the seasons change... and so do i 🍃🍂

three key epiphanies after 6 months of career break/full time travel • embracing the season of change and gratitude | chapter 33

My life has completely changed in the past month.

I’m now on month 9 of my radical sabbatical – which has already included so many impactful adventures:

• Seeing the solar eclipse and diving in remote beach towns in Mexico

• Living on a diving boat in the Bahamas

• Moving to Honduras for 2 months to earn my professional scuba diver certification

• Discovering that professional scuba diving and remote island life is actually not as dreamy as I imagined it to be

• Jetting around Europe for a mix of traveling with friends from home, visiting friends who live abroad, making new friends through concerts, and solo traveling

• Crossing the Arctic Ocean from Greenland to Iceland in a sailboat

• Watching the sunrise from the middle of the Sahara desert

After all of that… I came home and arrived at some unexpected conclusions:

• I decided to eventually move back to NYC after years of living in California (and after telling everyone that I’d never move back to a place with winter)

• I realized that this sabbatical is now a career pivot (even though I started off with the intention of just taking a career break)

• I cancelled a few months of my upcoming travel plans (something my past self never thought I would do)

None of these thoughts existed in my head when I arrived home in mid-October after all the adventures I mentioned above.

But now, I am confident that I’ve arrived at the right decisions aligned with my personal values. And I couldn’t be more excited about my future!

how did I arrive here? let’s rewind ⏪

a month of homecoming 🇺🇸

After basically traveling nonstop for 6 months straight, I took a much-needed recharge with 4 weeks back home in the US… which ended up being a time of reflection and synthesis that proved even more transformative than the traveling itself.

From mid-October to mid-November, I split time between all of my past home towns: my childhood home in New Jersey, my college stomping ground of New York City, my post-grad landing pad of San Francisco, and my most recent homebase of Los Angeles, where I technically paid rent the past 2 years even though I was out of town 50% of each year, as I fully embraced the freedoms of the digital nomad, remote worker lifestyle.

how visiting my old homes made me decide to move back to nyc 🗽

My month in the US was well spent reconnecting with all the places and people who matter to me most. Each visit back to one of my former homes brought me a sense of clarity about my values.

New Jersey 🏡

I spent my first day back in the US with my parents in my hometown, soaking in the little joys of orange foliage as crisp as the outer shell of a good Jersey bagel. For the first time in a while, I didn’t resent being home in my small town that I used to say I’d never willingly return to.

It hit me just how much I missed my parents – not only during the past 6 months of full time travel abroad, but also during the past 3 years that I’ve been a long-distance-daughter while living on the opposite coast.

During the years I was busy chasing better weather and my post-grad dreams of working in big tech and startups, I missed all the small holidays, ad-hoc family gatherings, and birthdays that were not my own. Yet, even after years of me not investing much time or energy into my relationship with my parents and extended family due to only seeing them a handful of times per year, they have always been there for me at any time of day, for any reason – even if it’s me calling in the middle of the night dealing with a crisis while halfway across the globe.

I just now finally woke up and realized that familial love is not something to take for granted.

Last month, for my grandma’s 84th birthday, I saw my entire extended family of a dozen semi-Filipino, semi-mixed race New Jersey residents all in one room for the first time in a year. I appreciated deep in my soul how good it felt to physically be together laughing and sharing fond memories with the people who have known me and loved me since the day I was born.

It hit me like a truck – chasing novel experiences through traveling anywhere but home, far away from my family, had been my number one priority for the past 8 years of my life… but now, I am recalibrating my values to reflect that family comes first, above all else.

New York 🌃

Returning back to the place that I spent the most formative four years of my life (aka college), always hits me hard. In recent years, New York had felt like a place I grew out of. But in recent weeks, it felt like a place I wanted to grow back into.

While I’ve been out of sight and out of mind gallivanting around the world, it’s been largely my NYC-based friends who kept tabs on me, reached out to virtually keep me company during my sometimes lonely journey, and even visited me along the way. These are the friends who have known me for 4-8 years, the ones who don’t need any context about my life explained to them – which is something that indeed gets exhausting to retell every single time you meet a new friend out on the road.

Even though most of my close friends in NYC are bankers, consultants, and typical corporate workers who don’t quite align with my atypical career aspirations… they are my oldest and closest friends, and nothing will ever change that. We might not share many hobbies or life goals, but we still go out of our way to spend time together and those deep bonds of true, unconditional friendship should not be taken for granted.

San Francisco 🌁

Despite never having spent a full continuous year in SF, it always feels like returning home when I visit. Many close friends whose lifestyles and career aspirations align closely with mine live there, and I’ve visited at least quarterly, if not monthly, in recent years.

I first moved to San Francisco for a few months when I got my post-grad job in big tech. Initially, the city and the people I met felt like a breath of fresh air after years of feeling like a black sheep interested in tech and innovation amidst my NYU business school peers in finance-focused, traditional industries.

But my first few months working full time in San Francisco in 2021 were also a dark time for me – emotionally and energetically, things felt off and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was on the wrong career path. I grew to hate working for a company that clearly prioritized revenue growth, instead of its stated mission of bringing the world closer together. I had accepted the job in big tech because it was supposedly “a dream job” – but I now know it’s someone else’s dream, not my own. Quickly, I left behind the prestige and bigger paychecks, and pivoted to new opportunities at smaller, remote companies aligned with my personal interests in travel, music, and writing.

Returning to San Francisco last month reminded me how much I’ve grown apart from the old version of myself that was so concerned with doing what she was “supposed” to be doing at the expense of her own happiness and wellbeing. I’ve realized how important it is to live a passionate life and to pursue a career that truly feels energizing, morally correct, and aligned with my unique self.

Whether it’s regarding a new job, a new potential love interest, or a new city, I now grasp the importance of proceeding with intentionality – we should always ask ourselves “Why?” not simply “Why not?”

Los Angeles🌴

I was a bit nervous to return to my most recent former home. I remember loving it so dearly – my old apartment in Santa Monica was perfectly located in between the beach and the mountains, amidst sidewalks lined with palm trees making every casual neighborhood walk feel like a page out of a vacation brochure.

But when I walked down those familiar sun-soaked streets for the first time in seven months, I had the unexpected realization that my LA chapter indeed was finished. I had no lingering desire to move back there, despite initially putting all my possessions into short-term storage with the intent of moving back after my year of travel.

I centered myself on my renewed appreciation for family and deep, longterm friendships – and realized that LA simply couldn’t offer me any of that. I have a handful of friends based in LA who I’m truly aligned with and grateful for, but I’ve only known them for a year or two, sometimes even less – and newer friends who you’ve bonded with through shared hobbies and interests just simply can’t compare with friends who have shared your struggles and triumphs in the rollercoaster of life for nearly a decade or more.

I came to the conclusion that LA is a beautiful place that I’ll always enjoy visiting, but it is the people that make a place worth calling home – and my people are concentrated in New York City.

how repeatedly retelling my story helped me realize new career goals 🏆

As I caught up with dozens of friends across all of these different cities and also happened to meet strangers and friends of friends, I got really good at telling my story: I left full time work after saving up for years, and was now traveling the world and living life completely on my own terms according to my intuition and curiosity.

The most common response I got from friends and strangers alike: “You’re living the dream, I’m so jealous!”

To which I always wanted to retort: “But you can do this too!”

It’s not like I won the lottery... I set this goal of taking a career break many years ago to give myself time to save money and build up to it, worked relentlessly toward that goal, and most importantly, never gave up or compromised my vision no matter what others might have said or thought. **I must acknowledge that I’m privileged to not have any college debt nor financial obligations to support my family like many immigrant children do, but I truly believe anyone can achieve such a goal even if it might take a few years more depending on one’s starting point.

As I retold my story over and over again, it struck me that I have achieved a sort of “dream life” that others aspire to have, and one that truly does feel like a dream come true to me – unlike my previous “dream job” working behind a desk every day, earning a lot of money, and climbing the big tech corporate ladder regardless of whether I believed in what I was working on or not.

I don’t yet know exactly how I will manifest my talents and desired lifestyle into a new career path, but I do know that since I’ve achieved my dream lifestyle at the young age of 26, I’m now not willing to sacrifice it.

I do not aspire to go back to a traditional 9-5 job. I want to retain the financial freedom, but most importantly the location and time freedom, which I have grown to enjoy while just following my passions and working on projects that energize me.

I have decided to pivot away from the traditional path, and embrace the “pathless path” (shoutout

Paul Millerd

for coining the term) – which can take on many different forms. For me, the next steps in my nontraditional career path will involve using my creativity and my unique experiences in the realm of travel, community-building, trip-planning, writing, and storytelling.

These past six months traveling on sabbatical have given me a taste of my dream lifestyle. Now, I’m motivated to continue to build a career path for myself that enables me to work from wherever I want, only when I want to work, and only on projects that I care about. That location, time, and energy freedom is worth every sacrifice that will be involved.

how my new values and goals caused me to cancel my travel plans 🌍

Armed with the steadfast decisions to move back to New York sometime in 2025 to be with my core community of family and friends, and to hone my entrepreneurial spirit through passion projects rather than a return to full time work, I contemplated my upcoming travel plans. I originally planned to spend November-January in southern Africa and February-April in South Asia.

To my greatest shock, I realized I actually wasn’t excited about traveling, for perhaps the first time in my life. I had been thoroughly enjoying reconnecting with my communities back home in the US, and found myself actually dreading the thought of being away from home during the holidays since I realized how much my family would miss me, and I likewise now understood how much I valued them and would really miss them too.

So, I cancelled the plans. Luckily, I realized everything from mid-December onward was either cancellable or hadn’t even been fully booked yet. I still jetted off to South Africa in mid-November since this is the perfect time of year to travel before the crowds hit in the holiday season, and I’m currently on a bucket list overland safari through the inland safari game reserves and stunning eastern coastline of South Africa. But, I’m deeply looking forward to returning home and staying more stationary for two months starting mid-December.

Initially, I looked at this career break as the perfect opportunity to do longterm, far-away travels that don’t neatly fit into a 1-2 week PTO request in a traditional job.

But now that I know I’m committed to building a life for myself in which I can travel and take breaks at any point at my own discretion, I don’t have to rush and squeeze as much travel as possible into the year-long sabbatical window I initially had given myself.

I started this journey earlier this year with one expected outcome, yet have completely changed my goals and values now – and I’m only about halfway through.

In 2025, I intend to keep traveling until July, with some intentional breaks to spend time back home, so that I can fulfill my initial goal of experiencing what it’s like to full time travel without working for 12 months.

Then, in the latter half of 2025, it’s time to buckle down, set some roots, and work hard on turning my passion projects into sustainable income so that I can continue to live this dream lifestyle without any end date.

I am so excited for my upcoming journey and would love for you to follow along as I share my honest thoughts and vulnerable reflections along the way :)

PS — I hope you read this subject line as “The seaaaaasoons chaaangeeeeee…” a la Maggie Rogers singing ‘In The Living Room’ 🎶

---

📲if this resonated with you, let’s connect!

If you’re filled with many notions of “what if…” and are thinking about making a similar switch in life to take a sabbatical, make a radical career pivot, take a break from everything to focus on travel, or all of the above — please do reach out, I would be happy to chat!

• Instagram: @caitlynlubas

• Twitter: @caitlynlubas

• LinkedIn: Caitlyn Lubas

Or, please let me know what topics you want me to elaborate on in future newsletters, perhaps such as:

• how I mentally and financially prepared for this career break

• how I figured out all the logistics involved with such a giant life change and leap of faith

• how I strategically planned my yearlong break to best position myself to learn and grow

If you enjoy my writing in this newsletter, you’d love my book: You Are Where You Go: A Traveler’s Coming of Age Journey Through 70 Countries and 7 Continents During College.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend – if you’re reading this, I’m grateful for you and your support on this journey 🫶🏼

---

👯‍♀️ join me on a group trip in 2025!

Exact dates and full details coming ASAP… but here’s a teaser of the places I’m planning on taking a group of travelers to in 2025, to get your travel-planning gears turning:

• 🇮🇳🌈🎉 Northern India for Holi March 7-21 (message me ASAP if you want to join, very close to selling out!)

• 🇵🇰🏔️🥾 Northern Pakistan for Himalayas trekking in April

• 🇲🇽🤿🐠 Mexico (Cozumel & Playa del Carmen) for cenotes & coral dive trip in late May/Memorial Day long weekend

• 🇪🇸🎶💃 Barcelona in early June (mainly for people going to Primavera music festival, but open to people who will skip the festival!)

• 🇿🇦🤿🦈 South Africa for the BUCKET LIST sardine run dive trip late June/early July (optional to add on safari experiences as well!)

Check out www.youarewherecaitlyngoes.com to see the 17 past trips I’ve led with 100+ travelers in the past 2 years!

---

✍🏽 Personal note

Happy December (how is it already December?!)

I wrote today’s newsletter while sitting outside my thatched hut deep in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, while weaver birds chatter and flit their wings noisily in the tree to my to my left and the rushing sound of the river creates a blanket of white noise to my right. I woke up at 4am to watch the southern African sun rise over the mountain ridges and bathe this valley in a peachy glow. I started my day with breathwork: re-visiting my freediving training skills to test how long I could possibly hold my breathe while soaking in the utter serenity of this location and feeling the crisp mountain air in my lungs.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I am reflecting and exuding so much gratitude for this life that I’ve built for myself where I can be the only 20-something I’ve met while solo traveling on this five-week bucket list overland trip I’ve crafted to deeply explore all of South Africa – from the historical apartheid sites in Johannesburg, to the lions and elephants of Kruger National Park, to the bucket list dive sites with dolphins and sharks in KwaZulu-Natal, to the natural beauty of the side-by-side mountains and ocean in Cape Town, where I’ll end in two weeks.

A few weeks ago, I attempted to sit down and write a piece for this newsletter while staring at the Great Pyramids of Giza during a 16-hour layover in Cairo on my way from New York City to South Africa… and I got halfway through writing before a fellow solo traveler decided to join me. I decided that living in the moment and having meaningful conversations was more important than me sitting by myself to focus on documenting my life.

I befriended this 18-year-old, Brit-living-in-Pakistan adventurous soul in Cairo right as he was starting his gap year in Zimbabwe, and about to embark on a months-long overland camping safari throughout Africa just like the one I did myself for six weeks in early 2020. I also befriended an older woman from Switzerland who was traveling solo on my same cancelled flight to Mozambique, and we re-routed our plans together to dive the famed shark-heavy Aliwal Shoal of South Africa. I’m now in a group of travelers who are all middle aged couples or solo female travelers from New Zealand, Canada, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain – and spending the past week with such a diverse group in remote locations has brought about countless conversations of fascinating cultural exchange as we compare and contrast what we consider “normal” back home.

I am indeed solo traveling, but I am anything but alone – and that is truly the magic of being brave enough to take a trip by yourself and open up to new possibilities.

---

🚨 If you enjoyed this newsletter, share it with your friends! forward this email, share the link, post it on your IG story… share it far and wide, please, if you find this valuable, inspirational, or insightful in any way :)

or, just hit the heart button at the bottom of this post – any support helps!