Midlife Runaway: A Grown Ups' Guide to Taking a Year Off

By Lynda Cronin

Imagine it: a year to travel, a year to wander, a year with no morning meetings, no deadlines, and no dull routine. New places, new people, adventure, discovery, and excitement, how and when you want. Sound impossible? It's not. You can do it. Midlife Runaway: A Grown Ups' Guide to Taking a Year Off helps you gather up your dreams and run away with them. Real life runaway Lynda Cronin reveals how to: choose a destination negotiate leave from your job take care of your finances take care of those you leave behind pack for a year of travel travel as a grown up, not an 18-year-old backpacker return to real life when your year is up, and more Interviews with more than ten other runaways prove that taking a year off is possible for almost everyone, at every stage of life. Cronin also shares candid stories from her year travelling in Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, India, Israel, France, Italy, Ireland, and the UK. Whether you are imagining, contemplating or planning travel, remember the runaway could be you.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0771576854
• ISBN13: 9780771576850
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Great Escape

Who doesn't dream of getting away from it all? Cronin and her partner did just that, leaving behind their home and friends and heading out for a year long adventure.What makes this book unique is the blend of practical advice and super storytelling. Cronin tells us all we need to know, from what to pack to arranging finanaces to how to leave your home and your life behind. And along the way, she tells some stories that stick with me even now. Who could forget the dominatrix of a masseuse at the "luxury spa" on the Dead Sea?The book is full of humour but Cronin doesn't forget to let the reader know about the lows as well as the highs of a year away, missing family and friends, travel weariness, deflated expectations. But the humour and the sense of adventure win out. By the end I was planning my own trip and remembering Cronin's with a smile. I recommend this book highly, whether you are heading out yourself or looking for a great read.

Great guidebook

If you have ever wanted to run away from your day job and join the circus, then this book is a must read! Cronin makes the process of leaving home for a year seem very doable. She emphasizes the need for planning and gives lots of useful tips. More important, she also illustrates through plenty of examples the need to be flexible when the situations arise. I got a good insight into the countries that she and Peter visited. I can hardly wait to get a few weeks in each of Ireland and England, Australia and Italy. I have a renewed appreciation for the art of packing, and, they prove that it can be done with one bag for a year! Many useful tips about what needs looking after on the home front will help me from overlooking the many details. It is a really easy read. I feel like I was a fellow traveller. Keep this one as a reference handbook! ....and enjoy your trip!