If you daydream about getting a break from stress, you might picture a restful week of vacation or a long weekend away. But some people opt for something bigger, finding ways to take longer or more varied time away from the routine.
Mini sabbaticals. Adult gap years. Or just gap months. The extended breaks range from quitting a job to taking a leave to just working remotely somewhere new to experience a different lifestyle. It’s about stepping out of the expected and recharging.
That's not entirely new, of course, but the pandemic's upheaval of work life caused more people to question whether they really wanted to work the way they had.
Barry Kluczyk, a public relations professional who lives in suburban Detroit, had long wanted to spend more time in Seattle. But it wasn’t until COVID pushed him to fully remote work that he felt able to spend a month there, along with his wife and daughter.
“I wish we could have done it sooner,” he said.
The Kluczyks liked it so much they went the opposite direction in 2022 for another mini sabbatical, in Portland, Maine.
More companies are offering breaks as a low-cost way to address employee exhaustion, said Kira Schrabram, assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Washington. She is among leaders of the Sabbatical Project, which aims to create “a more humane relationship with work” by encouraging extended leaves.
“Companies are starting to realize burnout is an issue,” she said.
American attitudes toward taking time off are very different from European ones, which tend to put more value on vacation time and rest, said Schrabram, who is German.
Roshida Dowe took advantage of the time she suddenly had when she got laid off. She wanted a break before looking for her next position, and was struck by how many people asked how she could take time away to travel. So she decided to hang out her shingle as a career-break coach.
Dowe partnered with Stephanie Perry to launch ExodUS Summit, a virtual conference and community for Black women “interested in developing your Location Freedom, Financial Freedom and/or Time Freedom plan.” They bring in experts to talk about practical issues surrounding extended travel, like finances, safety and health care, and more philosophical topics like the value of rest and breaking free of intergenerational trauma.
“When I coach women who are looking to take a sabbatical, the main thing they’re looking for is permission,” said Dowe, who moved to Mexico City as part of her reinvention.
She said it’s powerful to showcase women taking extended travel because, “A lot of us aren’t open to possibilities we haven’t been shown before.”
Perry experienced that herself when she took a vacation to Brazil in 2014 and met people staying in her hostel who were traveling for months, not days.
“I thought for sure people who traveled long term were all trust fund babies,” Perry said. She researched budget travel and found people making it work on $40 a day.
Cost is a common obstacle for people considering a break. There are creative ways around that, Perry said.
“Housesitting is the reason I can work very little and travel a lot,” she said. She teaches an online class for travelers interested in getting started as a housesitter.
Alternatively, websites like HomeExchange, Homelink and Holiday Swap connect travelers who would like to trade homes.
Ashley Graham took a break from her work at a non-profit in Washington, D.C., and planned a road trip through the South. She visited friends along the way who could give her a free place to stay.
“It was a great way to connect with my past life,” said Graham, who subsequently relocated to New Orleans after loving the city during her sabbatical tour.
Eric Rewitzer and Annie Galvin put two employees in charge of their 3 Fish Studios art gallery in San Francisco to spend the summer in France and Ireland.
“It was terrifying,” said Rewitzer, who described himself as having been a workaholic and control freak. “It was a huge exercise in trust.”
When they returned to San Francisco, Rewitzer saw his hometown differently. He felt his life had been out of balance, too much work and too little time in nature.
That shift in perspective led the couple to buy what they thought would be a weekend home in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It turned into their full-time home when they shut down their gallery during the pandemic. Now they’re considering getting a studio space in San Francisco again.
“It all comes back to that same place of being willing to take chances,” Rewitzer said.
For Gregory Du Bois, one break from college to be a ski bum in Vail, Colorado, set him on a path of taking mini sabbaticals throughout his corporate IT career. Each time he took a new job, he negotiated for extended time off, explaining to his managers that to perform at his best, he needed breaks to recharge.
“It’s such a way of life that I almost don’t think of it as sabbaticals,” said Du Bois, now retired from tech and working as a life coach based in Sedona, Arizona. “For me, it’s a spiritual regeneration.”
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Colleen Newvine is the product manager of the AP Stylebook at The Associated Press. She is the author of “Your Mini Sabbatical." She and her husband have lived temporarily in New Orleans, San Francisco and three small beach towns on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, among other mini sabbatical locales.
Barry Kluczyk, left, poses with his family, Mary Kluczyk, center, and Carrie Kluczyk on a hiking trail in the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge, near Sequim, Wash., in 2021, during a Seattle-based mini sabbatical. (Barry Kluczyk via AP)
Husband and wife artist team Annie Galvin, left, and Eric Rewitzer pose with their dog Woody in front of their new 3 Fish Studios art gallery in Amador City, Calif., in 2023. Galvin and Rewitzer moved out of San Francisco to live closer to nature after their sabbatical in France and Ireland. (Eric Rewitzer via AP)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Relatives have identified three bodies found in a well as those of two Australian surfers and one American who went missing last weekend, Mexican authorities said Sunday.
Baja California state prosecutors said the relatives had viewed the corpses recovered from a remote well about 50 feet (15 meters) deep and recognized them as their loved ones.
Thieves apparently killed the three, who were on a surfing trip to Mexico’s Baja peninsula, to steal their truck because they wanted the tires. They then allegedly got rid of the bodies by dumping them in a well near the coast.
The well was located some 4 miles (6 kilometers) from where the foreigners were killed, and also contained a fourth cadaver that had been there much longer.
Three suspects are being held in connection with the case, which locals said was solved far more quickly than the disappearances of thousands of Mexicans.
The three men were on a camping and surfing trip along a stretch of coast south of the city of Ensenada, posting idyllic photos on social media of waves and isolated beaches, before they went missing last weekend.
Chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez described what likely would have been moments of terror that ended the trip for brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad.
She theorized the killers drove by and saw the foreigners’ pickup truck and tents and wanted to steal their tires. But “when (the foreigners) came up and caught them, surely, they resisted.”
She said that’s when the killers would have shot the tourists.
The thieves then allegedly went to what she called “a site that is extremely hard to get to” and allegedly dumped the bodies into a well they apparently were familiar with. She said investigators were not ruling out the possibility the same suspects also dumped the first, earlier body in the well as part of previous crimes.
“They may have been looking for trucks in this area,” Andrade Ramírez said.
The thieves allegedly covered the well with boards. “It was literally almost impossible to find it,” Andrade Ramírez said, and it took two hours to winch the bodies out of the well.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers expressed sympathy for the Robinson family. “I think the whole country’s heart goes out to all of their loved ones. It has been an absolutely horrendous, absolutely horrific ordeal and our thoughts are with all of them today,” he said at a news conference Monday in the capital, Canberra.
The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomás was near the remote seaside area where the missing men’s tents and truck were found Thursday along the coast. From their last photo posts, the trip looked perfect. But even experienced local expatriates are questioning whether it is safe to camp along the largely deserted coast anymore.
The moderator of the local Talk Baja internet forum, who has lived in the area for almost two decades, wrote in an editorial Saturday that “the reality is, the dangers of traveling to and camping in remote areas are outweighing the benefits anymore.”
But in a way, adventure was key to the victims’ lifestyle.
Callum Robinson’s Instagram account contained the following slogan: “If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.”
At the news conference, Andrade Ramírez was questioned by one reporter who expressed approval that such a massive and rapid search was mounted for the foreigners, but asked why, when local people disappear in the area, little is often done for weeks, months, or years.
“Do you have to be a foreigner in Baja California in order for there to be an investigation if something happens to you?′ asked the reporter, who did not identify herself by name. ”Every investigation is different,” Andrade Ramírez replied.
As if to underscore that point, dozens of mourners, surfers and demonstrators gathered in a main plaza in Ensenada, the nearest city, to voice their anger and sadness at the deaths.
“Ensenada is a mass grave,” read one placard carried by protesters. “Australia, we are with you,” one man scrawled on one of the half-dozen surf boards at the demonstration.
A woman held up a sign that read “They only wanted to surf — we demand safe beaches.”
Gabriela Acosta, a surfer, attended the protest “to show love, solidarity and respect for the three lives that were lost.” Acosta said that surfers in Baja are aware of the dangers.
“We are women and we would sometimes like to surf alone,” Acosta said. “But we never do that, because of the situation. We always have to go accompanied.”
“I think that what happened to them is just an example of the lack of safety in this state,” she said.
Surfers later performed a “paddle-out” ceremony where they formed a circle on their boards in the ocean.
Baja California prosecutors had said they were questioning three people in the killings, two of them because they were caught with methamphetamines. Prosecutors said the two were being held pending drug charges but continue to be suspects in the killings.
A third man was arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear if he might face more charges.
The third suspect was believed to have directly participated in the killings. In keeping with Mexican law, prosecutors identified him by his first name, Jesús Gerardo, alias “el Kekas,” a slang word that means “quesadillas,” or cheese tortillas. Andrade Ramírez said he had a criminal record, and that more people may have been involved.
Last week, the mother of the missing Australians, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page, appealing for help in finding her sons. Robinson said Callum and Jake had not been heard from since April 27. They had booked accommodation in the city of Rosarito, not far from Ensenada.
Robinson said Callum was diabetic. She also mentioned that the American who was with them was named Jack Carter Rhoad, but the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City did not immediately confirm that. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in Baja, but gave no further details.
In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed in western Sinaloa state, across the Gulf of California — also known as the Sea of Cortez — from the Baja peninsula. Authorities said they were victims of highway bandits. Three suspects were arrested in that case.
Locals march to protest the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
A demonstrator holds photos of the foreign surfers who disappeared during a protest in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
A demonstrator holding a bodyboard written in Spanish " They just wanted to surf and they were executed" protests the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
A demonstrator holding a bodyboard written in Spanish " No more violence" protests the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
Locals march to protest the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
A demonstrator holding a bodyboard written in Spanish " I don't want to die" protests the disappearance of foreign surfers in Ensenada, Mexico, Sunday, May 5, 2024. Mexican authorities said Friday that three bodies were recovered in an area of Baja California near where two Australians and an American went missing last weekend during an apparent camping and surfing trip. (AP Photo/Karen Castaneda)
In this image made from video, Mexican security forces frisk men at a checkpoint in Ensenada, Mexico, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Mexican authorities said Thursday they have found tents and questioned a few people in the case of two Australians and an American who went missing over the weekend in the Pacific coast state of Baja California. (AP Photo)
Mexican authorities say thieves killed 2 Australians and an American to steal their truck
Mexican authorities say thieves killed 2 Australians and an American to steal their truck
In this image made from video, Mexico's police officers stand guard at the Ensenada station in Ensenada, Mexico, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Mexican authorities said Thursday they have found tents and questioned a few people in the case of two Australians and an American who went missing over the weekend in the Pacific coast state of Baja California. (AP Photo)
