On Saturday I went to check out the Travel Expo with my partner to get some ideas on places to go for a mini retirement. There were a lot people in the expo and lots of different stands offering travel packages to multiple travel destinations. Normally entry fees were $15 per person, though we were lucky to have found a special voucher that was printed off from the Internet so we entered for free. We also entered a few competitions to have a chance at winning a holiday and saw Natalie Gruzlewski at the Getaway booth promoting a stay at the Hilton hotel in Sydney valued at $900 for two nights. I knew these competitions were marketing tactics to get your email address and contact details for them to market more products to you later on, but I didn’t think too much and did it for fun.

We searched for tropical island destinations and some interesting sight seeing places that we could travel to. One place that caught our eyes were to Cook Islands. It looks like a beautiful destination and a romantic location to have our future wedding and possibly mini retirement. I love dreaming of nice places to go to! Another location that we have talked about going to is Japan is to see the snow monkeys at Yamanouchi-town. Since it is snowing in the area I can’t miss any opportunity to go snowboard as well. Japan is a surreal place from what I have heard and many of my friends have mentioned to go during the Spring time where we could see the flowers blossom. I could definitely stay in Japan for a few months to capture both.

Why A Mini Retirement, Not A Holiday?
I’ve been reading a book called The 4-Hour Work Week written by Timothy Ferriss. It has had a huge impact on my perspective of life and work leading to the changes I am gradually implementing into my business. What has really struck me the most is taking mini retirements in life, rather than working really hard now and saving for the day when I can retire. So you must be wondering what is a mini retirement and how does it sound different to a holiday? The biggest difference is, mini retirements allows you to take time off ranging from a month to as long as 15 months, or however long you fancy. It also allows you to develop new hobbies, interests, travel and live in different locations for that period of time with the freedom to pursue whatever you want without having to think about work. Whereas a holiday would last for a few weeks and when you come home, work would be ready to start again.

What my goal is within the next 12 months is to set up the systems for this business to allow me to travel to another country and live there for a period of time. I will not have to worry whether or not my business continues to run without me because it will be automated and provide the income needed to live a lifestyle in another country. I know it sounds very far fetched to some people, I believe it’s achievable!

Tyrone Shum
Aspiring For More Mini Retirements