About Mike

Project manager turned sabbatical explorer. Here’s how I got here.

The Short Version

I’m Mike — a project manager from Delaware who, over the past two decades in IT and managed services, collecting certifications like Pokémon cards (CSM, ITIL, PMP). I was good at the job. I liked keeping things moving. But at some point, I started wondering what it would feel like to stop managing everyone else’s projects and start living my own.

So I’m doing something about it.

The Career

I’ve spent my career in project management and IT Management, I’ve led teams, built processes, and sat through more status meetings than any human should have to. It was a solid career. It paid the bills. But it was never the whole story.

The Turn

A few years ago, I started asking the question that terrifies most people in corporate jobs: “What would I actually do if I had time?”

The answer came fast: travel. Create things. See live music. Write. Read. Sit in silence at a Zen retreat. Explore places I’ve only read about. The list got long. My patience for “let’s circle back on that” got short.

The Sabbatical

So here’s the plan: 13 months, 21 countries, starting August 2026.

I’m going from London to Brighton to Berlin, through Eastern Europe and into Portugal. Then south to Egypt and Turkey. Then east — a long stretch through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. Then Japan, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico before heading home. See the full route here.

It’s not a vacation. It’s a deliberate, planned break to travel slowly, make things, and figure out what comes next. I’ve been budgeting, spreadsheet-obsessing, and planning this for over a year. (Yes, there is a spreadsheet. Yes, it has 17 tabs.)

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Beyond the Travel

This isn’t just about ticking countries off a list. Along the way I’m planning to:

• Attend Art classes — in places like Prague, Chiang Mai, and Bali. I’m very much into creating art using many different mediums.
• Create content — travel vlogs, honest reflections on career breaks, and whatever else this journey turns into
• Write — I’ve been working on a memoir and the sabbatical is giving me space to dig deeper into that
• Learn new skills — Online courses

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The Ren Thing

If you’ve seen the homepage, you already know — I’m a massive fan of the artist Ren. His music found me at a time when I really needed it, and it stuck with me. I’m seeing him live multiple times in 2026, including at Boomtown and The Big Push concert in London. There will be concert vlogs. There will be enthusiasm. You’ve been warned.

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What This Is

The Sabbatical Files is where I’m documenting all of it — the travel, the creative experiments, the honest moments of doubt, the freedom, and the weird in-between feeling of building a life that doesn’t revolve around a Monday morning standup.

Follow along on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook — or start with the About page and go from there.

If you’ve ever thought about pressing pause on the career grind, or you just want to follow along as someone actually does it — welcome. Pull up a chair. (Not sure what kind of sabbatical suits you? Take the quiz.)

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Quick Facts

• Based in Delaware, USA
• Originally from North Jersey
• 21 countries planned for 2026–2027
• Seeing Ren 4x in 2026 (at least)
• Zen practitioner, aspiring potter

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Why Buy Me a Coffee?

Everything on this site is free — the tools, the guides, the honest breakdowns of what things actually cost. I don’t run ads, I’m not selling a course, and there’s no premium tier behind a paywall. That’s intentional. I want this to be the resource I wished I had when I started planning.

But travel isn’t free, and neither is the time it takes to create all of this. If something I’ve shared has been genuinely useful — helped you plan, saved you money, or just made the idea of a sabbatical feel a little more possible — you can buy me a coffee. It’s completely optional, but it helps me stay on the road a little longer and keep the content coming. No pressure, ever.