From the perspective of an 83-year-old who still works 60-hour weeks, is active mentally, married 49 years to the love of my life and loves playing softball with guys one-third of my age:
If I were 28, single and had $40,000 in the bank or buried in the backyard, I would make that trip in a heartbeat!
A trip like this, taken in one’s youth, can have greater impact than a college education.
Such a trip, if not spent in pubs every day and night, would expand one’s perspective on life and the world and could get you to think beyond the borders of the town or neighborhood where you live.
Besides, you could meet and converse with people with different ideas, see incredible architecture, learn that other ways of doing things can work – and see what does not work or does not work well.
It’s like spending $40,000 for four years at Harvard or Yale!
While I may not agree with every Gen Z point of view, this one shows great wisdom and perspective. Society, in my opinion, has this retirement thing backwards.
Go out. See the world. Do stuff when you are young and physically able. You have plenty of time to chain yourself to the plow later.
Jim Tewalt, Glendale, Arizona
Writing in response to your piece on mini-retirement in the recent newsletter.
I've done this myself and have been thinking a lot about why more people don't.
What surprised me is that the hardest part wasn't necessarily the financial planning, it was the uncertainty of what came next. A sabbatical where you know you're returning to the same employer is one thing. Walking away without knowing what job, career, or country comes next is another. Even when you've saved enough money, the question of "What happens after?" hangs over the entire experience. Will I be able to find another job? Will I even want to go back to the same industry? In an increasingly competitive job market, I suspect that fear keeps a lot of people from ever taking the leap.
The financial barriers are real, too, particularly in the United States. Most discussions focus on whether you can save enough money, but I think it's often the fixed obligations that stop people. Student loan payments, rent or mortgages, car payments and healthcare costs don't disappear when you stop working. For many Americans, carrying student debt while also losing employer-sponsored health insurance and needing to purchase private coverage makes an extended break feel out of reach, even if they've accumulated meaningful savings.
I find the term "mini-retirement" a little funny because it's essentially a sabbatical or career break. Extended breaks from work are fairly common in parts of Europe, but in the U.S. we've built a culture around continuous career progression. Taking six months off can feel like a major life decision rather than a fairly normal thing people do between chapters of their careers.
I wonder if part of the growing interest comes from millennials and Gen Z questioning the traditional retirement model altogether. Many people aren't convinced retirement will work out the way it did for previous generations. There's anxiety around healthcare costs, housing affordability and whether programs like Social Security will provide the same support decades from now. At the same time, we're told to save aggressively, buy a home and keep climbing professionally. It creates a strange tension where people delay experiences today for a retirement that feels increasingly uncertain.
Michel Russo, currently traveling in Nepal
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