Six years ago, I started plotting my escape—my one-way ticket to entrepreneurial freedom. This is the story of how to quit your job and travel—the fun, the bad, and the ugly.

Five years ago, the board chair of the orchestra I raised money for pulled me aside:
“We want to sponsor your next visa and cover the cost. But you’d have to accept this raise and a promotion.”

She thought she was offering me a golden ticket. She didn’t want to lose me.

The problem? They’d already lost me—to red tape replacing real progress, to endless meetings blocking actual impact, to fundraising strategies treating donors like ATMs. We were still hand-stamping envelopes for a mission so outdated my grandma wasn’t even born when it was written.

So, in secret, I started building my own thing—dismantling my ingrained 9-5 mindset and life plan, brick by brick.

I couldn’t imagine doing this for 40 years. I felt stuck behind my desk, realizing that a job isn’t the answer to a freedom-based life. I needed a real 9-5 exit strategy.

That’s when I committed to my freedom leap—my hindsight-20/20 term for having to escape the 9-5 with no clue where to start.

After guiding hundreds of nonprofit and online business founders through the same process, I now see there were six key moves that changed everything.

But this article isn’t just about those six moves—I’ll also share my motivations for quitting my job to travel and why the purpose of my business was never just about travel.

Six Things I Did Before Quitting my Job to Travel the World

In a way, I quit cold turkey. Some of the things I teach my clients today? I didn’t figure out until after I’d already quit. But I did a few things I rarely see anyone else recommending—things that, in hindsight, made all the difference in my 9-5 exit strategy.

Here they are:

1. I Took a Remote Part-Time Job

It wasn’t perfect, but it let me work anywhere, anytime, and stack cash. That money? It funded my one-way ticket to travel, my move back to Germany, and my first coach. (Also, hello, Mom’s basement.) Suddenly:
✔ Working from Venice Beach? A Go for Dina.
✔ Making my own schedule? On the table.
✔ Most importantly, I saved money—my “Escape Fund.”

2. I Got Crystal-Clear on Priorities

I remember skipping a $30 sightseeing bus to save money. I woke up at 5 AM to work before my job, and spent four hours on my business after work. When you’re serious about quitting your job to travel, every decision becomes a step toward freedom.

3. I Focused on Fast Money

No drawn-out funnels. No sleazy “get clients now” BS. I created two offers and sold the hell out of them. My first 10 clients? People I’d known for years. No social media. Boots on the ground.

4. I Developed a Clear Vision

I wasn’t just rejecting the resume-perfect life—I was defining what I wanted instead. My why became my North Star, guiding me through the uncertainty of how to quit my job and travel.

5. I Journaled Every Morning

At a café across from my office, I wrote and asked myself the big questions: If this isn’t what I want, what do I want? I spent hours not just rejecting my old life, but actively designing a new one—one that aligned with freedom, travel, and entrepreneurship.

6. I Booked a One-Way Ticket & Wrote My Resignation Letter

Months before I quit, I had both ready to go. Ironically, the night before I was set to resign, I got offered a promotion. I still handed in my notice—with a smile. Having that letter in my back pocket gave me clarity:
✔ A financial goal.
✔ A timeline.
✔ A commitment.

Road Rage & the Motivation to Quit My 9-5 and Travel the World

And by road rage, I don’t mean yelling at the Mercedes driver who just cut you off. I mean the kind where you wish you were driving to the airport—one-way ticket in hand—but instead, you take a sharp left… to the office.

Feel me?

This is something I want to be transparent about: building in silence while still commuting to your job takes a ton of discipline, commitment, and emotional regulation.

For months, commuting to my dream job in LA felt like torture.
Perfect orchestra. Great mission. Supposed to be everything I’d worked for.

But instead?
💀 A dirty office.
💀 Sh*t communication.
💀 Weak leadership.
💀 A fundraising strategy that felt like cold DMs on Instagram.

On top of that? I felt ungrateful. Downright ashamed, even—because I still had someone else’s dream job.

I was embarrassed that I was even thinking about quitting my job to travel at my age, after being told for years that I had to “pay my dues” first.

I felt like a walking mess—deflated, frustrated, and like I’d just wasted the last 10 years.

Lots to process there.

Two Things That Kept Me from Taking a Hard Right to the Airport

Tony Robbins.
Yep, that guy with the gravelly voice. I had his motivational speeches cranked up in my car—dramatic orchestral music and all.
When your feet hit the ground, say “I can.”
When you feel like quitting, remember all those who said you’d fail.
Remember why you’re doing this.

Courage.
Not the courage to show up at work, but the courage to admit to myself:
This isn’t it.
The dream I’d worked for a decade wasn’t actually mine.
I wanted something unconventional. Something a little cray-cray.

With that realization, I could ask some pretty revelatory questions:

If I didn’t have this job, what would I do? → Help others build businesses.
If there was no judgment, what would I do? → Travel.
If money wasn’t an issue, what would I say? → I QUIT.

Over time, my road-rage turned into motivation.
First, I thought, “What if?!”
Then, “I will.”

If you feel that same kind of road-rage, LEAN IN.
Get curious about what you feel and why.
Then get to work—start the side hustle, build the business, save up, and quit your 9-5 to travel the world.

Building a Purpose-Driven Business While Quitting Your 9-5 to Travel the World

When I started building my business, I lucked out—I found a coach who taught me how to create clients through my existing connections.

She didn’t tell me to build an audience right away.

No fancy funnels.
No content strategy.

And yet, within weeks of registering my business (in the middle of Covid!), I made $8K. A few weeks later, another $10K.

Now, I did a lot of things right, intuitively…but there were also mistakes (e.g., I ended up starting too late on building my online audience). Things I’ve since learned from—things I now teach my clients to do differently.

And just because I did a lot of things right doesn’t mean I wasn’t affected by all of this:
The mental and financial turmoil of escaping a 9-5.
The burnout from forcing business strategies that weren’t right for me.
The false promises of big-name marketing gurus.
The belief that relying on 1:1 high-ticket clients made me a better coach.
The tens of thousands I spent hoping a coach had the magic pill.

And why?
Because I never wanted to go back to a 9-5 (literally my worst fear).
Because I wanted to travel while making money.

For a while, it worked. I made life-changing money in my first three years—money that let me see the world.

But I burnt out. Hard.

And here’s why:
#1: I forgot my own damn business education and fell for the “just scale your 1:1 high-ticket offers” lie. Yeah… scale my ass.

#2: I wasn’t in the business.

Inside 9-5 to Nomad, I go deep on why 1:1 won’t bring you lasting success, why you should still start there, and how to scale fast.

But let’s focus on that second piece for a sec:

I wasn’t in the business.
I thought wanting to travel was enough of a reason to build a business.

Spoiler: It’s not enough for you either.

At some point, you’ll want to buy a farm in Northern Spain and grow your own produce (or whatever your version of nirvana is).

But more than that—travel is a lifestyle, not a purpose.

And if your business only serves your lifestyle? It won’t last.

I’ve seen this firsthand.

Having worked in fundraising for so long, my first few clients were masters at infusing their (often non-profit) businesses with a purpose and meaning, to the point where they sacrificed their entire health, life, and personal dreams. Not so great.

But then, I stepped into the travel-entrepreneur space… and saw the opposite problem:
A whole crowd (cough encouraged by some not-to-be-named colleagues) building businesses just to fund travel.

And guess what?

• Those businesses don’t last.
• Those businesses burn people out.

If you want your business to last, you need to answer two key questions:

1️⃣ What do you want your business to do for you? (That’s your lifestyle—and your business structure will help you get there.)
2️⃣ What impact do you want your business to have on the world? (That’s the purpose, the types of offers you create, your messaging, the tribe you build, and the world you leave behind.)

The biggest thing I’ve thus learnt as a coach, entrepreneur, and traveler, is this:

Travel can influence your business. But it cannot be the purpose of it.

What should you do now?

I’ll leave you with a few questions to answer to make sure that your next chapter is truly soul-aligned:

• What do you want your business to do for you?
• What would an ideal life in a day look like for you, granted there was no repercussions or judgment?
• What impact do you want your business to have on the world?
• If you were to set yourself a 6 months timeline, what wouldthe next 180 have to look like for you to be able to handin your notice at the end?

Now – let’s chat below in the comments: what do you need right now in order to take the next step?