Paramedic.

ask me in 6 years

Traveller types is just about anyone nowadays.

I was busy training hard for rowing and occasionally working 🙂

I spent most of the year at sea, and a lot of time in the states, and a bit watching my daughter be born into the world and the rest renovating the house we would all call home.

Nurse in a general hospital. However when I was 28 I did exactly what you suggested - returning when 30 to start from scratch again haveing spent everything including the profits on my house. It mostly worked out well

being a dad and working a shyte job and shyte hours.

my rewards have landed now tho.............life gets easier mate.

That's 4 year away!

Sitting bolt upright in bed with shock, listening to "God Save The Queen" on John Peel's "Top Gear" show and suddenly feeling alive again.

working in a record shop, boozing a lot and being a bit of a tit.

I did exactly that at 26 when i got divorced and sold my house, i went right around the world twice for 5 yrs 😉

That was 15 yrs ago and i started again, i now have a house thats paid for and a wonderful wife.

Do it and enjoy, it's a big world out there.

I was teaching at an RAF base in Germany, and generally having a good time with loadsa money.

i was on my third tour of bosnia . deep joy 😉

mostly being unemployed

Trainee Actuary for an insurance company.

Married for 2 years and 2 years before my daughter arrived so quite happy to be honest.

living in india with my wife and daughter in an ashram.

Nurse on a children's medical ward in a district general hospital. Got married. Went to France on holiday.

started working as a Civil Servant at the very bottom of the food chain ..... am a bit further up the ladder now tho 😆

at 26 I was 3 years into my career in IT, but still being treated as the office teaboy by most of the senior (and some of the junior) staff. My hair was still dark and still long, and my belly had yet to make much of an appearance

I'd just passed my driving test, was living with my then girlfriend (now wife) in our first house, which we finally managed to sell only this year.
I'd given up on music too...

pretty dull really

was coaching pro cyclists and about to make a huge marriage mistake

getting married working short, term seasonal jobs, drinking vodka,hill walking, cycling motorbiking

I was working for JPMorgan Chase Bank on behalf of the Trade Bank of Iraq.

Thoroughly bored with the whole thing I went off to Banff, Alberta for a season snowboarding at Sunshine Village/Lake Louise having done the same thing three years before.

When I returned to the UK I moved to Leeds for a while before returning to Bournemouth just after turning 27.

I met the wife when I was 26... 3 kids a mortgage and a cat later... In hindsight I should have gone travelling.

FFS Do it, what are you waiting for, plenty of time for jobs and stuff when your old.

my life was spent on the piss and getting laid 🙂

bloody hell that was 22 years ago

Had left the Navy and started working off shore. Still there and not really happy.
Go and see something, get a fresh perspective. Come back happy and do something you enjoy. Chasing money makes you (or at least me) miserable.

Living and parying hard in Ibiza, now 37 and have 25 years of mortgage in front of me, so I'll be paying for my fun long after other people have finished...!

in my experience travel types are the best people to work with. what makes you say employers hate travel types? maybe you're told that by people too scared to travel themselves?

tails - if you have the chance go! Not all employers hate travelling types if you convinvce them on your return you're not going to go off and do it again next year! At 26 I was generally abusing my body but working and saving when I could. Jacked it all in to go travelling when I was 32, best life experience ever, it changed the way I think and (I think) made me a better person. I've not met anyone who has travelled and regretted it and I have met quite a few who have gone travelling and not made it home but made themselves a life elsewhere. You'll regret it later if you don't go

At 26 I quit work and did a similar thing. I have absolutely no regrets. (Im 32 now)

If you dont get on with it, dont write the idea off and head home, just move on elsewhere.

Riding shite loads. Drinking shite loads. Working a very easy job that paid well.

God I miss those days. 🙁

Although at the same time I was with my ex so maybe not.

tails i left uk for 12 years and went all round the world and when i came back my same old mates were sat in the same seats in the same pub. i know which one id rather be 😉

Agree with those who say you should travel, my biggest regret is not getting in some travelling before work/marriage etc took over life.

Had come back from travelling and was a student in my final year. Working hard [for a student] and smoking way to much Skunk. Completed went travelling again. Depends on the career many jobs are ok with employing travelling hippy types I got my first FT job at 32 after various PT temporary stuff. do it you dont regret in life what you do you regret what you did not do when you are older wish I knew how true that was when I was younger GO now ,whilst you still can

Beginning what I thought would be a long term career move trading oil futures. Didn't last as long as I expected. made a bit of money. Built cars. ran more than I cycled back then.

Same job as i am now.No missus only had 1 child then.Having lots of drunken fun.

At 26 I was bricking it as I was just about to leave the military (all I'd known since 18); looking down the barrel of two years hard graft to fund myself through Uni and keep the house I just bought.

If you're going off the grid please do something useful FFS rather than just copping out to go find yourself or some other sanctimonious bullshit reason. there's millions of people out there that could do with a hand; and you'll have a cracking story to tell helping out.

Running a service/petrol station & having the best time of my life riding motorcycle trials. (badly, but enjoying every second of it)
At this time I hadn't ridden a pedally bike for 10 years!

You expect me to remember what I was doing 19 years ago - 19 minutes is a bit of a challenge sometimes!

Anyway, some hazy recollections: unmarried and staying that way for the next 7 years, incredibly unhappy.

12th wedding anniversary coming right up and now very happy and staying that way. Things change - much for the better in my life, thank God.

I've got a decade and a day until im 26!

Just got a great promotion with another company that saw me move down to Sussex and still be better off, which saw me with influence and responsibilties that I wasn't quite ready to handle but working with a great team who saw me right!

Just met the woman who ended up being MrsSwadey! Now 15 years since we met.

Abandoned my biking and martial arts in order to have another attempt at powerlifting and bodybuilding. Which is why I've had another visit to the physio today and why my right knee is heavily strapped to try and pull my knee cap back to where it should be after a lot of years of abuse......

Having the time of my life then having my heartbroken by the girl of my dreams

Ketamine.

Drugs

I'm not there yet!
By the time I'm 26 I hope to have done a bit of travelling (at least around the UK 😛 ) and to have a "proper" job

I was just getting out of a sex and drugs and sausage rolls period and getting ready to fall into a disastrous 4 year relationship :). Still, at age 32 I met the woman of my dreams, got married a few years later and then went travelling together for a bit. Now we do our own thing with a wee one on the way. Life is too short not to do what you really want to so get on with it!

Paediatrics and obs & gynae.
Life's better now

That's me that is.

Currently working in Advertising, girlfriend of 10 years (aww) looking for our first house.

I was working as a science teacher in rural(ish) Thailand. Riding fast bikes, drinking too much and having a great time with a great bunch of friends.

Posting on stw, listening to Sex Bob-omb, drinking sleepytime tea & wondering what DVD to watch before i go to sleep.

Just left the army, letting my hair down getting drunk, getting stoned, going snow boarding and generaly enjoying life.

Hmmm, let me see. That'd have been '98 for me. So was working for the European Commission, I had just bought my first house with the woman who would become my wife (and then would soon become my ex-wife), and didn't own a bike.

50% of my lifetime ago I was 26 and Daddy to a 2 year old daughter.

26 years on sees me awaiting the birth of my overdue 2nd Granddaughter as my daughter is very grown up with a family (she is actually now 28) - - time passes very quickly - - 😛

Sleeping in the back of a Holden Kingswood, surfing everyday, reading books, being slim!, watching fantastic bands, being single and pretty much anything that got me away from building sites in England for a year or two.

Elfinsafety - Member
Ketamine.

That is something I have never tried.

Back in 1992 I visited home to see my Mum for a few days and my flatmates at the time managed to score some.

They had a fab time and needless to say when I returned they had taken it all, bah!

I turned 26 in 2003. In the same year, I started the job I'm currently doing (A level IT teacher in a 6th form college) and my eldest child was born.

26! Blimey, that was quite a while ago, errm 17 years or something. So I'd have been hanging out with potheads and bands I think in Manchester. Probably about the time I was rubbing shoulders with James and Mick Hucknall. Just about giving up kick boxing, coming out of my angry young man phase a bit late I think. Was still drinking and smoking weed quite a lot but it was the start of the end for all that stuff.

a Holden Kingswood

A Shaggin Wagon! Writen in the dirt on the side: 'Don't laugh, your daughter could be in here'.

That is something I have never tried.

Ketamine is proper mad. Gives you a real ''out of body' type experience. I remember getting up to go to the loo, first time I did it, and the ground and walls felt like deep foam. You really lose touch with physical senses.

Not good for you though.

Elfinsafety - Member
Ketamine.

An a-hole in a k-hole. figures. 😉

I finally graduated from uni with my BSc, got a shite job, wasted a shit load of money, and was properly miserable.

1991, married (first time, managed 8 years), working in IT, on my 3rd house, 309GTI, certainly no bikes (just sold my FZ600)

The world is a different place now compared to when I was 26...

working in ironbridge yha ('83 to '86) doing a litle bit of building work for extra cash and having the time of my life with loads of young ladies and riding my bike around there and up and down the Wrekin, cant do that now and doing loads of hillwalking. Finally went travelling at the age of 39 to Oz met my wife there and have 3 children now and live in the usa been married for 12 years, travelling is defo the best thing to do at least once if not twice

At 26 I had already done the uni/career/then jack it in to go travelling/then get jacked in by my fiancé two months before our wedding 'cos she was jigging with our mortgage adviser (all that stuff happened at 22/23). At 26 I was 'enjoying' a young student and spending late nights drinking weird cocktails in 'Spiders' in Hull. At 27 I met my (even younger) student girlfriend (18) and finally married when I was 39 then had kids at 42. I think I have finally started to grow up now.

An a-hole in a k-hole. figures.

At least I can blame the drugs. What's your excuse? 😉

Mainly spent writing up my PhD thesis. Started work in the real world just before my 27th birthday. Long time ago now.

for me 26 = the last of the full on party days. Before mortgage / kids / career kicked in proper. It were ace!

That might come accross as a bit depressing, but it isn't. Just a different life to the one I live now, with different things in them to enjoy / have enjoyed.

P.S. - go travelling. One of my regrets not to have done. (however I never really was in the position to anyway, and I might not be where I am now (which would be a shame))

Extended girly holiday in Australia.......and that is all you are getting ;-D

Unemployed. 😡

Crumbs. Lost in a mostly happy miasma of hard drugs, being in bands, crap jobs, week long bike trips in the Cairngorms and the odd loose woman.

It got worse before it got much better! @ the OP - just go travel - I regret not doing more of it at an appropriate age.

to the OP. Do it.

Throwing myself off cliffs in the Swiss Alps and occasionally fixing things in chalets with ducktape and hammers.

26 was my penultimate shagging age.

Had more excitement than at any other time in my life.

Had a great job, was single, my own place, good holidays.

Now how did I do that? (I really have no clue)

26 was my penultimate shagging age.

The year before you had yer first shag? Yer last? ❓

I was still languishing in Maidstone. Still living with my evil ex and working in a job I hated. Took me 2 more years to get away, but after a few years bumbling I met and married a beautiful girl and now spend summers with bikes winters with skis.

Can't recommend travelling enough!

I was working for GSL (read Group4 Securicor) directing prison vans about. Mental stress, but OK wage. I hated it. I moved to Scotland and everything's been rosy ever since.

NOTE: SCOTLAND IS SHITE AND OVER-POPULATED. IN NO WAY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER MOVING HERE IF YOU'RE A DISHEARTENED ENGLISHMAN LOOKING TO BETTER HIMSELF.

Sitting on an oil rig in the North Sea, reading this post and feeling encouraged about my plan to jack in my job in next year and go travelling with the other half.

Seems a lot of you have done the same at this age and it's worked out pretty well. I know if I don't do it now, it'll be years before I get another chance (Once kids, dog, big mortgage are on the cards).

Oh and well said Flying Ox, Scotland is now far too crowded and certainly not worth moving to...

Hehe. Where you imprisoned? I've just got off the Fulmar.

crisps.

Just in your back garden then Flying Ox. I'm on the Ensco 100 at the minute, we're not far from the Fulmar.

Gawd, yeah - do it.

26... 2002 for me. I was working as an auxiliary nurse in an insanely busy city hospital (Bristol Royal Infirmary), was generally skint and - thanks to the shift system - riding my bike in the woods pretty much every day. Good times, in retrospect. It was like one long episode of [i]Spaced[/i].

seeing my wife get into a well paying job, in the field she had studied and I had just finished supporting her through in a mundane job.

Had managed to fit in 4.5 seasons of skiing, lived in the US, moved down to Australia and just bought our first place, about 7 mins from a beautiful sandy beach.

was reading reviews of bikes looking trying to work out what I was going to get as my first "proper/nice" bike whilst commuting to work on the road in an effort to get fit for the 2 week, 900km ride I had planned for the following year.

I could/would/should've been the first of my generarion of our extended family to go to Uni etc but took a gap year, went skiing in the US for the winter and realised that I didn't actually know if the degree I was planning on doing would be the right one and it was an expensive and timely thing to not be sure about. I also realised that jumping in the deep end offered different but not lesser opportunities.

I'm now coming up 29, stay at home dad, raising our daughter and have realised that the degree I first looked at was the right field for me and so I will be completing something in that area part-time/externally.

Jack it in, go travel; if after a few months and a few attempts at things you otherwise wouldn't try, it turns out to not be for you, it's easy enough to come home with little really lost. However, it's more than likely you will find a few new things - love, life, interests, whatever - that you otherwise may not have.