When you tell people that you’ll be leaving on a 1-year trip around the world, you’ll get various reactions from them. Most people are very supportive and admire the idea of being on vacation for 1 year. But when they let the idea sink in a bit longer, other thoughts come to mind. More positive ones and less positive ones. Lets begin with the positive, good and feel-good reactions. 
“Wow really? That’s awesome!”
Those are the best reactions, I’ve gotta be honest about that. It’s not that I wanna make them jealous or anything, but it’s just that I’m glad that there are like-minded people out there and around me that have the same dream and idea to go travel. Most of these people do have the same dream of traveling the world for a year but they often don’t know where to begin or just can’t go because of their choices in life. They are either busy with work (or just can’t get away for a year) or in a committed relationship or even married or sometimes they just like the idea of backpacking but the backpacking lifestyle just doesn’t work for them. For those friends of mine, I’d gladly share my tips and tricks of my planning and eventually share my memories and adventures of my year long round the world trip. Then they continue to ask me where I’ll be going and how long I’ll stay there. I’m not a great storyteller but most of the times when I’m listing the countries I’d visit, I swear I could see their eyes light up with excitement.
“That’s cool and all but what about….?”
I’m not really a fan of the people that react like this, but I think this type of comments are necessary to keep your feet on the ground. The thought of traveling for a year and doing nothing but enjoy life and explore the world could make anyone forget about “reality” and the plans after the sabbatical year. Personally I did think about my plans after the trip, but at the moment I’m not even sure if the plans will stay the same next year. I might have changed my way of thinking and my goals in life might be different from before. But this shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid the responsibility of taking care of your future. I still believe that you should always have a plan B or back-up plan in life and anything else you do. For certain things it’s ok to just go with the flow and let life take you. But once you get older, I do believe you need to have more certainty for certain parts in your life. As much as I hate to hear the naysayers, I do appreciate their input and worries that make me realise that after my year off, I’ll be coming back home. Some people manage to continue their voyage around the world, but others go back to the life before they left on their round the world trip. This might sound cliché and I hate to sound repetitive, but sometimes you just need to take that leap of faith without knowing where you’ll end up and do things that you’ve always wanted to. The last couple of years I’ve been trying to follow a certain quote i heard: “It’s better to regret something you did than to regret something you didn’t do.”
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