If climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or completing your MBA seems like a far off dream, consider this: these days, more and more employers are encouraging their employees to take time off of work to focus on other areas of their lives. In fact, a recent study found that 24% of small businesses and 14% of large businesses allow their employees to take sabbaticals. And many of them will pay all or a portion of your salary for up to 6 months or more.

As DINKs, we’re uniquely well positioned to make the most of this life-changing opportunity. Even if your boss isn’t so keen on financing the idea, our DINK status should help provide the financial padding to take an unpaid leave for a sabbatical. And of course, we have the flexibility to go wherever we want. So what are you waiting for? Here are some of the most popular ways couples are using sabbaticals:

1. Take Your Own Family Leave

New parents regularly get PTO to take care of their families – so why shouldn’t DINKs have the same option to focus on ours? Use your sabbatical time to take a cruise with your aging parents, visit long-lost relatives in Sweden to finish off your family tree, or simply spend quality time with your S.O. sans the stresses of your careers.

2. Learn a New Language

Taking a sabbatical to learn a new language is the best of both worlds. Not only can language skills boost your value as an employee (especially if your company has international accounts), you and your S.O. have the best odds of becoming bi-lingual by spending long periods of time with native speakers, and can enjoy the benefit of practicing together. Italian Riviera anyone? 

3. Work on that Passion Project

Does it ever seem like your job gets in the way of what you truly want to do? All the better reason to take a sabbatical to work on that passion project. So go ahead, team up with your partner to invent an innovative product, write a book that will top the best seller’s list, or develop an app that will dominate the App store. Who knows, maybe you two will be so successful you won’t even need to return to your day job.