, advises that you should consider how to minimise the impact of your absence on your organisation. For a seamless departure, Klotz recommends offering concrete suggestions in your resignation email, like creating a transition plan for training your replacement or offering a flexible notice period. A little consideration and efficient planning can ensure you don’t burn any bridges.

Consider the purpose of your break and travel

This will differ depending on your current job and situation. Some people take career breaks because they no longer feel satisfied or challenged at work. Others do so because work, unfortunately, becomes draining over time. For those who feel more adventurous about their lives, a career break can also be the perfect time to learn new skills and interests. Learning is doing, and a career break can often be the right amount of time for you to explore activities you’ve only ever read or dreamed about. Whether it’s public speaking or camping, or even volunteering opportunities abroad — taking the time to decide why you want a career break is the best way to make sure this time doesn’t go to waste.

To paddle around an island

For some time I’ve suffered from an affliction that arrives in the form of a shoulder-mounted gremlin, who maintains silence until I arrive on a tranquil island for some much-needed downtime. Then it pipes up with a word that can’t be ignored…

“Circumnavigation”

God damn. It always sounds so romantic and intrepid, the concept of rounding an island on the sea, but nature also has her way of ensuring that we continue to do silly things by painting upcoming pain-fests as baths of honey.

In reality, these sweet, ever-huggy thoughts don’t last forever. Not when the ocean is gently bopping you on the head and your poor weedy arms are trying to pump out 25,000 paddle strokes in 12 hours.

Emms and I are enjoying an extended honeymoon in Thailand, as you might have read earlier. We’ve spent our first weeks on Koh Phangan, the middle island in a chain of three in the Gulf of Siam, which also includes Koh Samui and Koh Tao. It wasn’t long before I wondered whether some kind of adventure might interfere with our bliss, and slowly a plan developed to paddle round each of the islands.

The decision was made partly because of the distances. Long ago, in 2014, some friends and I paddled around Martinique in the Caribbean. It took around 10 days and was intended to be the first of a series of twenty-five mini-journeys that might go some way towards padding the gaps in between my longer 1000-mile+ trips. Each one, I proposed, would be on a Stand Up Paddleboard, at least 100 miles in distance, and in a different country from the previous paddles.

In order of circumference, Koh Samui is 75km around, Koh Phangan 50km, and Koh Tao 25km. Which comes pretty darn close to 100 miles in total.

We have ourselves a little challenge. As Koh Phangan is the current base this is where we’ll start. The maths are easy. My average speed on an inflatable SUP hovers around 3.5miles per hour, including the odd water and photo break. The sun rises at 6:15am and sets at 5:55, so with Twilight I’d have twelve hours to cover a touch over 30 miles. Normal speed + a couple of meal stops and this felt more than doable. 

Morning view

When you’re away only between sleeps then preparation is minimal. We’ve already got our boards here, inflatable 12 foot Pathfinders by Lakeshore. Mine’s called Mud, after its maiden voyage on the Mississippi. And then I gave myself a £20 budget for the whole day, which is hearty living in these parts.

I was excited, I really was. It had been a while since my last adventure, largely because that waterbike trip along Norway’s rugged coastline had properly kicked my ass, but as we pulled ourselves out of bed at 5:30am I didn’t even hold the slightest envy knowing that Em would be right back in the bed as soon as I paddled off. 

Morning thunderstorms were 50% likely but this is normal during late monsoon season, and the grey-blue surface was mirror-calm as I headed north along the coast, Emms and the co-working hub’s two dogs – Jay and Bruce, bounded alongside briefly until their beach ran out.

Pace was fast, it felt great to be on the move. After half an hour I was into new territory, far beyond my previous recreational paddles. This newness is forever a motivation and for the entire morning I’d be treated to a convex coastline, each headland acting as a carrot before the next one would slowly reveal itself. I was being pulled around the island two or three kilometres at a time, with the rest entirely secret – a reward I had to work for.

The headland carrot

The night before I’d made a map for Em with distance markers around the island and my estimated time of arrival at each spot. She anticipated renting a moped (for a massive £7 per day) and coming out to find me, but the eastern half of the island is only accessible by boat or 4x4, so I didn’t expect to see her before lunch.

I hit my first mark, which always feels good. 3 hours after starting I’d covered 18km and it was time for a breakfast. A wide open beach seemed to offer plenty of cafes and I paddled in under the curious gaze of holiday-makers, confused by this man who had apparently come in off the sea. “Passport?!” asked one bearded tourist, jokingly. I grinned, shrugged with a wink, and ordered eggs and coffee. 

After ten the wind picked up but, at least for the backside stretch of the island, it was mostly to my tail. This is rare in SUP, where as a rider you’re doing a half-decent impression of a sail. In years-worth of adventure and expeditions I can recall perhaps ten days of solid tailwind. 

We whizzed along, Mud and I, swell and wind encouraging us both south. Headlands were often mounds of strewn, house-size rocks, toppled into the ocean over the centuries then smoothed over by salt water and nature’s encouragement. The swell to my back would bounce off the rocks and return to whence they came, offering a confused, mogulled landscape as a reminder that this wasn’t all simple.

Why nam Beach

Over halfway I popped into a small, isolated cove and landed on a beach where the early seeds of a party were developing. It’s easy to forget that most foreigners come here to howl at the moon and spread their well-earned cash widely over a considerable amount of cheap cocktails and Asian beer. This was a party I’d been invited to, and dropping in was worth the endless, wide-eyed, “You paddled around the island to get here?”

This is what I love about water travel. When you make it a habit, the world is your oyster. The secret coves and offshore islands become a playground, while the rest of the world still looks out to sea and wonders what it might be like, one day, if they ever headed out there. The truth is, for a few hundred dollars and a recognition for modern-day inflatable technology, this freedom can now be carried around the world, and then becoming a sea creature is just an easy, daily decision. I said my hello’s, waved goodbye and left the soon-to-be-drunk in their spot of paradise. 

At Mile 20, my two-thirds marker, my enjoyment of the day changed. The wind and tide had switched and I only realised as I rounded the boulders of Haad Riin, the southern-most point of the island. From here, home was north west, then north, and immediately the wind howled in my face somewhat inexplicably, because it had never blown in this direction before. My pace halved, the next two miles was akin to crawling through mud, uphill.

Image by @EmKarembo

By the time I caught sight of Emms and her camera, I was a mess. We collapsed into a raised bar roughly shaped out of driftwood to become a pirate ship. Flags fluttered in the increasing wind and I stared along the coast, no longer a mysterious cascade of headlands — just the ten mile infinity beach that left nothing to the imagination. When you can see your upcoming challenge laid out from the beginning, the incentive to explore with effort is greatly decreased.

A mound of chicken and a bit of prodding from my masseuse wife was just, just enough to get me on my feet again. This was it, the final stretch, and I wasn’t looking forward to these final four hours into wind. 

The wall. Marathon runners will be familiar with it. Endurance adventures offer them up at least once a usual day. Beyond the new perspectives and exercise, the thrill of optimism-paid-off and a gentle notch-in-the-self-confidence-belt, the value of a self-set adventure is in hardening the mind more than the muscles. More is gained from the battle than freewheeling.

Two hours later I could still look back and see that damned pirate restaurant. But the distance ahead had been reeled in, inching slowly and painfully towards the island’s main port of Thong Sala. This, with the ever in-and-out of local ferries, kept me focused. Mother Nature can try to splash, drown, blow and exhaust, but the most likely danger on any venture is man. And man at the control of a big metal craft that doesn’t expect or care for a lone paddler down below — this is a dangerous creature.

This safety is up to me. The boats stay their course, they have their channel. I just need to pick my moment. The safest route would have been under the beach-side struts of the pier but the tide was out and my fin dragged on the sea-bed 100m away from shore.

Once past the port I was on the home straight. 6 kilometres left, around an hour and a half into the wind. Problem is, the sun was already licking the horizon and twenty minutes of twilight was the cushion before darkness.

I was beat. Lifting the paddle for each stroke was now an effort and the easiest thing to do would be to go to land, deflate the board and jump in a taxi. Perhaps finish off the rest of the distance tomorrow. I want to do this yet I don’t want to, and my solution is always to carry on until the giving-up solution is not the obvious one. I started with the intention of paddling around an island and just because I’m tired, hungry and out-of-energy, and just because my enjoyment of the scenario has greatly decreased, I must hold onto the original intention because I once knew going all the way round would be good for me. 

So, going to land packing up is the easiest thing to do until the easiest thing to do would be to carry on regardless and arrive back where I started, without having to deflate the board tonight, then inflate it once again tomorrow (or in four days when I’m ready for a paddle again).

My hands were screaming, and I finally found a reason to begrudge the temperature of the water. The sea is 28 degrees here, and while this is lovely for a quick sun-escaping dip I actually missed being able to cool-down my hands and feet, long-numb from gripping paddle and board. Cold water is an elixir for claw-finger. After my Mississippi paddle in 2011, three months of paddling left me with slightly curled fingers for two months afterwards. It would have been longer were it not for the chill of the lower river.

For the last hour I was in pitch darkness. The wind has slowed and I was alert to the danger of incoming fishing boats. What I didn’t expect was an enormous whooshing of water to my right, an out-rushing of air and the circular retreating wave from a smooth, rounded back. At first I thought, ‘how the hell did I paddle so close to that rock without noticing?’ but then I realised that I’d paddled this bay before and there had been no rock before. In the ever-so-pale combined light of the stars, the final refractions of sunlight from far below the horizon and the luminescence of coastal road lights over a kilometre away, I wasn’t able to make an exact identification, but I’m around 90% sure that a Whale Shark just surfaced five metres away from me, and then disappeared forever.

Twenty minutes later the end of my paddle was out of sight, and this meant that I only saw the turtle when it was beside me. It shat itself and mightily kicked downwards, throwing up a shower of sea water and leaving my little heart panting like Freddie Kruger had just jumped out.

Finally a familiar noise, “Woooo whoooop.” Em! Immediately post-wedding we’d venture to the Lower Mississippi and she’d picked up the paddler’s call. There she was, Jay the dog a faithful Boy Friday on her board, and suddenly we were paddling alongside the Srithanu channel navigation tower, a three metre high lighthouse that takes us three minutes to paddle to from our beach.

From the beach where I started this morning. From the start of this little journey. And the end. 

Twelve hours and forty seven minutes after setting out, Mud’s nose touched the sand again. Koh Phangan had been circumnavigated.

With a couple of hundred Baht to spare, the day’s budget of £20 had been spent. But this included Em’s moped hire and a good lunch for both of us, and welcome-home treats in the shape of a pizza, three large Leo beers and a Magnum each. I managed a few slices, slid the Magnum down, sipped about a quarter of one beer, then passed out.

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• See the photo story with more images from this mini adventure

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My website is stocked with over 13 years of adventures, blogs, projects, photos and films. I share these in the hope that others will experience similar feelings to those that I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy.

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Blog 1 - Alice Cooper

This Summer I'm exploring the Norwegian Coast like nobody ever has, by travelling 1500 miles along the Hurtgruten route between Kirkenes and Bergen, using a Schiller Bike. If successful this journey will be a world record distance by bike on water.

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If you ever need to break away and give yourself some fresh headspace, travel. 

Do something new; jump on a bike or a plane, in a car or a train, hope aboard a ship and take in a coastline from the best possible angle - from the sea.

I'm doing just that. After a year of challenges that have tested me in ways I've never before had to deal with it has taken just a day and a half to (almost) switch off. I left London yesterday morning and touched down briefly in Stockholm before descending three hours later through heavy cloud cover above snow-speckled peaks above Tromsø, Norway.

The coolest man in the world was sitting beside me on the plane, everything about him just screamed rock star - the long hair, wide brimmed hat, necklaces, rings and slow, drawling American accent. He even held his iPad like a dude. Turns out Alice Cooper have a gig in Tromsø this weekend and my plane neighbour is the lead guitarist in the band.

I told him what I was doing and he held out his hand, "You're living the life, man, that is a loooong trip."

This stuff doesn't happen when you stay at home, and if by some freak of chance it does, the story wouldn't have been half as good.

I'm ready to play a part in some new stories. The FlyBuss dropped me on a slick sidewalk a few metres from the water and as if it had been rehearsed there was the MS Finnmarken, looming into port, with little painted nostrils and singular fangs on its bow, as if to say 'this is me, deal with it.' 

Hurtigruten, the parent company of this vessel and another eleven that patrol the Norwegian coast between Kirkenes and Bergen, are the reason that I'm here, and their attitude as a company has been exemplified by two people who pushed the idea of this journey and turned it from a throwaway suggestion into reality.

Marcella saw me speak on another (much uglier and larger) cruise ship in the Mediterranean last year and Ant has forced through the proposal, as well as bringing Visit Norway in on the act. These things are always because of the people, and along with Judah and Robyn from Schiller Bikes in San Francisco, and Neal and Tim and Stephanie and Cheese and Carl and David and Jenna and tens of other people who believed in this trip, I'm about to do something bonkersly brilliant.

And while I'll be solo on the water for much of this journey, I won't be alone. As per usual I'll be sharing tales daily on social media, and I'll also have company nearby in the shape of a Yellow VW van named Yellow Matilda, a wise young dog named Angus, and their owners Adam and Laura. Team Yellow Matilda are currently making their way north on the roads between England and Kirkenes, some 2500 miles.

A new challenge 

I was ready for something new, a challenge that didn't just extract the rust from the old joints, but provided a real test in the midst of a dramatic, unfolding story. 

These characteristics always come with risk and the risk here is the sea, and that's why I find myself boarding the MS Finnmarken, because over the next two days we'll be sailing north and east along the route I'll soon be pedalling.

Fear and danger are always greatest from afar, and from afar is where the thinking and planning is done. On this journey, beyond keeping a beady eye on the weather and keeping my head on my shoulders when wind and sea state will undoubtedly force crucial decisions, the biggest challenge is the unseen. Especially for the first 400km, the current is against me. The wind almost certainly will be, too, but keeping a positive mindset is a matter of balance and expectation - pedalling against the tide and trying to measure gains by the movement of the land to my left, that's going to hurt some days.

Scouting the route gives me a chance to see what's to come (which isn't something I'd usually choose to do - often when you know what's next on a self-propelled journey it would put you right off), to ready my mind, to pick out those few-and-far-between camp spots and safe havens on a notoriously aggravated, difficult shoreline.

The scale up here is other-worldly. The Hurtigruten route is known as The World's Most Beautiful Sea Voyage and while it's easy to brush aside a gorgeous marketing line, the 24 hours I've now spent on board have confirmed three things: yes, this is an utterly gorgeous corner of the planet. Yes, this is going to be a huge challenge, and yes, no matter how many journeys I make my way through, there is always another way to stretch out the comfort zone.

In fact, the only pieces left in the puzzle that makes up the pre-trip conundrum, are Schiller Bike-shaped, in as much as the tracker on the DHL website stopped updating on Tuesday afternoon. I was hoping that my Schiller Bike would be ready and waiting in Kirkenes in time for my arrival tomorrow morning but I haven't yet been sent confirmation of delivery, so this looks unlikely.

No journey on this planet has ever begun with every detail nicely sewn up weeks in advance, and that's all part of the show. Roll with the punches, adapt to your surroundings, be prepared to change a plan when the wind demands and most of all, understand that you can try to plan an adventure as much as you like but when it comes down to it, you're never fully in control.

If you don't love that feeling and all that comes with it, I hope you still enjoy following this journey from the comfort of the familiar. Just don't expect Alice Cooper to sit down next to you.

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The best ways to follow Expedition Norway:

1. Everything you could possibly need and more on www.davecornthwaite.com/waterbike
2. Daily video diaries on www.facebook.com/davecornthwaite
3. Images on www.instagram.com/davecorn
4. Tiny 140 character thoughts, snippets and snapshots on www.twitter.com/davecorn

And when you finally succumb to the temptations of Norway, please use the excellent resources on Visit Norway to plan your trip, and consider Hurtigruten as the perfect introduction to this wonderful land.