Two years ago Michael Tieso, now 25, was working in a windowless cubicle at UPS, plotting his escape. Inspired by travel blogs, he decided that he would save up enough money to travel for a year. He brought his lunch to work, sold his possessions on Craigslist, and downgraded from a $1,400 apartment to a $200 bedroom in a Hackensack, N.J., home. Within a year-and on just a $50,000 salary-he had saved $15,000. Then he headed out, to China, Southeast Asia and South America, living on $25 a day. When he depleted his savings, after 11 months, he lived on the money he earned from artofbackpacking.com, a website he launched before he left. “I knew that working in a corporate office wasn’t for me,” he says-he leaves for China, with a part-time teaching gig there, this week. “But through traveling, I discovered so many other things I could do to earn a living.” See FULL STORY.