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Comment by ar_turnbull | Hacker News Reader

Taking five months off and playing Starcraft is great if that's what you really want to do, but I feel like the topic of "funemployment" would be better served by people really thinking about what they want to do with their free time.

For example, I have some friends who took a summer off and biked from Saskatchewan (Canada), through the Rockies, and down to California. It changed their lives.

Personally, I've always wanted to take a month to backpack and explore in the Rockies — instead of a four day weekend here and there.

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It sounds like OP just wanted to play video games. I've been there in my life, so I can relate. However, it's a tragic use of time that could be spent exploring the world.

I did 3 months backpacking in America's best national parks. There were so many amazing experiences I'll never forget. But most of all, the feeling of freedom.

My life will never be the same after doing that. Of course, it's changed for the better.

You absolutely should backpack the rockies! In Colorado alone, you could spend 3 months. Flat tops, ouray, sand dunes, rocky mountain nat'l park, Aspen, San Juans etc. etc. But don't forget that Canada has Rockies, too. Jasper national park is high on my bucket list this summer.

That sounds like an incredible experience. I live in Calgary, so the Rockies are never far. =)

I think the OP was just trying to pick an easily accessible activity so he could focus on getting his point across. As a newbie to backpacking knowing if I have the right gear, what to do, where to go, can I even do this? could cloud the reader and miss the whole point of his article.

Last week I talked to a person who quit his job to do some soul-searching. He spent last 8 month traveling, helping a few startups, living in San-Francisco(for a month), and doing some fun part-time work.

His advice was "have a few goals". You can quit your job and have a few fun months, but after that you'll have to return back to your previous life and problems that you had will be likely unresolved.

I am curious: what kind of change happened to your friends' lives? I'd like to take a few months off work, but I am considering a more directed approach than funemployment. Funemployment is certainly great for some people, but probably not for me.

I think the biggest thing was that they learned they could do it. There's a huge boost in confidence when you can pull off something like that. One is considering quitting his cushy office job and becoming a carpenter. He doesn't feel like he needs the safety net anymore.

That was my take on the original article too — it's important to have personal goals. That might be "getting to gold in SC2" but it could also be "survive a solo backpacking trip". The point is there's more too life than working.

It sounded like part of his point was to get more comfortable with not always being goal-oriented and not always thinking that they have to have plans and goals. For some people, the compulsion to always optimize their time and do big meaningful epic things (including things like taking a month backpacking in the Rockies instead of using that month to lounge around and decompress :) can become so strong as to be oppressive. After many years it can actually suck the joy out of life.

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