Where To Go On Sabbatical

How do you decide where to go on sabbatical? How do you pick where to spend your precious time off?  It helps to start with bucket list destinations and then refine the list to only places that match your priorities and goals for the trip. 

Here is how we mapped out a plan:

The book A Year Off by David and Alexandra Brown offers exceptional advice on the right time to visit each country and the daily average spend for general regions. This detail helped us lay out a plan and a general budget. Though it goes without saying, the general budget is critical in determining your ability to afford particular locations and the total timeframe, so definitely use these average numbers in preliminary planning.

Our Priorities (in no particular order):

1.       Chase Summer!

2.       Learn Spanish

3.       Be safe, but stretch ourselves (a bit)

4.       Spain must be on the list (because we LOVE it)

5.       Road trip to see the US National Parks

6.       Stick to a reasonable budget

We prioritized points 4 and 5, which helped define the timing of the trip.  Spain is best in the late Spring and early Summer and as U.S. citizens, we can only spend 90 days out of 180 in the Schengen.  The US National Parks, particularly those in the Northwest, require an August timeframe for optimal conditions (i.e. avoiding the cold).   This meant that our sabbatical fell between May-mid September with an option to add time either before or after. Knowing that Europe and the U.S were extremely expensive, we were looking for a lower cost region to fill up the rest of the trip. South America was the obvious choice since it would be summer January to March and allow us to work on our Spanish before heading to Spain.

Switching in Up

Our initial plan was one month in Chile, one month traveling around Patagonia, and one month in Argentina. Due to the protests in Santiago, which began in October, we switched our first stop to Uruguay. Montevideo was a bit more expensive but has the distinction of being known as the safest capital in South America. Uruguay also has amazing beaches and is known as the “Canada of South America” for its liberal laws and low crime rate. When we found a Spanish school with locations in both Montevideo and Buenos Aires, we knew it would be a perfect fit! We still plan to spend a few days in in Chile, before heading to Patagonia.

You can see our full (tentative) itinerary here.