Jeffrey Jung - The Career Break Travelers Handbook: How to make your dream trip a reality today.

Disclaimer:

This book provides entertaining and informative snapshots of the writers personal experiences and helpful tips from the writer and others, learned while traveling around the world. The tips provided in this book are not meant to serve as an exclusive checklist to effectively safeguard the reader in every travel situation. Each reader should complete updated, detailed research from legitimate sources to learn the cultural norms and safety recommendations for their specific destination. No one can guarantee safety and travel can expose everyone to potential risks. Because safety is impacted by each persons actions and choices, each reader is advised to always do their homework on their destination and use their best judgment while on their journey.

I wish you safe and happy travels.

For my parents for being my biggest supporters,
for advising me whether I was open to hearing their advice
or not, for listening to me in good times and bad,
and for shaping me into the person I am today.

This book is the result of so many good people Ive met and my personal journey which began back in 2006. I have to start with my friends Mike and Joy who inadvertently sparked my career break over margaritas and Spanish food. Luckily when I shared the news with my parents, they supported me and even joined me on the road to see South Africa.

My dear friend and business partner, Cheryl, has been with me every step of the way in launching Career Break Secrets. Without her support, advice and humor, and more than a few shared bottles of wine none of this would be possible. I also want to thank Mateo and Liliana for all their hard work and sticking with me. Since starting Career Break Secrets Ive had the good fortune to meet people from around the world and hear their stories, further fueling my passion for career breaks and giving me a chance to learn from their experiences.

Thanks to all who generously gave their time to help me with the book. Some shared their stories, some provided constructive criticism, all are appreciated. Finally, thank you to Janice Waugh for giving me the opportunity to publish this book, thereby allowing me to take my career break message to a wider audience.

Life moves pretty fast. If you dont stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Ferris Bueller, 1986

Travel has always been a part of my life. When I was eleven years old, my family hosted the first of many foreign exchange students through Rotary International. They came from all over the world - Germany, France, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia - to my little town of Fredericksburg, population 5,000, in the center of Texas. Having foreign brothers and sisters was normal to me. I loved seeing the pictures of their home countries and their families, and hearing the stories about what it was like to live in those places.

Years later, as an exchange student myself in Australia and South Africa, I lived with local host families. I traveled with them, ate with them, saw the countries through their eyes. Traveling as a local was just how everyone traveled, or so I assumed.

Those early experiences shaped not only how I traveled, but also how I sought to understand the world. Why go to a restaurant when you can be in the kitchen with a friend helping them cook and learning about the dish? Why just go to a museum to learn about the local culture and history when you have friends who are part of it?

After college, I jumped into corporate life with both feet. Do you like to travel? asked the recruiter who interviewed me.

I love to travel, I proudly responded. Ive lived overseas and would have no problem taking international assignments. I showed the kind of gung-ho spirit that consulting recruiters love to see. Of course, what I didnt realize was that business travel was completely different. Frequent flier miles were the most tangible rewards that I accumulated from my business travel experiences.

Eventually, I left consulting to join a small, fast growing medical device company. It had a fiercely dynamic culture. Hours were long, management was tough but fair, and I really believed (and still do) in the companys products. I traveled less for work at this time, which allowed me to start developing a personal life.

Yet, as time went on the pressures increased. The business clichs played out before my eyes: more with less, daily fire drill, new sales programs, new projects for greater revenue generation, old projects to finish on time, client meetings, late nights, early mornings, and everything had an urgent deadline. Uh-oh, here comes a reorganization.

Sigh.

When I started the job, dynamic meant fun, exciting, challenging, and rewarding. But it came to mean long days, longer nights, and taking work home over the weekend. The life I really wanted for myself was slowly fading away. I became restless, unhappy.

Personal travel during my corporate years was as much for escape as for my love of it. Yes, I went to places I wanted to see. But leaving the country also served as a way to escape the phone calls, e-mails and corporate drama.

Ill be in South Africa, so I wont have access to messages or e-mail. Sorry! I would say with a smile. Inside, I was thinking, You cant find me there. Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!

Childish? Yes. Unprofessional? Perhaps. Necessary for my mental health? Absolutely.

Was this what success meant? Was there no way to be successful at work and lead a balanced life? Had I made a bargain with the devil, building a successful career while sacrificing a satisfying personal life?

If so, I certainly hadnt realized it when I got into the corporate game. With the thrill of professional success gone, how was I ever going to engage with the things that really mattered to me: time for myself, for my family and friends, time to pursue my personal passions?

Then it happened.

Whats it going to take to make you happy?

The margarita glasses sweated profusely in the thick Friday night air on the San Antonio Riverwalk. During dinner, my friends Mike and Joy asked me that fateful question.

It was followed by an uncomfortable pause and the margarita glasses suddenly werent the only thing sweating. It was a question that I had been asking myself, but I didnt have an answer. I could no longer avoid it. They had my full attention.

Whats it going to take to make you happy?

Mike and Joys question rang in my ears like an alarm. The next morning I woke up in every way a person can. I had an epiphany: I wanted to travel.

I wanted to go to all those places that I had been dreaming about since I was a kid. I wanted to travel the way that I did when I was in Australia and South Africa: slowly, getting to know the local culture, making the country my own. I wanted to focus on some of my hobbies that I never seemed able to fit in to my normal life. I wanted time for myself and my passions.

To some, it appeared that I was running away. I saw it as a life-enhancing change. If it meant I had to leave my job, I was fine with that.