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>I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in

>I kept hearing its not unusual for people in the west to take gap years, so thats what Im doing. You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality. Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough but I don't know ANYONE who's taken a "gap year" where they weren't doing something for ~40hr/wk in order to make a buck. I know a few people who didn't jump right into career stuff after college but even they did low pay large applicant pool type jobs at least tangentially related to their careers (e.g. working as basically unskilled labor on tourist fishing charters in Miami before getting a real entry level job on a container ship). Heck, even the people who took a year off before college were doing stuff tangentially related to their career/skillset in that time (e.g. working for geek squad prior to going to school for CE). I know a couple people who went from full time to part time or to less demanding jobs in their field prior to retirement. I know a couple people who did jobs not related to their vocational training for less than a year after they got out of the military but that was more of a stopgap to keep a roof over their head. I don't know anyone who's gone from full time to part time or less unless it's part of a career transition or approach to retirement. I'm sure there's someone somewhere who's managed to pay their rent by waiting tables and stripping for a grand total of 15hr/wk and spent the rest of the time doing art or writing a book or something. I'm sure there's someone who's banked a ton of money and taken a year off in the middle of their career. I don't know anyone who's pulled something like that off.

dreen 5y ago
I only heard about it from friends here in UK, and they would typically do it between collage and uni. Thats when I came here and had to start working to support myself.
girvo 5y ago
Pretty common for a sizeable portion of high school graduates in Australia to take a gap year either immediately after graduation or after their first year of uni
ramraj07 5y ago
A good fraction of people I’ve come across in uni in the US have taken gap years (or just take forever to finish college). This is not normal for regular immigrants these days. I did not have saturdays off from when I was 15 till I turned 32. Even then I was in a tech job which had great vacation but still not months at a time. It’s literally alien for folks like us to have an entire year where we don’t need to report to anything at all. I wish the OP the best, I’m still waiting for the day I can do the same but that’s at least years away.
toyg 5y ago
I learnt of this sort of thing only after I moved to the UK, where it's traditional for wealthy and middle-upper-class kids to take a long break between college and university - a habit that probably comes from the times of the "grand tours" of continental Europe in XVIII and XIX century. I've met people who do it on a 6-months basis - 6 months travelling, 6 months earning. They don't make much, their career is somewhat stalled, it would have probably ended when/if they had a kid, but they did it. They were conscious that they were sacrificing something (money, comforts) in exchange for this lifestyle.
- itronitron 5y ago
  In the US, before Jerry Garcia died, it used to be called 'touring with the Dead'
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Its pretty common for ordinary middle class kids - and remember in the UK a degree is three years not the US four years (or even longer in Europe) Bit harder now post Brexit though
  - jen20 5y ago
    Between Brexit and COVID most of the typical destinations are out for a while, by the sound of it. Almost all of the people I knew who did gap years before or after university went to either Australia or New Zealand (from the UK) following a three teaching-year degree with an extra industrial placement year - Australia in particular have (had?) a scheme where someone can live and work for a year with few restrictions provided they are under 30, and could extend that to two years if working in a rural area for some of that time.
    - ProZsolt 5y ago
      It's called the working holiday visa. I went to New Zealand on that after my first job. You have to work in agriculture for 3 months to extend your one year visa.
  - 5y ago
siva7 5y ago
well, it's not usual for first-gen immigrants doing a gap year unless rich, so i applaud parent for living his dream. it's pretty usual in western europe for middle-class children doing this.
Semaphor 5y ago
In Germany, gap years after school or sometimes university are pretty common (at least for the middle class). They do often work, but rarely in a field related to what they studied or want to do. Instead, it’s travel-financing jobs. It used to be that it was more a thing for women, but that probably changed since draft was abandoned (before that the gap year for men would usually have been military service or alternative civilian service)
- ho_schi 5y ago
  Are you sure about middle class O_o Higher-middle and upper class more likely? Kids which need to earn their money usually go straight into apprenticeship or university and earn money promptly.
  - ta988 5y ago
    Do we really have a precise scale for those things?
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      People tend to flip flop between the classical "wealthy people but not born into centuries old familial wealth on the top end and successful doctors, lawyers and financial professionals on the bottom end" definition and the "blue collar workers plus or minus a little" definition based on whichever is more convenient for the point they are trying to make that minute. Basically the GP is using the former definition and the person you're replying to is using the latter definition. Crap on the Marxists all you want but they do at least have a fairly unambiguous taxonomy for these distinctions.
      - pc86 5y ago
        Most HN readers would be more than a little flummoxed at what "middle class" actually is in the US. The median household income is somewhere between $50-60k depending on where you look. The median individual income is a solid $15-20k less than that. And yet people will still nearly break their own spine trying to convolute a $200k cash comp tech worker as "middle class" because they happen to pay $4k/mo for a shared apartment in San Francisco.
saiya-jin 5y ago
I know quite a few people from various background (finance, multinational corporations, non-profits) doing things like these. Depends on employer. In hindsight always regarded as one of the best decisions of their lives (along with reducing workload to 80%, usually 4 days/week). We all know that once old, the amount of money earned/saved will mean absolutely nothing in terms of happiness/achievement. Work achievements for office type jobs mean mean even less. The life lived well will mean everything. So some act accordingly when/if possible. I haven't done gap year myself, but did a shorter variant - 2 times 3 months backpacking around India and Nepal. Remote Himalaya in the north, swimming in coral reefs on Amdamans, Thar desert in the west, and thousands of years of history, culture and people to meet everywhere in between. I still barely scratched the surface of what this place can offer. Literally the best decision in my life. It changed me for the better. It motivated me to make changes in my career, go for consulting, move to Switzerland etc. Have met tons of people from all over the world who were like this - traveling like this for 3-24 months, and then continuing work/study/beginning someplace else. These trips I've done when having a pretty high mortgage and very little savings, and they both meant losing at least 2 salaries each time while expenses mounted. No rich family to cover for me anyhow if I would hit the financial wall. Still well worth the risk. If one doesn't have kids yet, there is practically nothing to lose with doing this, just gain.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  > We all know that once old, the amount of money earned/saved will mean absolutely nothing in terms of happiness/achievement. I dont think this is true at all. Money in retirement means the difference between mostly maintaining your standard of living after work an “choosing between medicine and food each week”. I think a lot of people saving up and then spending all their savings to party every 5 years are in for a shock when they are 60 and their joints are sore and their knees don’t work and they can no longer make a salary.
  - saiya-jin 5y ago
    US vs Europe perspective - here you can rely on healthcare much more to actually take care of you while not ruining you. One of the benefits of not living in a society which more in the mode of 'everybody for themselves, and fuck the rest'
samvher 5y ago
I guess we have different social circles, but I know many people who have done this and none of them are "trust fund crowd". Have done it myself for multiple half-year-or-so periods as well. Maybe it's more of a European thing to do. I spent 3 months as a research assistant in Australia and used savings from that period to travel in South-East Asia and South America for 6 months or so. Shortly after graduating, having saved a bit as a student (again - Europe, I managed without student debt, having done web development next to my studies), I went to a conference in Taiwan with my MSc thesis and traveled back home over land. Then after working a little bit on my first job again I traveled, hitchhiking to/through the Middle East and Russia. It's all very doable if you don't spend a lot - during many of these trips I spent $400-$1000/month. Highly recommend it, traveling in Turkey/Iran/Oman/Georgia/Russia/Ukraine definitely shaped my perspective on the world.
- benjaminwootton 5y ago
  It is a very popular thing to do in the UK before or after university. Around 20% of people at my university did the whole travel around Europe or Australia thing. Edit - Sorry, see all the peer comments made the same point.
  - jason0597 5y ago
    I'm studying at a UK university too, and I always scratch my head as to how on earth people get the money to travel around Europe or Australia before they go to uni. Who funds it?
    - jlokier 5y ago
      > Who funds it? Generally, I think family does. Some families have more money than others. It also depends how much the parents are willing and able to sacrifice, of course. The same way you might scratch your head wondering how some fellow students pay for rentals you can't imagine affording, and alcohol binges you can't imagine affording. Students from poorer families rarely go on gap years. But even some poorer parents will sacrifice a lot, if they can find a way, to pay for their children to travel. That said, the costs aren't outrageous. Travelling around Europe or Australia is fairly cheap for a young person (or at least used to be). There are schemes to allow travelling costs to be lower for young people, visas tend to be cheaper and easier to get, and people do local, temporary work e.g. in bars in kitchens to supplement the money they brought with them, to make it last longer. I went to university in the UK a long time ago. And I struggled to understand how people afforded gap years (or rent) then, too. I never had a gap year, and it makes me a little sad. But as I couldn't even afford to eat regular meals, and certainly couldn't join people for socialising when they went out to places like Pizza Hut (too expensive), it was the right decision not to take a gap year :/
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ryangittins 5y ago
> Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of people taking a gap year, especially people in tech. The industry pays well relatively early and there is a surplus of jobs. If you keep your expenses low relative to your salary, don't let your lifestyle inflate beyond your means, and are fortunate enough not to be burdened with debt, health problems, or other large expenses, a gap year seems completely doable. I think failure to save money is by far the most likely reason sabbaticals are uncommon, though I've been told by hiring managers they're more common in tech than you'd think. There's also probably some stigma against being unemployed, especially in professional circles, as well as fear of the dreaded "resume gap." As far as I can tell, that concern is fairly overblown for those in tech as well.
- distances 5y ago
  In the Europe I know, "sabbatical" means unpaid time off (commonly 6 months) while staying with the company. You don't get paid and don't accrue holidays/other benefits, but continue right where you left off when you're back. I think option for this is required by law in some countries, though I've never taken it so I'm not exactly sure. My former company allowed this after two years of continuous employment to let employees try their wings with building their own product. I thought this was pretty cool, and definitely a recruitment carrot. On the downside (for the company) lots of those colleagues ended up leaving after their sabbatical was up, but I figure that those people would have left soonish anyway. It's not like they would've had a problem getting a new job.
gizdan 5y ago
Here in the UK _most_ of the people I met at university didn't know gap years were an option. Post university it's been the same. The few who do take it absolutely love it. I personally didn't know either until I met a few people at university who got to the UK through the Erasmus programme. It's sad really. As a young person this is the time to be able to do it. Often as you get older life gets in the way. I've been wanting to do it ever since I found out about it but every time something else has gotten in the way. If you're young and reading this, and everything has aligned for you, take a gap year or two.
dolmen 5y ago
Few do that in France. Is it because we already have plenty of PTO (5 weeks, plus often 12 more days because the legal week is 35 hours but we usually do more)? Anyway, I took a gap time at age 36 for a 3 months trip in South America. And this allowed me to take an turn in my career when I came back.
obstacle1 5y ago
> trust fund crowd You're on a discussion board filled with software developers and tech employees generally. The vast majority of such workers make a lot of money. If you're working in tech and you can't bank enough to take 6m-1yr off, you're doing your finances wrong. It doesn't require a trust fund to avoid the hedonic treadmill and save up.
- toto444 5y ago
  That's not true everywhere.
- apercu 5y ago
  Yes and no. Depends on your seniority and where you live to some degree. I was pretty burnt out at 28 after a year that included things like a 110 hour work week. At the time I couldn't afford 6 months or a year off. I did take a year off 2 years later.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Yeah, I easily make twice as much as I spend. So I take a year of now and then, if I feel like it.
  - ericd 5y ago
    Do you ever find this makes finding a new job on return difficult?
    - wsc981 5y ago
      > Do you ever find this makes finding a new job on return difficult? I am not the same person you asked the question to, but I guess if you work on a couple of hobby projects and actually release those in your break year, you won't have holes in your CV.
      - ericd 5y ago
        Good point. I guess it depends on what kind of break you want...
reverend_gonzo 5y ago
You do not need to be a trust fund kid to travel the world cheaply. I did when I was 23 (2004-ish) and realized I didn't like working. Took out a credit card with 5k credit limit, saved money for a month or two (I was making 40k so not exactly tons). Bought a ticket to Eastern Europe, kicked around hostels for a few months, when I finally almost ran out of money, bought a ticket back. I met other people who picked up side jobs in hostels or bars to help cover their costs too. What you can't do is continue to have an expensive quality of life if you're no longer producing income.
apercu 5y ago
I did. I took almost a year off. It cost me about $35k in 2005 USD. I was really burnt out. But I'm not sure that taking the time did anything for me. I was a little stressed about the "unknown" the whole time and I mostly wish I had left that money in my savings. Your mileage may vary.
rvn1045 5y ago
It’s not very difficult to do financially if you don’t mind moving to a lower cost of living country. You can live pretty well for 20k USD in many parts of the world.
splithalf 5y ago
This differs by gender. A married woman taking time off for domestic/child rearing/continuing education is very common. An adult male, it’s very uncommon unless you’re rich, which most posters here obviously are.
logosmonkey 5y ago
I did. I took a year and sailed. Sold my house and used some savings. I couldn't have done it if I had kept my house though. I was mid 30's at the time (40 now). I don't work in the valley though, I just do data and analytic design for corporations so finding a new job only took a week when I moved back to Columbus, OH after sailing. While I did figure out I didn't love single handing a sailboat long term I don't regret any part of that year. I came back significantly happier than I was.
- dreen 5y ago
  OP here, learning to sail is one of my dreams and a potential candidate for first thing Ill want to do this year after quitting. Do you have any tips? I have some very small experience in it.
Frost1x 5y ago
It's interesting reading the comments on HN because, although everyone isn't making say $300-600k+ TC/yr here, I think it's safe to assume the TC distribution shifts the median earner here safely above the median US earner, perhaps by even a multiple of two. This, in theory means if you lived a lifestyle akin to a median labor earner, you should only need to work about half the amount--part time, every other year, FIRE / retire early strategies and so on. Most the advice is quite the opposite (and I would agree with them). To me, this really shows just how toxic the control is across the labor force. Job mobility is about the only vote or voice you have if you're in the labor force and if empty positions can be readily filled, you have no voice. The only reason things are interesting now is because the mass layoffs and turnover haven't been well stagged due to the pandemic so labor has more leverage. When true unemployment returns to norms, positions are largely re-filled, and attrition begins to follow traditional rates, the voice of the labor market voting will their feet will again fall on deaf ears and your voice will again disappear in the noise. It would take another global catastrophe to change this balance and give labor a voice again.
embwbam 5y ago
I have many rock climbing friends who live on less than 15k a year. They often do it for years, working seasonally 3-5 months a year. the trick is to go somewhere with a very cheap lifestyle. It can be accomplished by living in your car in the mountains, or traveling to SE Asia, etc. The climbing provides something to do and a sense of community. There are other cultures like this. I’ve seen kids from Europe doing a gap year staying in hostels for very little (they sometimes do some light work for the hostel to get a free place to stay)
rexarex 5y ago
I did a gap year at 25 and I only had 20k in savings and I traveled all over SE Asia and East Africa on that. Was a blast.
reaperducer 5y ago
You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality. In my industry, and the one my wife works in, if you have a gap year it's a red flag that makes potential employers wonder if you got fired from your last job and just aren't listing it, or did time in prison, or are simply unreliable. It's great that in the tech bubble people don't think much about gap years. But in the real world, they can doom your chances of getting a new job. Especially since these days you don't get to explain the gap since your application is vetted, filtered, and ranked by a computer and not a person.
nanidin 5y ago
You might be surprised by what is possible when you set goals and live below your means. You might also be surprised by how little money it costs to take off a year mid-career. When I finished university, I had a few weeks between graduation and my start date at a well known Midwestern embedded electronics company. I had a $7k signing bonus and I found a $500 round trip ticket to Rome, so I went to Rome. While I was there, I learned about the world of backpacking and hostels. I ended up spending 6 weeks in Europe before returning home. During that time I decided that travel was something I wanted to pursue in my life. The salary at my entry level SWE job was $58k, which was pretty modest. I didn’t buy a new car. I didn’t buy a new house. I cooked most meals at home and I brought lunch to work. I tracked my expenses and budget using Mint, and set a goal to save $30k so I could leave and travel in SE Asia where I calculated the daily burn rate should be around $30/day. After three years I hit my savings goal and bought a one way ticket to Hawaii, then from Hawaii to Thailand. I ended up spending over a year outside of the country and returned home with a $10k cushion to get back on my feet. The biggest leg up I had was graduating with $2000 in student loan debt, but that was made possible mostly through merit based scholarships. No trust fund. I inspired a friend to do the same thing, except with a destination of Australia on a working holiday visa. Also no trust fund, just living below his means and saving over time. My advice to you is to find a way to do the things you want to do instead of limiting yourself with beliefs that only the ultra-rich can take time off from work to pursue personal passions.
imNotTheProb 5y ago
Is it a gap year if you do something in-between jobs? I've done that

dreen 5y ago

I only heard about it from friends here in UK, and they would typically do it between collage and uni. Thats when I came here and had to start working to support myself.

girvo 5y ago

Pretty common for a sizeable portion of high school graduates in Australia to take a gap year either immediately after graduation or after their first year of uni

ramraj07 5y ago

A good fraction of people I’ve come across in uni in the US have taken gap years (or just take forever to finish college). This is not normal for regular immigrants these days. I did not have saturdays off from when I was 15 till I turned 32. Even then I was in a tech job which had great vacation but still not months at a time. It’s literally alien for folks like us to have an entire year where we don’t need to report to anything at all. I wish the OP the best, I’m still waiting for the day I can do the same but that’s at least years away.

toyg 5y ago

I learnt of this sort of thing only after I moved to the UK, where it's traditional for wealthy and middle-upper-class kids to take a long break between college and university - a habit that probably comes from the times of the "grand tours" of continental Europe in XVIII and XIX century. I've met people who do it on a 6-months basis - 6 months travelling, 6 months earning. They don't make much, their career is somewhat stalled, it would have probably ended when/if they had a kid, but they did it. They were conscious that they were sacrificing something (money, comforts) in exchange for this lifestyle.

itronitron 5y ago
In the US, before Jerry Garcia died, it used to be called 'touring with the Dead'
Mauricebranagh 5y ago
Its pretty common for ordinary middle class kids - and remember in the UK a degree is three years not the US four years (or even longer in Europe) Bit harder now post Brexit though
- jen20 5y ago
  Between Brexit and COVID most of the typical destinations are out for a while, by the sound of it. Almost all of the people I knew who did gap years before or after university went to either Australia or New Zealand (from the UK) following a three teaching-year degree with an extra industrial placement year - Australia in particular have (had?) a scheme where someone can live and work for a year with few restrictions provided they are under 30, and could extend that to two years if working in a rural area for some of that time.
  - ProZsolt 5y ago
    It's called the working holiday visa. I went to New Zealand on that after my first job. You have to work in agriculture for 3 months to extend your one year visa.
- 5y ago

siva7 5y ago

well, it's not usual for first-gen immigrants doing a gap year unless rich, so i applaud parent for living his dream. it's pretty usual in western europe for middle-class children doing this.

Semaphor 5y ago

In Germany, gap years after school or sometimes university are pretty common (at least for the middle class). They do often work, but rarely in a field related to what they studied or want to do. Instead, it’s travel-financing jobs. It used to be that it was more a thing for women, but that probably changed since draft was abandoned (before that the gap year for men would usually have been military service or alternative civilian service)

ho_schi 5y ago
Are you sure about middle class O_o Higher-middle and upper class more likely? Kids which need to earn their money usually go straight into apprenticeship or university and earn money promptly.
- ta988 5y ago
  Do we really have a precise scale for those things?
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    People tend to flip flop between the classical "wealthy people but not born into centuries old familial wealth on the top end and successful doctors, lawyers and financial professionals on the bottom end" definition and the "blue collar workers plus or minus a little" definition based on whichever is more convenient for the point they are trying to make that minute. Basically the GP is using the former definition and the person you're replying to is using the latter definition. Crap on the Marxists all you want but they do at least have a fairly unambiguous taxonomy for these distinctions.
    - pc86 5y ago
      Most HN readers would be more than a little flummoxed at what "middle class" actually is in the US. The median household income is somewhere between $50-60k depending on where you look. The median individual income is a solid $15-20k less than that. And yet people will still nearly break their own spine trying to convolute a $200k cash comp tech worker as "middle class" because they happen to pay $4k/mo for a shared apartment in San Francisco.

saiya-jin 5y ago

I know quite a few people from various background (finance, multinational corporations, non-profits) doing things like these. Depends on employer. In hindsight always regarded as one of the best decisions of their lives (along with reducing workload to 80%, usually 4 days/week). We all know that once old, the amount of money earned/saved will mean absolutely nothing in terms of happiness/achievement. Work achievements for office type jobs mean mean even less. The life lived well will mean everything. So some act accordingly when/if possible. I haven't done gap year myself, but did a shorter variant - 2 times 3 months backpacking around India and Nepal. Remote Himalaya in the north, swimming in coral reefs on Amdamans, Thar desert in the west, and thousands of years of history, culture and people to meet everywhere in between. I still barely scratched the surface of what this place can offer. Literally the best decision in my life. It changed me for the better. It motivated me to make changes in my career, go for consulting, move to Switzerland etc. Have met tons of people from all over the world who were like this - traveling like this for 3-24 months, and then continuing work/study/beginning someplace else. These trips I've done when having a pretty high mortgage and very little savings, and they both meant losing at least 2 salaries each time while expenses mounted. No rich family to cover for me anyhow if I would hit the financial wall. Still well worth the risk. If one doesn't have kids yet, there is practically nothing to lose with doing this, just gain.

ryandrake 5y ago
> We all know that once old, the amount of money earned/saved will mean absolutely nothing in terms of happiness/achievement. I dont think this is true at all. Money in retirement means the difference between mostly maintaining your standard of living after work an “choosing between medicine and food each week”. I think a lot of people saving up and then spending all their savings to party every 5 years are in for a shock when they are 60 and their joints are sore and their knees don’t work and they can no longer make a salary.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  US vs Europe perspective - here you can rely on healthcare much more to actually take care of you while not ruining you. One of the benefits of not living in a society which more in the mode of 'everybody for themselves, and fuck the rest'

samvher 5y ago

I guess we have different social circles, but I know many people who have done this and none of them are "trust fund crowd". Have done it myself for multiple half-year-or-so periods as well. Maybe it's more of a European thing to do. I spent 3 months as a research assistant in Australia and used savings from that period to travel in South-East Asia and South America for 6 months or so. Shortly after graduating, having saved a bit as a student (again - Europe, I managed without student debt, having done web development next to my studies), I went to a conference in Taiwan with my MSc thesis and traveled back home over land. Then after working a little bit on my first job again I traveled, hitchhiking to/through the Middle East and Russia. It's all very doable if you don't spend a lot - during many of these trips I spent $400-$1000/month. Highly recommend it, traveling in Turkey/Iran/Oman/Georgia/Russia/Ukraine definitely shaped my perspective on the world.

benjaminwootton 5y ago
It is a very popular thing to do in the UK before or after university. Around 20% of people at my university did the whole travel around Europe or Australia thing. Edit - Sorry, see all the peer comments made the same point.
- jason0597 5y ago
  I'm studying at a UK university too, and I always scratch my head as to how on earth people get the money to travel around Europe or Australia before they go to uni. Who funds it?
  - jlokier 5y ago
    > Who funds it? Generally, I think family does. Some families have more money than others. It also depends how much the parents are willing and able to sacrifice, of course. The same way you might scratch your head wondering how some fellow students pay for rentals you can't imagine affording, and alcohol binges you can't imagine affording. Students from poorer families rarely go on gap years. But even some poorer parents will sacrifice a lot, if they can find a way, to pay for their children to travel. That said, the costs aren't outrageous. Travelling around Europe or Australia is fairly cheap for a young person (or at least used to be). There are schemes to allow travelling costs to be lower for young people, visas tend to be cheaper and easier to get, and people do local, temporary work e.g. in bars in kitchens to supplement the money they brought with them, to make it last longer. I went to university in the UK a long time ago. And I struggled to understand how people afforded gap years (or rent) then, too. I never had a gap year, and it makes me a little sad. But as I couldn't even afford to eat regular meals, and certainly couldn't join people for socialising when they went out to places like Pizza Hut (too expensive), it was the right decision not to take a gap year :/

deleted 5y ago

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ryangittins 5y ago

> Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of people taking a gap year, especially people in tech. The industry pays well relatively early and there is a surplus of jobs. If you keep your expenses low relative to your salary, don't let your lifestyle inflate beyond your means, and are fortunate enough not to be burdened with debt, health problems, or other large expenses, a gap year seems completely doable. I think failure to save money is by far the most likely reason sabbaticals are uncommon, though I've been told by hiring managers they're more common in tech than you'd think. There's also probably some stigma against being unemployed, especially in professional circles, as well as fear of the dreaded "resume gap." As far as I can tell, that concern is fairly overblown for those in tech as well.

distances 5y ago
In the Europe I know, "sabbatical" means unpaid time off (commonly 6 months) while staying with the company. You don't get paid and don't accrue holidays/other benefits, but continue right where you left off when you're back. I think option for this is required by law in some countries, though I've never taken it so I'm not exactly sure. My former company allowed this after two years of continuous employment to let employees try their wings with building their own product. I thought this was pretty cool, and definitely a recruitment carrot. On the downside (for the company) lots of those colleagues ended up leaving after their sabbatical was up, but I figure that those people would have left soonish anyway. It's not like they would've had a problem getting a new job.

gizdan 5y ago

Here in the UK _most_ of the people I met at university didn't know gap years were an option. Post university it's been the same. The few who do take it absolutely love it. I personally didn't know either until I met a few people at university who got to the UK through the Erasmus programme. It's sad really. As a young person this is the time to be able to do it. Often as you get older life gets in the way. I've been wanting to do it ever since I found out about it but every time something else has gotten in the way. If you're young and reading this, and everything has aligned for you, take a gap year or two.

dolmen 5y ago

Few do that in France. Is it because we already have plenty of PTO (5 weeks, plus often 12 more days because the legal week is 35 hours but we usually do more)? Anyway, I took a gap time at age 36 for a 3 months trip in South America. And this allowed me to take an turn in my career when I came back.

obstacle1 5y ago

> trust fund crowd You're on a discussion board filled with software developers and tech employees generally. The vast majority of such workers make a lot of money. If you're working in tech and you can't bank enough to take 6m-1yr off, you're doing your finances wrong. It doesn't require a trust fund to avoid the hedonic treadmill and save up.

toto444 5y ago
That's not true everywhere.
apercu 5y ago
Yes and no. Depends on your seniority and where you live to some degree. I was pretty burnt out at 28 after a year that included things like a 110 hour work week. At the time I couldn't afford 6 months or a year off. I did take a year off 2 years later.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Yeah, I easily make twice as much as I spend. So I take a year of now and then, if I feel like it.
- ericd 5y ago
  Do you ever find this makes finding a new job on return difficult?
  - wsc981 5y ago
    > Do you ever find this makes finding a new job on return difficult? I am not the same person you asked the question to, but I guess if you work on a couple of hobby projects and actually release those in your break year, you won't have holes in your CV.
    - ericd 5y ago
      Good point. I guess it depends on what kind of break you want...

reverend_gonzo 5y ago

You do not need to be a trust fund kid to travel the world cheaply. I did when I was 23 (2004-ish) and realized I didn't like working. Took out a credit card with 5k credit limit, saved money for a month or two (I was making 40k so not exactly tons). Bought a ticket to Eastern Europe, kicked around hostels for a few months, when I finally almost ran out of money, bought a ticket back. I met other people who picked up side jobs in hostels or bars to help cover their costs too. What you can't do is continue to have an expensive quality of life if you're no longer producing income.

apercu 5y ago

I did. I took almost a year off. It cost me about $35k in 2005 USD. I was really burnt out. But I'm not sure that taking the time did anything for me. I was a little stressed about the "unknown" the whole time and I mostly wish I had left that money in my savings. Your mileage may vary.

rvn1045 5y ago

It’s not very difficult to do financially if you don’t mind moving to a lower cost of living country. You can live pretty well for 20k USD in many parts of the world.

splithalf 5y ago

This differs by gender. A married woman taking time off for domestic/child rearing/continuing education is very common. An adult male, it’s very uncommon unless you’re rich, which most posters here obviously are.

logosmonkey 5y ago

I did. I took a year and sailed. Sold my house and used some savings. I couldn't have done it if I had kept my house though. I was mid 30's at the time (40 now). I don't work in the valley though, I just do data and analytic design for corporations so finding a new job only took a week when I moved back to Columbus, OH after sailing. While I did figure out I didn't love single handing a sailboat long term I don't regret any part of that year. I came back significantly happier than I was.

dreen 5y ago
OP here, learning to sail is one of my dreams and a potential candidate for first thing Ill want to do this year after quitting. Do you have any tips? I have some very small experience in it.

Frost1x 5y ago

It's interesting reading the comments on HN because, although everyone isn't making say $300-600k+ TC/yr here, I think it's safe to assume the TC distribution shifts the median earner here safely above the median US earner, perhaps by even a multiple of two. This, in theory means if you lived a lifestyle akin to a median labor earner, you should only need to work about half the amount--part time, every other year, FIRE / retire early strategies and so on. Most the advice is quite the opposite (and I would agree with them). To me, this really shows just how toxic the control is across the labor force. Job mobility is about the only vote or voice you have if you're in the labor force and if empty positions can be readily filled, you have no voice. The only reason things are interesting now is because the mass layoffs and turnover haven't been well stagged due to the pandemic so labor has more leverage. When true unemployment returns to norms, positions are largely re-filled, and attrition begins to follow traditional rates, the voice of the labor market voting will their feet will again fall on deaf ears and your voice will again disappear in the noise. It would take another global catastrophe to change this balance and give labor a voice again.

embwbam 5y ago

I have many rock climbing friends who live on less than 15k a year. They often do it for years, working seasonally 3-5 months a year. the trick is to go somewhere with a very cheap lifestyle. It can be accomplished by living in your car in the mountains, or traveling to SE Asia, etc. The climbing provides something to do and a sense of community. There are other cultures like this. I’ve seen kids from Europe doing a gap year staying in hostels for very little (they sometimes do some light work for the hostel to get a free place to stay)

rexarex 5y ago

I did a gap year at 25 and I only had 20k in savings and I traveled all over SE Asia and East Africa on that. Was a blast.

reaperducer 5y ago

You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality. In my industry, and the one my wife works in, if you have a gap year it's a red flag that makes potential employers wonder if you got fired from your last job and just aren't listing it, or did time in prison, or are simply unreliable. It's great that in the tech bubble people don't think much about gap years. But in the real world, they can doom your chances of getting a new job. Especially since these days you don't get to explain the gap since your application is vetted, filtered, and ranked by a computer and not a person.

nanidin 5y ago

You might be surprised by what is possible when you set goals and live below your means. You might also be surprised by how little money it costs to take off a year mid-career. When I finished university, I had a few weeks between graduation and my start date at a well known Midwestern embedded electronics company. I had a $7k signing bonus and I found a $500 round trip ticket to Rome, so I went to Rome. While I was there, I learned about the world of backpacking and hostels. I ended up spending 6 weeks in Europe before returning home. During that time I decided that travel was something I wanted to pursue in my life. The salary at my entry level SWE job was $58k, which was pretty modest. I didn’t buy a new car. I didn’t buy a new house. I cooked most meals at home and I brought lunch to work. I tracked my expenses and budget using Mint, and set a goal to save $30k so I could leave and travel in SE Asia where I calculated the daily burn rate should be around $30/day. After three years I hit my savings goal and bought a one way ticket to Hawaii, then from Hawaii to Thailand. I ended up spending over a year outside of the country and returned home with a $10k cushion to get back on my feet. The biggest leg up I had was graduating with $2000 in student loan debt, but that was made possible mostly through merit based scholarships. No trust fund. I inspired a friend to do the same thing, except with a destination of Australia on a working holiday visa. Also no trust fund, just living below his means and saving over time. My advice to you is to find a way to do the things you want to do instead of limiting yourself with beliefs that only the ultra-rich can take time off from work to pursue personal passions.

imNotTheProb 5y ago

Is it a gap year if you do something in-between jobs? I've done that