Our Gap Year Adventure

At the beginning of 2018, my wife and I quit our jobs to travel around the world together!

We have been aggressively pursuing financial independence (the ability to live entirely off of our investments), but still have several years to go before we can “retire” from work completely (if we choose to).  We are calling this adventure a “Gap Year” because we plan to return to work at some point in the future.

If you’d like to follow along with our gap year adventure, check back here on Money Metagame for regular updates.  We are also micro-blogging more frequently on Instagram which is cross-posted to the blog’s Twitter and Facebook pages, so be sure to follow us on your favorite form(s) of social media.

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Below will keep track of our journey so far and link to all of the articles related to the gap year.

The Journey

We started out in Seattle on February 1st and plan to spend the majority of our time road-tripping around the US, but we did make a small trip to Cabo with family to kick off the gap year.  Thanks to miles and points, the entire 4-day, all-inclusive trip only cost us a couple hundred dollars out of pocket!

After that, we took off down the coast with a rough plan that will have us arriving in Austin, Texas near the end of March to attend a wedding.  Next, we turned back west to meet up with some FIRE friends in New Mexico and visit the Trinity Site Open House.  Then, we continued west hitting many of the national parks in the 4-corners area.

Once we finished exploring the beautiful national parks in Utah, we visited friends and family across Colorado before heading further east to explore the cities of St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, and more.

Through most of the summer months, we bounced around the Midwest (where we both grew up) before attending CampFI Midwest in Minnesota.  Next, we traveled east across southern Canada to catch some of the amazing fall colors in the New England area. Acadia National Park was beautiful with the leaves just starting to change color.

Heading south, we spent time in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, DC, and several cities in between. Each city had amazing historical sites as well as plenty of great food and entertainment to keep us busy.

Next we met up with friends and family in Richmond, Atlanta, and Tuscaloosa before finding ourselves in New Orleans. After spending time on Bourbon Street, we decided to hop on an 11-day Caribbean cruise on one of the biggest ships we have ever seen!

The captain steered us to a handful of different countries as we relaxed and enjoyed our luxury accommodations at sea. The unlimited food, drinks, and entertainment meant there was plenty to do when we weren’t laying in the sun.

After returning to shore, we made our way to Florida to meet up with family for Christmas and spend some time exploring the state before back to back weeks at Camp FI: Southeast.

As the end of our gap year loomed near, we decided to start making our way back west to start the next chapter of our lives. We decided to settle into Denver, Colorado temporarily while we got our bearings and started searching for work.

Luckily, the entire year of adventures cost less than we expected, so we had plenty of buffer to study up and start applying to jobs. Not long after, I found a great position in Silicon Valley and we made one final road trip from Colorado to the Bay Area to settle into the next chapter of our lives.

Overall, our gap year was an amazing experience and one that we’ll be reminiscing about for a long time. Thanks for following along!

The Map (~24,000 miles driven)

Gap Year Articles

This gap year adventure has been a huge focus of ours since the middle of 2017, so many posts have been written about preparing for the trip and the various decisions we made before getting started.  As we continue along in the actual journey itself, I will continue to update where we are, what we’re spending, and anything else that comes to mind!

Check them all out below:

• Crazy Thought: What If We Took a Gap Year?
• Gap Year Planning: Pre-Trip Logistics – Part 1
• Gap Year Planning: Many Mediocre Health Insurance Options
• Blogging Sabbatical Recap – FinCon, Running 50+ Miles, MoviePass, and More!
• Gap Year Planning: Preparing for the Final Paycheck
• Gap Year Planning: Travel Hacking A Year Of Hotel Stays
• Let The Gap Year Begin!
• A Cabo San Lucas All Inclusive on Points, Miles, and $164
• Gap Year Week 2: It Doesn’t Feel Real Yet
• Gap Year Spending Month 0 – $1,552.62
• Gap Year Spending Month 1 – $3,743.55
• The $1,000,000 Road Trip
• Gap Year Week 9: Time Has Slowed to a Crawl
• Gap Year Spending Month 2 – $3,555.27
• Gap Year Week 12: Deflategate (When Things Go Wrong)
• Choosing the Perfect Early Retirement “Income”
• Gap Year Spending Month 3 – $3,796.40
• 6 Perks of Living In Hotels
• Gap Year Spending Month 4 – $2,184.27
• Purchasing Points For The First Time
• Gap Year Week 23: A Brief Intermission
• Gap Year Spending Month 5 – $2.895.11
• Gap Year Spending Month 6 – $2,136.15
• Gap Year Spending Month 7 – $1,605.04
• Gap Year Spending Month 8 – $3,116.12
• Gap Year Spending Month 9 – $3,640.03
• Gap Year Spending Month 10 – $5,096.87
• Gap Year Spending Month 11 – $6,974.05
• Gap Year Week 52: Back to Reality
• Hotel Stats from a Year on the Road
• Starting the Next Chapter