Downward angle icon An icon in the shape of a downward angle. Katie Flynn and Bhavik Mistry decided to take a gap year and visited Ang Thong National Park in Thailand. Katie Flynn and Bhavik Mistry After a failed honeymoon, Katie Flynn and Bhavik Mistry quit their jobs as pharmacists and decided to travel for a year. They sold 95% of their possessions and saved money for a year and a half before setting off on their trip. They planned along the way and spent the first two months touring four countries.
A week into their 2022 honeymoon, Katie Flynn and Mistry Babik faced a major health scare when Flynn contracted a severe amoebic infection while traveling in the Philippines, forcing the couple to cut short their dream month-long vacation.
The couple, both full-time pharmacists in Ontario, Canada, had no idea when they’d be able to travel long-term again — Flynn had three weeks off, but Mistry had to take unpaid leave as a contract pharmacist.
At the same time, they were feeling burned out by their jobs as healthcare workers: the COVID-19 pandemic was having a negative impact on their mental health, making it harder for them to perform at their best at work.
“I realized I didn’t have the same patience or compassion and wasn’t being my best self,” Mistry said. “I knew I needed a hard reset.”
So they came up with a plan: spend a year and a half saving as much money as they could and then set off on a one-way ticket.
My friends and family were hesitant about my gap year.
“At first my family was surprised that I wanted to throw away everything I had worked so hard to achieve,” Mistry says.
Many people have asked Ms. Flynn and Ms. Mistry, who are in their early 30s, about having children, to which they reply with a frustrated tinge: “It sometimes feels like having kids is the only thing people want to talk about at our age,” Ms. Flynn says.
Plus, taking a gap year is less common in their age group, Mistry said.
While most of their classmates went on long trips after graduation, Flynn and Mistry pursued graduate degrees, graduating in their mid-20s with huge amounts of student loan debt.
So after working there for a few years and establishing themselves as experts, they decided it was time to quit.
Their first step was to set a realistic budget.
The couple sold 95% of their possessions, including their car, to save up for the trip. Katie Flynn and Bhavik Mistry
Flynn and Mistry looked to other travel bloggers and sites like Budget Your Trip to determine their budget, but the answers they received were mixed: some people splurge on luxury trips, while others stick to a low-budget plan.
“We had to be realistic about our travel style. We don’t want to be camping 365 days a year,” Flynn said.
The couple budgeted $45,000 for their year-long trip, or $123 per day for the two of them — less than what they would spend in Ontario, where they estimate it would be about $220 per day.
Alternative sources of income to fund your travels
In addition to working full-time jobs, they rented out their basement for $868 a month, and made about $7,200 by selling 95% of their possessions — furniture, appliances, clothes — on Facebook Marketplace.
They also participated in paid focus groups worth approximately $360.
Plan and proceed
After saving for a year and a half, the couple finally left for Japan in May, but apart from booking a hotel room in advance, they hadn’t planned their itinerary.
“Our goal was to have a year of freedom, so we didn’t want to make any plans that would squander that freedom,” Flynn said.
Our next destination was Thailand and our original plan was to fly to Malaysia next, but we suddenly decided to book a flight to Sri Lanka instead, as we found some affordable flights to Sri Lanka.
“It’s great to be able to work it out like that,” Flynn said, adding that not having a plan has helped them get less strayed from their intended path.
Flynn and Mistry at Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They don’t have a set itinerary during their trip. Katie Flynn and Bhavik Mistry
Two months into their adventure, they update regularly on their Instagram page @katieandbhav, where they’ve found a community of like-minded travellers.
Long-distance travel offers respite for exhausted millennials
Flynn and Mistry are not alone in suffering from burnout, which the World Health Organization defines as a syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress.
According to the American Psychological Association’s 2024 American Workplace Survey, conducted among more than 2,000 adults from March to April, 67% of workers reported experiencing at least one outcome related to burnout.
Some millennials like Flynn and Mistry are turning to long-distance travel to escape corporate life.
Olivia Young, a millennial former public relations worker, previously wrote for Business Insider that she quit her job to travel after feeling burned out. She came to New Zealand on a working holiday visa and said the experience gave her the freedom to live a life she was passionate about.
For Jo Fitzsimmons, who left her job as a lawyer in 2010, plans to travel during a career break turned into a full-time job. She told BI she’s now a travel blogger who has visited more than 50 countries.
For Flynn and Mistry, life after their gap year remains unclear.
“We both love what we do. We love being pharmacists,” Mistry said.
Flynn said he doesn’t know what will happen at the end of the year: “We’re just trying to live in the moment and not overthink it.”
