After I read Tim Ferriss' excellent book, "The Four Hour Work Week"
, I started to think about the route I was going down and where I wanted to be. The two paths weren't even close to each other.
Tim talks about the 'deferred life plan', the traditional western model where you work a job to save up enough money to eventually retire and live the life you want. Obvious downside: you have to wait until you retire to do all the crazy stuff, by which time you're old. Sure you can go on holiday, but if you want to take a longer period off you're going to have a tough time explaining this in a traditional career setting.