They’re breaking every retirement rule to be off now, not later

livemint.com:

When Dana Saperstein quit her marketing job to spend six months hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, the then-31-year-old thought of it as a microretirement. “If I keep working myself to the bone until 60 years old, I might physically never be able" to hike the 2,650-mile Mexico-to-Canada trail, she said. Saperstein is among a small number of workers in their 20s and 30s borrowing years of freedom from their future selves to enjoy some of their retirement while they are still young.

Unlike followers of the FIRE movement, short for “financial independence, retire early," those seeking microretirements say they aren’t looking for a shortcut to retirement by saving aggressively and living frugally. Their early retirement comes in the form of shorter breaks for travel or other pursuits. Though such career breaks are rare, more workers appear to be thinking about them.

Nearly 80% of recent college graduates expressed interest in taking time off from paid work to volunteer or for personal projects, according to a survey from Handshake, a job-search app for college students. Pausing your career during prime working years can slow the growth of a nest egg. But the chance to backpack the globe or take a series of mini-retirements is worth it, say those who have done it, even if it means delaying buying a home or having to work longer later to fund retirement—at a time when many fear a comfortable retirement is difficult to achieve.

Saperstein paused her retirement savings while on the trail. Her fiancé, Ben Pecher, invested $800 a month. They suspended their car insurance and covered most of their $2,450 rent by subletting.