One of the most asked questions about sabbaticals is: What do people do on sabbatical? The answer: Just about anything you can dream up.
1. Circuit Iceland by car
2. Shadow 25 successful men and women for 48 hours each
3. Work backstage for the Blue Man Group
4. Experience a slave immersion at a living history farm
5. Tackle Kili (Kilimanjaro)
6. Research cutting-edge business ethics issues in your industry
7. Work at one of Colorado’s top ski resorts for a season
8. Visit all of the Revolutionary War battlefields
9. Enroll in a creative writing course
10. Spend time with US citizens imprisoned in other countries
11. Kayak the Pacific Ocean
12. Travel to Asia and interview top business gurus
13. Travel without an itinerary
14. Work for a political campaign or civic activity in your community
15. Volunteer to help a starving artist
16. Design a road trip with a theme (interview small town mayors, visit your company’s top clients, spend a day with the oldest person in various towns)
17. Attend the top art shows in Miami and New York
18. Participate in an executive exchange program
19. Research your family genealogy in the country of your origin
20. Take a painting and drawing class in Florence, Italy
21. Do a Spanish immersion at ESADE in Barcelona
22. Renovate a school in Honduras
23. Volunteer for a reforestation project in Ecuador
24. Attend a residence program in Turkey Creek, a neighborhood in Gulfport, MS, settled by African-American slaves and still recovering from Hurricane Katrina
25. Volunteer in a program with spiritual leaders and naturalists on Plains Indian reservations in Montana
26. Build a teen center in a Athabaskan Indian village in Alaska
27. Attend art school
28. Ski the 300-mile Nordic Trail in Vermont
29. Fly an aerobics mission in a Russian MIG in Moscow
30. Sail around the world
31. Attend 8-week concentrations in clay, drawing/painting, or glass blowing at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina
32. Work at an orphanage for children of a displaced ethnic minority in a hill tribe village in northern Thailand, near the border of Myanmar (aka Burma)
33. Crew for the twice-annual delivery of Swan yachts
34. Work at an animal sanctuary in a rain forest in Hawaii
35. Audit a class in linguistics or sociology at a local university
36. Live with your family in New York City for a summer
37. Raft the Zambezi with your dad
38. Build a nurses’ station in Fiji
39. Attend a silent retreat at a nearby monastery
40. Learn to fly, then break the sound barrier
41. Collect data on glacier recession and marine mammals in Antarctica
42. Attend The International Culinary School at the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago
43. Utilize your talents as a “skilled volunteer” for start-up organizations in the US or another country
44. Help maintain part of the 2,160 miles of the Appalachian Trail
45. Volunteer with your family for the Arcosanti Project – an experimental town of arcology (archaeology-environmental) in the high desert of Arizona
46. Trap and track puma in Argentina’s pampas grass
47. Take up kiteboarding – the fastest growing watersport for the over-50 set
48. Have an art colony experience off the coast of Panama
49. Track down WWII Aces and interview them
50. Take your mother or father back to their native country
51. Write a book proposal and get a literary agent
52. Earn a certification to advance your career
53. Attend a triathlon training camp
54. Enroll in a leading global business school
55. Trek through Nepal, delivering books to newly built libraries in villages
56. Volunteer at a rape crisis center
57. Travel the Pan-American Highway in an RV with your family
58. Join up for Bike Across America
59. Interview all your living relatives and make a video
60. Help with the preservation of monkeys, sea otters and birds in the Amazon
61. Take up photography
62. Help with a street children’s home in Latin America
63. Teach English to children in rural China
64. Volunteer to help a local farmer for a season
65. Design a musical volunteer program for local Hospice locations
66. Work as a gofer for an independent film director
67. Develop a new software game for retirees
68. Learn how to play pool and compete in a local tournament
69. Trout fish in the world’s best rivers
70. Train then trek to Mt. Everest’s base camp
71. Work behind the scenes in the business center of a homeless shelter
72. Become a staff member at a camp for seriously ill children
73. Design and implement a program for prisoners
74. Climb the highest peaks in all 50 states and join the Highpointers club
75. Travel cross-country in an 18-wheeler
76. Join a local band
77. Lend a hand at offices of environmental groups
78. Start a vegetarian advocacy club
79. Design a marketing campaign for an indigenous craft community
80. Organize a yoga retreat or chess tournament for the elderly
81. Paint murals on local buildings or organize a mural program in your community
82. Fix swings and slides at community parks across America
83. Live and work on a coffee farm in rural Guatemala
84. Organize and deliver school supplies to villages in Peru
85. Visit independent bookstores and rate the experience
86. Design recycling bins for the fashion conscious
87. Join a summer stock production
88. Visit all the National Scenic Parks
89. Enter a competitive eating contest (it’s actually considered a sport)
90. Learn to write a musical score
91. Attend origami school in Tokyo
92. Overcome your fears and learn to firewalk
93. Start a goat farm
94. Invent and patent a new product
95. Take classes at an international film studies institute
96. Volunteer for an astronomy research program and study nighttime air-glow images
97. Learn to make cheese
98. Start your own business
99. Buy, renovate, and sell a single-family home
100. Create and implement a recycling program for your company.
