Sabbatical Holidays
Do you have an extended period of time off work or career break planned? Are you considering a retirement trip? Many of our guests are planning an extended family holiday to South America, or a longer a solo travel adventure. Our luxury sabbatical trips and retirement holidays are key to our sustainable travel goal; to slow travel, travel better, and travel deeper.
What is a sabbatical holiday?
A sabbatical holiday is a longer trip, giving you more time to explore a country, combine more destinations and get to know the area and its people and cultures better.
There are industries such as law and finance that reward long service with a sabbatical or career break. These longer ‘bucket-list’ trips are often also called Golden Gap Years, which are retirement holidays. We have designed many slow travel holidays for guests who have longer to spend away. Luxury and experiential sabbaticals, once-in-a-lifetime epic family adventures, and multi-generational long holidays. These are the big trips you have been planning for many years.
Sabbatical journeys and retirement holidays mean less flying, experiencing the country in a slower, more environmentally conscious way. More time in a region means more money goes back into the local community and more local people are employed. You can fully experience and appreciate a country when you are not moving on every few days. Fall in love with local food and music, reach the lesser known viewpoints, see the rare breeds of birds, explore the markets that are for locals not tourists, experience peace, and take the epic trekking routes that require longer. Our bespoke South America sabbatical trips and retirement holidays can include luxury hotels, eco lodges and bucket-list highlights. Longer trips away mean you don’t need to compromise on where to include and what to see.
Example Sabbatical trips & retirement Holidays
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Peru Ecuador and Galapagos Adventure Sabbatical
See Detailed Itinerary -
Argentina and Chile In Depth Sabbatical
See Detailed Itinerary -
Ultimate South America Sabbatical
See Detailed Itinerary -
Slow Travel: Southern Brazil In Depth
See Detailed Itinerary -
Slow Travel: Peru in-depth
See Detailed Itinerary
Sabbatical Travel suggestions
Experiential Holidays
Feel the thrill of driving through remote wilderness in northern Argentina, see Machu Picchu away from the crowds with your private guide, try island-hopping in the Galapagos Islands. When you have longer, you can see more, try more and fall in love with a country more. There are real rewards for slow travel sabbatical holidays. With less time constraints, our experts can suggest unique destinations and hotels that might be missed on shorter holidays. Stay in an incredible 3,000 hectare private reserve in Brazil, home to pioneering sustainability and reforestation initiatives, Ibiti Project. Self-drive through the stunning Lake District in Chile, seeing colours and landscapes you can only dream of. Sabbatical holidays are experiential trips of a lifetime.
Travel with purpose
A slow travel trip or sabbatical holiday is generally a more responsible way to travel. By spending longer in each place you avoid extra flying and your trip puts more money back into the local economy. By staying longer you can directly contribute to the community and environment by putting money into in local markets, dining in restaurants and paying conversation/park fees. As a result more local staff can be employed as demand for services and hospitality is higher.
Spending longer away on holiday means you can tread lightly, avoiding over crowded hot spots that erode the landscape. A slow-travel holiday or sabbatical gives you more time to connect with cultures, walks routes less trodden, and see the real country. You will feel a deeper sense of connection to each area and its people, learning more about specific communities and eco systems. This can only be a positive for the tourism industry. We can suggest eco hotels and environmentally responsible hotels, like the B-Corp Hotels found in Latin America. As you have longer away on your retirement holiday or sabbatical, our experts will also include visits to local community initiatives, charities, conservation projects and re-wilding schemes, amongst others. This gives you the chance to learn, get involved, and return from your holiday with valuable knowledge and empathy towards the people and communities you have encountered.
Away from the crowds
Your sabbatical holiday or career break to South America should offer a real chance to escape the tourist masses. While everyone wants to include the must-sees, having extra time away on your golden gap year will give you the thing that is so often lacking…time. With the extra time you have, our experts will suggest ways to approach Machu Picchu away from the tourist masses. You can explore the iconic wildlife of the Galapagos islands away from busy cruises, by island hopping and staying in land lodges. To see the best beaches of Brazil, take a little longer and travel further to kayak through mangroves, take hikes to viewpoints and enjoy peaceful beach picnics. Seeing countries by overland driving, instead of purely flying means you discover hidden gems others miss. Try delicious food in small owner run restaurants, stay in quaint lodges and haciendas and have the time to chat to the locals. Find peace and quiet on your sabbatical holiday.
Sabbatical travel: Frequently Asked Questions
Please reach us at info@traveldifferently.co.uk if you cannot find an answer to your question.
How to plan a travel sabbatical?
The first thing to do is work out exactly much time you have available to you, when considering a sabbatical holiday, career break or retirement holiday. Whether between jobs, a paid or unpaid break from work, or you are a retiree planning a golden gap year, the amount of time you have will dictate how in depth your sabbatical holiday will be.
Our destination experts will arrange a call or face to face meeting with you (and other family members) to go through your wish-list, time frame, budget, and tastes. They will go away and work on your sabbatical holiday plan or retirement trip, making sure to include styles of hotels and lodges that suit you, activities you will enjoy, unique suggestions, upgrade options where the value is worth it and ways to travel differently. Your sabbatical will be completely unique and bespoke.
We will rework your bespoke sabbatical with your feedback until perfect and until you are 100% happy. Travel Differently would then require a deposit (typically around 20% of the total trip cost, depending on how soon you depart) and secure everything for you. It will be a retirement holiday of a lifetime.
Do you avoid flying during a sabbatical?
One of the best reasons to consider a sabbatical trip or retirement holiday is to cut out or reduce extra flying. You have longer in each area to take land transfers, trains or sometimes luxury coaches. Often the most beautiful and remote areas of a country can be discovered using land transfers in South America, which would be missed when purely flying. Many of our guests planning a retirement holiday prefer not to fly at all, where possible.
Our experts will plan your sabbatical holidays using land transfers over flights, where possible. This also saves a lot of time and stress avoiding airport queues, baggage reclaim, flight delay risks etc. Where driving or trains is not possible due to distances domestic flights are used, but these are kept to a minimum on our sabbatical journeys.
What to consider when planning a sabbatical holiday?
The main things to consider are length of time you have away, and budget. Consider learning the local language, or at least some good key phrases, as you will be away longer and you will likely visit more remote areas, so having a basic grasp of the local language will be advantageous.
You will also need to consider pace. On average, our sabbatical holiday are around 3 months, although some are even longer. Whilst its tempting to want to see and do everything, our experts will make sure you have enough down-time, and ‘days off’ to really enjoy a country deeper, and not to exhaust yourself during your big retirement trip. You should really think about your interests and passions so our sabbatical experts can look to include as many activities you will love as possible.
When should you take a sabbatical to South America?
This will depend on the time of year and length you have available. As sabbatical trips and retirement holidays tend to be longer than typical holidays, this should help us include most areas and regions so as best to avoid any specific wet seasons and make the most of the best time of year to travel to each country in South America. We will also advise how best to avoid the crowds and avoid peak season surcharges where possible. If you have a time- specific place you want to see, or specific wildlife only found at certain times of the year, we will design your sabbatical or retirement holiday around this.
What is a Golden Gap Year?
A Golden Gap Year is an extended trip for those who are typically 55 + or have recently retired. A once in a lifetime, longer holiday for those in their Golden years. For many of our clients, it’s a big bucket-list holiday that previously hasn’t been possible due to limited time and budget. A Golden Gap Year can fulfil a travel wish-list, at a time in life when guests have more time, more freedom, have more financial stability to book a longer trip. The Golden gap year and retirement holidays that we plan, typically contain the classic must-see’s, but also lots of off-the-beaten track experiences, cultural immersion, and adventurous excursions. our sabbaticals offer the time to get away from the crowds to explore more remote and beautiful areas that may be missed on a typically 3 week holiday. Adventurous retirees want to see more of the world, experience different cultures, and do things in a different way.
Is a sabbatical better for the environment?
In short, yes a carefully planned sabbatical designed by experts is better for the environment than a normal holiday. When going on a career break sabbatical, the last thing you want is to negatively impact the landscape and ecosystems you are there to admire and enjoy. That’s why at Travel Differently we only work with sustainable, environmentally-conscious properties and partners. Our sabbatical holidays are a minimum of 30 days, to encourage clients to see more and travel for longer thus reducing the need for multiple trips. By giving guests more time to immerse in multiple destinations, we aim to reduce emissions associated with additional flights. Further to this, we believe that embracing a slower approach to adventure travel sabbatical holidays enables you to fully relax and engage more in the destination, resulting in a more genuine, enjoyable and fulfilling experience. One of our key aims for every sabbatical holiday to South America we offer is a commitment to fairer travel. We are committed to only work with partners who actively encourage and support local communities in the regions we visit, making sure that regional tourism benefits local people. Slow travel and longer sabbatical holidays ensure more local people are employed, and more money goes back in to the local area to benefit the region and its environment. Read more about how we should all strive to travel more sustainably, with Tourism Declares (a Climate emergency)
Why choose Travel Differently to book a sabbatical holiday?
Our country experts specialise in knowing how to travel better when it comes to luxury Sabbatical holidays. As well as our commitment to sustainability, we are passionate about designing fully personalised, unique tailor-made holidays. We pride ourselves on getting to know each customer individually and offering direct contact with our founder. The numerous 5* reviews on our Trust Pilot page reflect our first class service. This ensures that every luxury sabbatical holiday is meticulously tailored and tweaked to match our clients distinct needs and interests. We don’t offer a generic, one-size-fits-all package or price, all our sabbatical holidays and career breaks are completely bespoke.
Why Book With Travel Differently
Passionate and experienced
- Each member of the team has over a decade of experience in the industry
- Our 5* client reviews reflect our service & standards
- We are a fully independent & owner-run tour operator
- Our holidays include full financial protection & ATOL coverage
- We are destination experts, ensuring authentic & reliable advice
Committed and Responsible
- We only work with trusted, hand-picked partners
- Every holiday is thoughtfully crafted to ensure a positive impact
- Our tours & experiences are unique, memorable & immersive
- We work with certified & respected local guides & drivers
- Judge us by the company we keep. Read more here
Tailor-made and Personal
- No two trips are the same, our holidays are 100% bespoke
- We design personal, genuine cultural connections & experiences
- From planning to travel, you’ll have one dedicated point of contact
- Our support is available around the clock during your holiday
- We take care of the details, so you don’t have to
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