Corporate America Runaway

If you are sitting at your desk, stealing away a few minutes of sanity from meetings, your 4th cup of coffee, emails, the blackberry, and deadlines – then read on…

A few years ago when I started researching my career break, I quickly realized that for a corporate American – I was exploring new territory. There were very few books or websites that addressed how to plan and take a career break. Sure, there were that covered the topic, but they were all written from a British perspective. Now I don’t have anything against a British perspective, in fact I find it rather humorous normally – but the British and American take on careers are different. Brits travel – they use their vacation, they take long trips, their careers aren’t thrown into jeopardy if they take a year off. Americans – well, we don’t have those luxuries..or do we?

When taking a year+ off and traveling long term, I struggled with finding others like me from my culture. I struggled with simply planning the endeavor of long term travel. Yet at the same time, I heard from so many people through my blog that wanted/hoped to do the same type of thing I was doing. They were longing for a career break and had many questions on how to make it happen.

I always believe that life provides the path if you just open your eyes and are open to it. When I met two other Americans with similar backgrounds as mine that had also just completed a 3 month career break, the idea was born…Briefcase to Backpack – a website for corporate Americans who wanted to escape for a while.

My partners and I are working on putting this new travel website together and have a preview site up and running at www.briefcasetobackpack.com. It is a small look into what we intend to provide on Briefcase to Backpack in the future, a background on how it all came together, and a way for you to get on our mailing list to stay up to date on our progress.

I know many of you are contemplating a career break and wondering how to do it – then go check out www.briefcasetobackpack.com, sign up for our email, provide us some feedback on the idea, and save the url as a ‘favorite’! Briefcase to Backpack – the first stop on your escape from Corporate America!

I had a surprise in my inbox the other day…no, Brad Pitt didn’t send me a love note, but the surprise was equally surprising and good! I was informed that my little blog…Corporate America Runaway…was selected as one of the top 100 travel blogs for a travel website! I didn’t even know that I was ‘nominated’!

I celebrated this great news by dressing up, rolling out a red towel in my furniture-less apartment, and strutting up and down my empty apartment with a bottle of champagne. This red carpet experience certainly rivaled the other red carpet experience tonight in NYC – the Sex in the City premier.

You can check out the article and the other lucky 99 winners here – www.airlinecreditcards.com/travelhacker/100-best-travel-journal-blogs/
I’m located in the solo travel category.

Thanks to all of you out there that read the things I write. I promise that there are lots of great travel stories coming up this summer as I hit the midwest, in addition to my preparation for leaving the country again. Any travel questions…just drop me a comment at the blog and I will get back to you. And of course, if you are Brad Pitt – you can contact me any time you’d like!