Break from routine with ‘adult gap year’
Extended time off ranges from quitting a job, taking a leave, working remotely
If you daydream about getting a break from stress, you might picture a restful week of vacation or a long weekend away. But some people opt for something bigger, finding ways to take longer or more varied time away from the routine.
Mini sabbaticals. Adult gap years. Or just gap months. The extended breaks range from quitting a job to taking a leave to just working remotely somewhere new to experience a different lifestyle. It’s about stepping out of the expected and recharging.
That’s not entirely new, of course, but the pandemic’s upheaval of work life caused more people to question whether they really wanted to work the way they had.
Barry Kluczyk, a public relations professional who lives in suburban Detroit, had long wanted to spend more time in Seattle. But it wasn’t until COVID pushed him to fully remote work that he felt able to spend a month there, along with his wife and daughter.
“I wish we could have done it sooner,” he said. The Kluczyks liked it so much they went the opposite direction in 2022 for another mini sabbatical, in Portland, Maine.
Avoiding burnout
More companies are offering breaks as a low-cost way to address employee exhaustion, said Kira Schrabram, assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Washington. She is among leaders of the Sabbatical Project, which aims to create “a more humane relationship with work” by encouraging extended leaves.
“Companies are starting to realize burnout is an issue,” she said.
American attitudes toward taking time off are very different from European ones, which tend to put more value on vacation time and rest, said Schrabram, who is German.
One time, or a way of life
Eric Rewitzer and Annie Galvin put two employees in charge of their 3 Fish Studios art gallery in San Francisco to spend the summer in France and Ireland.
“It was terrifying,” said Rewitzer, who described himself as having been a workaholic and control freak. “It was a huge exercise in trust.”
When they returned to San Francisco, Rewitzer saw his hometown differently. He felt his life had been out of balance, too much work and too little time in nature.
That shift in perspective led the couple to buy what they thought would be a weekend home in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It turned into their full-time home when they shut down their gallery during the pandemic. Now they’re considering getting a studio space in San Francisco again.
“It all comes back to that same place of being willing to take chances,” Rewitzer said.
For Gregory Du Bois, one break from college to be a ski bum in Vail, Colorado, set him on a path of taking mini sabbaticals throughout his corporate IT career. Each time he took a new job, he negotiated for extended time off, explaining to his managers that to perform at his best, he needed breaks to recharge.
“It’s such a way of life that I almost don’t think of it as sabbaticals,” said Du Bois, now retired from tech and working as a life coach based in Sedona, Arizona. “For me, it’s a spiritual regeneration.”
Colleen Newvine is the product manager of the AP Stylebook at The Associated Press. She is the author of “Your Mini Sabbatical.” She and her husband have lived temporarily in New Orleans, San Francisco and three small beach towns on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, among other mini sabbatical locales.