Conclusions

Was it all worth it? ...... YES

We highly recommend taking sabbaticals! What an absolute treasure these memories are for us. Especially now with a baby and being more tied to home, we don't feel like we are "missing out" on travel and fun because we already did so much!

These are things we LOVED:

-Seeing the way other people live life and taking our favorite pieces to incorporate into our own. The German family in Nuremberg, Emily's family in Michigan who have backgrounds from Japan and Taiwan, cousins Mary and Joel who live in Ohio, etc.

-Structured days and learning environments rather than self directed relaxation. Our favorite times were the phases that had structure like cooking school in London and Spanish school in Mexico. We felt a sense of accomplishment and we weren't constantly trying to motivate ourselves or come up with the day's plan on our own. In the future, we want to sign up for more PROGRAMS rather than staycations (being at home but with no work) or frivolous traveling, which can be a lot of planning and get old after a while. For pure relaxation, we might like to try all inclusive resorts.

-Active hobbies - we loved our 10 day bike trip in Germany, renting bikes in most locations we went - especially islands, and practicing pickleball

-Friends and family - getting to spend so much quality time with people who are important to us especially at the beginning of our marriage was such a blessing. We feel like we built a foundation that will benefit our relationships far in the future.

The Finances

Even though our "honeymoon" kind of continued into September until Adam got his job, we definitely stopped traveling around June and Clare was working part time, covering most living expenses at that point. So, we decided to just draw the line there to view our honeymoon budget. 

We got some unexpectedly good fortune during the travels - big tax returns and stock increases. So, even though we spent a total of around $80K during the last year, our net worth only went down about $22K. We also used a lot of credit card points for flights and the occasional hotel. Since the average yearly expenses for a family of 2 is around $69K, we didn't spend that much more on our travels...we just weren't earning income at the same time. Below is a visual breakdown of where our money went.

WE FEEL SO BLESSED AND LUCKY AND FORTUNATE that we were able to do this. We know not everyone is so privileged. To anyone who can swing even a much smaller version of this with a few months off, we highly recommend it and think it is worth the investment.