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Comment by davem8 | Hacker News Reader

I quit my job as a data scientist in 2019 and spent about 6 months cycling around Europe. It was a great move it really built my confidence and enforced my since of self reliance. I was on my own things would go wrong bike trouble, bad weather, difficulty finding a place to camp, loneliness, but I could overcome them all and realised I can solve any problem the world throws at me.

I was a little worried about finding a job after, and having a gap on my CV but I easily found another data science job and have changed jobs no one even asks about it.

If like me you have an urge to take a bicycle tour do it you won’t regret it.

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I’ve gotten really into touring in the last couple of years, and a Euro bike trip is in my plans for next spring/summer. Any suggestions for what season and where you’d recommend for a month-long tour? I’m currently thinking May, perhaps the corridor from Normandy thru Brussels onto Amsterdam. But I haven’t visited enough of Europe to know if temperatures/wind/weather will be amenable for that.

Of course I’m also considering dropping my job at some point and biking for 6+ months.

I would probably have gone with June for that, but on the other hand I once spent an entire July biking in Spain, which to be fair was a bit hot.

To see historic weather I use wunderground.com, for example, here[1] is the weather for May 2021 in Amsterdam. I usually check a few years to avoid one-off years.

[1] https://www.wunderground.com/calendar/nl/amsterdam-airport-s...

I have a similar gap in my CV.

I've found that the companies/people I most want to work for are genuinelyhttps://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=LightG interested in that gap rather than are suspicious about it.

I use how they respond to it as a minor filter for those I don't want to work with.

Get a state license in anything, and say you were unemployed for those resume gaps. Most license requirements are easy to fudge.

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