In early 1999 I'd been working as a contractor at a major Australian bank, writing VBScript, building an Intranet site. A three month contract became nine. By t

In early 1999 I'd been working as a contractor at a major Australian bank, writing VBScript, building an Intranet site. A three month contract became nine. By then I'd managed to pay off my student debt and put aside a decent amount. I quit and traveled. Three months in southern Africa and three months in the United Kingdom. It was my second trip to southern Africa and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Different the second time around. While I was exploring different areas, I had a much better sense of what to expect from each situation. My first trip to the UK. I wasted a lot of time in those three months, which could have been better spent. I did see quite a lot, but generally I treated it mostly as a tools down and relaxation period. I did return to Australia, but 12 months later, I was back in the UK and lived there for a further 13 years. Returning to Australia, it was straightforward enough to find work. I think I was offered something on my third interview. This just happened to be with a company which would go on to become a dotcom giant, survive the crash and continues to do reasonably well today. Everything worked out well enough. I would certainly do it all again. If I had the choice to do things differently, I probably would have cut short the UK period and seen more of Europe, although I did a lot of that in subsequent years. In short, I would encourage people to do something like this. I don't think breaks of even up to 12 months in a career should be a concern, especially if explained easily enough. The experiences are worth a great deal.