Starting in May 2019, we will begin another year of travel. In 2013/14, we travelled the world for 13 months. Through our job, we average our pay so that we are payed four years of salary over a five year period. It is called a four-for-five, income averaging, or deferred salary leave. Basically we get 80% pay for five years and take the fifth year to travel the world.
That does not mean that we did not travel for four years in between. In fact, we have had some amazing adventures over the past four years: Galapagos, Ireland, Scotland, Columbia, Alaska, Jamaica and more. Nicola has been travelling the world a lot longer than Jeff and actually was the one who exposed him to exploring the world. She has been to more than 100 countries (using the criteria established by Travellers’ Century Club). Jeff has been to only 67 using the same list. {Note, that the TCC list includes countries and territories}
Our style of travel is not for everyone. We would not describe it as budget travel (anymore anyway). However, it is far from luxury travel. We stay in hostels but mostly because we want to meet other travellers and share travel experiences. Rarely do we stay in dorm rooms anymore. We have stayed in more AirBNB places lately and we look for comfortable places in good areas for our travels.
We search long and hard for good deals on flights, trains, busses, etc. We only pay for tours when we figure we cannot do it alone or should not do it alone (i.e. safety reasons mainly). We have found some good websites for searching out our travel plans and are flexible sometimes in where we will go next. Usually we have a big idea of where we are heading but usually allow ourselves some latitude in the details.
We hope you will follow along with our next adventure: World Tour Take 2 – May 2019 to May 2020.
That is such a cool plan! Does your company offer that plan or do you just work for four years and then leave and find a new job when you return?
Our employer has a plan called deferred salary or “four for five”. We get 80% pay for five years but work for four. Our jobs are kept for us.
Thx for your comment