"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." - Henry Miller

"There was a time, Robyn, when I wanted to travel like you did, but life got in the way."

So wrote a visitor to my blog www.robynswanderings.com when I returned to Bermuda after travelling around the world for a year. The sentiment made me sad.

I'm lucky. I could travel because I didn't have many roots to pull up. Then, I thought, there's got to be a way around life. There's got to be a way for extended travel even if someone had a career, kids, a house. I put together a column on budgeting. That will help with financing a long-term trip. Then I put together how to pack. Well that might help because it shows how little you need to get around the world. But something still was missing.

"Wow you went for a year Robyn. I could never get that kind of time."

"Wish I could just take a year off and go travelling."

Hmmm....Ahhhh I get it. How to get time off. I've been working on it for weeks. Weeks? Yes. Have you looked at the papers lately? Depressing. Twenty people lost their jobs. Five people were made redundant. With this kind of economy in Bermuda, I thought, I'm never going to find a way to get people paid, time off from their jobs.

I was wrong. It wasn't the first and it won't be the last.

I chatted with my friend Doug Jones, an insurance broker for Willis in Bermuda. In August last year he took three weeks EXTRA vacation time to travel....and he got PAID!

Mr. Jones said: "I always wanted to see the Great Red Woods, I had never seen the Pacific and I wanted to write. I got to do all three of those things."

I'm sorry Doug? A business that gives employees paid time off to do...whatever they wanted?

I called Willis' managing director in Bermuda, Vince McGeehan, for an explanation.

He said that the time-off incentive, called Willis Choice, was launched last year to save the company money and offers employees up to two months' extra paid vacation.

"We set about a goal. The companies wanted to control expenses and all things were considered. This was one thing (we came up with) and if people took advantage of it then we would be able to save jobs. We are not overstaffed so we didn't want to lose anyone and we found we could achieve the savings.

"It saved a great number of jobs and at the same time it turned out to be very, very popular."

So how does Willis Choice work? Two months is the maximum and the employees' pay is linked to the amount of time they request.

If he or she takes up to nine days off it is unpaid leave. Wait wait! There is a reason. The employee can take a tenth day as paid leave. See I told you there was an incentive.

If a Willis worker takes three weeks away from the grind, he or she receives 30 percent of their pay. If they take three to four weeks it's 40 percent and four to eight weeks it's half pay.

But what if the employee cannot afford to lose half of their salary immediately? And what happens to their benefits?

Mr. McGeehan said: "It would have no effects on your benefits at all. It's just like if you were on holiday. We wanted to make it as user-friendly for the employee as possible. You can take a week off or a day off a week for a period of a month. You could take every Friday off in the summer, for example. And the employee has the option to take the deductions (in their pay) over the year rather than one time."

There must be some sort of catch?

"It's subject to management approval, but no one was denied. The only reason it's subject is we want to make sure not everyone is taking time off at the same time."

So why do the employees take the time? Do they have to have a reason? Nope, said Mr. McGeehan: "You can do whatever you want (with the time). You can sit at home if you want. One person went back to school for two months. Somebody took a month and toured Australia."

So I finally found you what you wanted. I found a way to take extended time off from work although I'm afraid you have to figure out how to get hired by Willis. I can only do so much with a travel column, which is why next week I'm going back. I'm going to the one place that I loved while travelling through 24 countries in the world....where was it? Check here next week and of course keep in touch with my blog www.robynswanderings.com for your daily dose of travel.