My most recent really big idea

I wish I'd had a camera handy to capture the look on Scott's face when I told him I want to take a sabbatical and spend a year globe-trotting. It was best described as a cross between amusement and complicity. To give a little context to this whole scenario, my idea was not completely out of the blue. I must confess, I just finished reading "Eat, Pray, Love," which is the third book I've read in the last four months that utterly romanticizes the notion of heading off into the unknown for an adventure abroad. I do love a good adventure, and what better place to have such an adventure than abroad? With each new destination I add to my list of places visited, the more compelled I feel to add even more to that list. For Scott and I, traveling has kind of become our thing. We toss all our spare pennies into the vacation fund coffers, and then each year we go out and blow the vacation fund in fine style. I've already mentioned how much I love to plan these vacations, and now that I've got it in my head that I want to spend a year traveling, I find myself wondering at the logistics of such an undertaking. Like how long will it take to save up enough money to ditch our lives for a year? What countries am I dying to visit? What countries would give us the biggest bang for the buck? I already know it won't be Italy, but I'd sure love to go back there anyway. When would we be able to actually pull off an undertaking of this magnitude? Obviously not now, because Scott is still in school. So that means we still have at least two more years to figure out the big stuff. By then, my loans will be paid off (how amazingly awesome is that? Eat it, law school!) and if we maintain the status quo, I could theoretically toss my entire salary into the humongous vacation/adventure fund. This could totally be doable. And taking a year off isn't really all that unreasonable, especially if you refer to it as a "sabbatical." Somehow that makes the whole idea sound just slightly less irresponsible. Maybe I can write a memoir chronicling this really big adventure and it will turn out to be a runaway success story/vehicle for early retirement...oh right, that's been done. But still, I think it would most definitely be a pretty awesome way to spend a year. Especially when the alternative involves being tethered to an office.