would you do it (Picture: Rachel Stomp/SWNS)

An empty nest star proves it’s never too late for a gap year after selling everything she owns to travel the world solo.

Rachel Stump, 49, always knew she wanted to do “something big” when her daughter Wynter, 20, left home in August 2021 to attend the University of Hawaii.

The recovered alcoholic had put money she’d previously spent on alcohol in an envelope since she got sober nearly 14 years ago – saving $10,000 (£8,185) for an adventure.

She supplemented her money by selling “everything”. [she] Property’ and in April 2022, Rachel, a waitress from Kentucky, USA, started her midlife gap year in Spain.

She has since toured Europe, visiting Italy, Sweden, Albania, Lithuania and Bosnia – before moving on to India and Vietnam. Now, still on the road, she hopes to inspire other “empty nesters” to travel solo and “live their best lives.”

“The months leading up to my daughter’s departure were so hard. I felt lost when she was gone,’ Rachel said. “I went to the supermarket and didn’t know what to buy.

“Planning my trip was a nice distraction. It was terrible to leave, but I’m living my best life.

“I’m on my midlife gap year. I hope to inspire others who are dealing with this.”

Rachel is living her dream of the year around the world (Image: Rachel Stump / SWNS)

Rachel said she was “best friends” with daughter Wynter and the pair had been traveling together for months since their daughter was a teenager.

“We’ve always been barebones travelers,” she said. “I never felt the urge to come home. I felt like I could go away for a year.”

Rachel, who will be 14 years sober in May, said she spent the past 20 years focusing on “being the best mother” she could be and knew she would fight if Wynter moved.

Her travel plans became a welcome “distraction” and she left the company in April 2022, on the birthday of her grandmother, Lillian Frances Stump, aged 61.

“My grandmother raised me,” Rachel said. “She wanted to travel when she tried again, but died in a car accident just weeks before her 62nd birthday.”

Rachel Stump. See SWNS Story SWNJmidlife? An empty nest that ?lost? when her daughter left home - she sold everything she owned to travel the world alone on a midlife gap year. Rachel Stump, 49, always knew she wanted to do

She wants to inspire other midlifers to embrace adventure (Image: Rachel Stump/SWNS)

Rachel spent the first few weeks of her trip in Spain before meeting Wynter in Venice, Italy.

From there she migrated to the Theth Mountains of Albania, which she described as “spiritual”.

She was immersed in culture throughout the journey – she witnessed the Varanasi funeral pyres – a ritual in India where the community cremates the bodies of the missing on the banks of the Ganges.

She said: “I made friends and had great conversations. I’ve been on great cruises.

“I saw people burning corpses on the river Ganges. I had never seen anything like it.’

Rachel Stump and daughter Wynter. See SWNS Story SWNJmidlife? An empty nest that ?lost? when her daughter left home - she sold everything she owned to travel the world alone on a midlife gap year. Rachel Stump, 49, always knew she wanted to do

Rachel shares a love of travel with her daughter Wynter. (Photo: Courtesy of Rachel Stump/SWNS)

The mother is now running out of money, but is considering getting a certificate to teach while traveling or buying a cheap van to live on the beach in Hawaii.

Although it was “terrifying” to leave the house she built with her daughter and “all the memories” behind, she is glad she took the plunge.

“I want to inspire other empty nesters,” she said. “You can do great things. You can do that yourself

“People ask me all the time, ‘How do you do this alone?’

“I learned that you take yourself everywhere.”