I had first heard of the Meet Plan Go! New York event from Adventurous Kate. I took her advice to go and meet like-minded travelers; I immediately signed up for the October 16th event, which took place inside the Hostelling International hostel on the Upper West Side.
So, what is Meet Plan Go?
It’s an inspirational event designed to encourage future career-breakers to turn their dreams of travel into reality. The idea behind it is to travel the world, while also benefitting your career. While career break can be anything from a month to a whole sabbatical year, the goal of Meet Plan Go! is to emphasize how travel can be part of your overall career strategy, and how the skills acquired while working in different continents can make you a highly attractive candidate afterwards.
It all started with a few people wanting more than the two weeks vacation time allowed in the corporate US world. Perhaps the country with the least amount of time off, it is always thought that travel is a luxury, benefiting some very few. It’s either lack of time, or lack of money; usually, both. However, when founder Sherry Ott came up with the idea of Meet Plan Go! in 2009, the term career break did not even show up on Google’s search results. She herself wanted to break free from the comfy routine of living on the Upper East Side, to experience more from life, and ultimately to show traveling is possible for anyone that puts his/her mind to it.
As a New Yorker, I can certainly confirm living in the city is MORE expensive than traveling. One night out for dinner, drinks plus tips can last you for a week, somewhere else in South America and Asia, for instance. So the prejudice that travel is pricey and unattainable is not always true.
Added to that, the options Meet Plan Go! presented as income generating possibilities while traveling abroad were excellent. Some are teaching English as a foreign language, working in hotels and hostels, engaging in online ventures, blogging, becoming a tour guide, etc. While none will make you rich (remaining in New York to work on Wall Street might be a better option in this case), they are viable work potentials that travelers use to live and extend their stays abroad. As for safety issues, out of the dozens of experienced travelers, most of them complained of getting mugged in NYC rather than feeling in danger in a third world country. So, there you have it!
Although I am not planning a career break in the near future, I found the event truly inspiration and full of valuable resources. Besides the multitude of speakers I was thrilled to meet in person, there were breakout sessions of smaller groups that went into details of specific topics. Some of the topics discussed were: working while traveling, traveling with your career in mind, solo travel, budgeting/saving, prepping to leave, etcetera.
There were also some very exciting prizes and an e-goody bag for the attendees; I was bummed I didn’t win either Andrew Mccarthy’s book Longest Way Home or Chris Gillibeau’s 100 Dollar Start-up 🙂
The New York event was the largest of the ten cities around the US and Canada, and it featured over a dozen travel experts. I highly recommend you check out the Meet Plan Go website and their resources on how to plan your career break step by step.
Thank you to the sponsors: Hostelling International, Intrepid Travel, International TEFL Academy, BootsnAll, insuremytrip.com, Personalized Spanish, Photo Manhattan, P Cubed. Sun Chips and Spain’s Estrella Damm made the night particularly enjoyable. Also, I was very excited to meet Gogobot, the social network for travelers, another one of the sponsors.
Are you planning a career break?
