The Big RTW Secret

When you first start planning a trip around the world it seems like a dream. Your time is occupied with “what if we lived here for a month”, “we will need to add pages to our passport”, and stressing over the big day you leave your “security blanket” (job).

Soon things get a little more serious, you have a rough itinerary and you are beginning to make to-do lists with deadlines quickly approaching. At this point you might have shared your plans with one of your closest friends, but even they most likely think you’re crazy and won’t actually go through with such an elaborate trip. You even may doubt that you have the energy to go through with your plans, but by telling one other person you’re validating it. You have opened up your goals to someone else which will only help you drive towards making it happen.

When do you tell people and in what order? How long do you wait until you tell your work? These were questions that we struggled with.

8 Months Out

We each told only our families and 1 or 2 of our closest friends about our goals and timelines but we still hadn’t purchased our tickets at this point so there was nothing concrete. (Yes, we only officially decided to do this 8 months prior to our original date, but then we moved up the date by 3 months!)

3 Months Out

I started telling more of my friends, still keeping it quiet, but letting more people know about the plans. We knew we were going to buy our tickets within the next month and plans had moved forward at a good rate so we felt more confident at this time to answer questions that we knew everyone would ask.

2 Months Out

At this point we bought our tickets and told our work. We spoke to others who left their companies to travel and the average amount of time they gave their jobs was somewhere between 6 – 8 weeks. This was a big week for us because not only did we notify our employers but we told Facebook, and everyone knows that once you put something on Facebook then it is finally official. We each had our own list of people we wanted to call and talk to personally on the phone about the trip before we went public with it, and out of respect made sure to put in the time to call people directly.

We now have less than 1 month until our lease ends and we are openly talking about it and it is no longer a secret or just a crazy dream. It is happening and we are excited for you all to come along for the ride!