Learning Sabbaticals — My Own Case Study

What would you do with your time if you didn’t need to work? This is really an interesting question. Because that’s the situation I’m in at the moment.

It’s no secret that I have a lot of free time. Last year I saved enough money to take an extended vacation (a Mini-retirement) of at least six months. Six months, if I were extremely reckless with my money, that is. So here I am with a huge amount of time on my hands. One thing that I’ve learned from traveling in the past is that having too much time and nothing to do can actually be bad for you. A quick glance at the long-term traveler scene and you’ll see the same people at the same bars 6 of 7 nights a week. In some backpacker areas, it’s not uncommon to see people drinking beer on the street or in front of their bungalow at 8am, 10am, 3pm. Which is fine if all you’ve got is a week or two. But a good number of the people I’ve met have been traveling and partying hard for a full six months to a year. One guy I met in Vang Vieng, Laos was 320 consecutive days into a river tubing bender, going for a full 365 days (I’m not sure that Guiness will share his enthusiasm about his “record”). They party for two reasons: because it’s fun; and because they’ve got nothing better to do. Sure, not all backpackers party. Some fend off their boredom by traveling frantically from place to place, visiting all the museums and seeing all the sights. Because when you finally get away from that busy job for a few months, you’re left with an abundance of time that you haven’t had since summer holidays in grade school.  I’m not claiming any moral high ground here. I’m not against partying or museum tours (although I don’t think I’ve ever voluntarily gone to a museum), I just think that there’s another way to spend that gap year than getting trashed every other night or frantic sightseeing.

The other option: The Learning Sabbatical.

What would you want to learn if you could learn anything — if you had a few months off work and had nothing but time and ambition? Vietnamese cooking? Spanish? Classical piano?

Wouldn’t it be more effective to study Vietnamese cuisine one-on-one with a private teacher in Hoi An? Or learning Spanish while staying with a local family in Guatemala? Or classical Piano from a Chinese master in Bejing? It would not only be more effective, it would also be cheaper.

This lesson really hit home when Kim and I were in Northern Thailand a few years ago, after motorcycling for a few months across Southeast Asia. I was run down from being on the go so much and felt like I needed a big rest from the motorcycle — at least a month. So we found a place in Chiang Mai for about $200 a month and did nothing for a whole week. Then I started getting restless. I didn’t want to go back to the motorcycle just yet, but needed to do something. Kim felt the same way. So we signed up for lessons. For $200 I took two intensive weeks of Thai Massage; Kim took Muay Thai Kickboxing. Fueled by the great feeling of learning something full-time, I later took  oil massage and reflexology courses. The learning curve is just so much faster when you do a full week of something as opposed to one 2-hour class a week.  I’ve been addicted to learning sabbaticals ever since. Just this past summer, I joined a harmony singing camp in Vermont for 10 intensive days of gospel, choir, and contemporary songs (and, to my minor disappointment, a daily dose of Contra-dancing… ) — it was a blast.

This time around, with the creative/music focus for this mini-retirement, here’s my current learning sabbatical schedule in Ubud, Bali: During the week, Kim and I take private art classes from 10am to 1pm. Three full hours of drawing and painting. Then, depending on the day, I do website work for the Art teacher — rather than paying for the classes, I’ve bargained a work-trade. On afternoons I’m not doing web site work, I have an hour or two of djembe lessons with one of two local drummers. Then I might play as a guitarist with a few expat musicians in a music practice room for a few hours and maybe play an open mic at a cafe in the evening. Or maybe I study some Indonesian for a bit. The weekends I leave free for either being lazy (watching movies, reading) or exploring the island. And life is really, really damn good. I have a great circle of friends, I’m learning things I’ve always wanted to learn, and the temperature here is never below 20 celsius.

What about costs? I’ll admit that Bali is considerably more expensive than other places in Southeast Asia, but we’ve worked out a good deal. We’re renting a small house for $250 US per month — split between the two of us, that’s more than reasonable; art lessons are free because of the work-trade; djembe lessons are $5 or $7 per hour depending on which teacher I study with; and the practice room is free because one of my band mates works next door. So I’m still spending considerably less than I might in Canada. Consider $20 to $30 for just a half hour of djembe lessons in Halifax. Our biggest cost here is food and drink. My biggest vice is good (read: relatively expensive) food — grilled tuna steaks, crispy duck, fillet mignon… But even in that area, a $25 meal (Canada prices) will run you about $5-$10 here. Travel, especially setting up in a place, is much less expensive than you would think.

So, what’s the point? If you’re thinking about taking some time off work for travel, consider a learning sabbatical. What would you learn to do, if you could do anything?

Got advice or experience, post a comment please :)

And sorry about the Blogging Sabbatical of the last few months…

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