Should We All Be Taking Jobbymoons?

According to the New York Times, a jobbymoon is a holiday taken by a person once they’ve left their job. It makes up the holy trinity of ‘moons’ we should be taking in our lifetime – alongside honeymoons (a week or two to chill with your spouse after the stress of planning a wedding) and babymoons (to celebrate the final moments of peace and quiet before your children are born).

Whether you have a new role lined up or not, the idea of the jobbymoon is to shake off the stress, anxiety and worry from your previous job, soaking up all the sun, fun and relaxation a trip away has to offer. As one jobbymoon fan told the NY Times: “You’ve wrapped up with your former clients – no one is going to email or call you, but you also know you’ll be starting a bunch of new stuff when you get back. You’re starting down a new path; you want to mark the occasion, celebrate it and prepare yourself.”

Considering that 526,000 workers in the UK suffer from work-related stress, depression or anxiety, taking the time to unwind on a jobbymoon could provide some much-needed headspace. And we’re not just talking the mental health benefits of relaxation – talking time away from your day-to-day is an opportunity to reassess and reevaluate your life. “Travel is great because people learn a lot about themselves,” said Joy Lin, career coach for job search and advice site, The Muse. “But you have to know what you’re hoping to get out of it. You don’t want to use travel as an escape between one job that you don’t like and the next job that you don’t like.”

As such, one jobbymooner told the NY Times she had a to-do list to complete, in which she focused on four objectives: “Chill out, get rid of my eye twitch, eat as much local cuisine as possible and define what I want next in life.” But while some jobbymooners don’t actually have jobs lined up when they return to normality, others who are going straight into a new job say there’s value in disconnecting or going ‘off grid’ for a while. “Here was a period when I didn’t need to be on the grid and I didn’t need to react to anything,” Heath Fradkoff, who was about to start his own marketing agency, told the publication. “We wanted to go as far as we could and make as big a deal of this vacation as possible, since it was the only time when I had absolutely no responsibilities, work-wise.”

For those who can afford it, jobbymoons seem like a no-brainer. But obviously, they’re not cheap. Of all the people interviewed in the NY Times piece were owners of their own business or in the upper echelons of a company. For many, having a new job lined up as soon as their old one ends is necessary in order to have a constant stream of income – to take a two-week break might also mean losing two weeks’ pay, and when there’s a mortgage to pay, or rent to keep up with, that’s not the kind of luxury the majority can afford. If means allow it, a long weekend staycation could be more economical – whilst still giving you some space to switch off.