It’s the end of March in 2018. We packed ourselves a breakfast to go and are sitting on top of the Teufelsberg in Berlin right there in the lightly warming spring sun, wearing big coats and scarfs to stay warm. We talk about life, we dream of our future and how our family will look like one day, we complain about our daily routine, our jobs and the big city, we dream about all the possibilities that our so far childless young life offers. Then we make a decision:
"Let’s each save up 10.000€ and then we go
wherever we want to go to."
Quickly a dream turned into a decision and that decision turned into reality and that reality again turned into a long to do list, and that length probably equals the beeline between Berlin and New Zealand. What is there to do, if you plan just going on a 14-months trip? Don’t we just have to book a flight, quit our jobs and pack a bag? We soon realize, it’s a little more than that. A dream turned into reality. A reality turned into a to do list and that to do list became a part time job. A part time job that couldn’t be more fulfilling.
02.04.2018
Our Travel-Checklist, or how we love to call it: “The Freedom List”, is quiet long. And while we step by step cross of some items, we cross out and delete others and once in a while add a couple of new, previously forgotten items. What we had to do before we could finally take off towards freedom can be found right here, in our
So whoever might have taken the time, to actually go through our List to Freedom, might have noticed, that the preparation for our great trip were just a little more than to just book a flight, quit a job and pack a bag. Actually, there was a lot to do: We had to see some authorities, had to fill out a lot of paperwork, had to engage in physical activities, had some big payments to do and a lot of tasks that screamed “Change” and “Emigration”. We love it. Just quit on everything (at least in some sense as we kind of plan on coming back 14 months later) – quit, sublet, sell and organize a major farewell party!
Most fun was the booking of our two One-Way Tickets to New Zealand! Wow, what a feeling; what an incredible, crazy and surreal feeling to have booked a One-Way Ticket without having to book an onward or return flight. Life changing and until lately completely surreal, just super surreal!
We also loved to quit our jobs! Thanks for the great time, thank you for the trust in us, we are outta here! Thank you, bye and see you later. Maybe “See you later”, maybe not. In the beginning we had the great idea, to not quit our jobs but to ask for an unpaid vacation and/or a sabbatical for about 14 months. But the closer we got to the final date of having to hand in our termination letter with notice, we knew that we truly want to free ourselves. We want to free ourselves from everything that can keep us here and that will bring us back in time; we want to free ourselves from everything that holds us accountable and especially from whatever we are currently obviously want to run away from – firstly the jobs, the offices, the Laptops and our jammed E-Mail inboxes. Yes, maybe we might not have a job that very first Monday upon our return, but maybe that ain’t that bad. Maybe that’s actually amazing. We will most likely find something new. And who knows what kind of mind change will take place during those 14 months. Who knows whether we actually want to go back to our old jobs or whether our passion, our job aspirations and our dreams about life stay the same or change completely. Yes, who knows.