Currently I am finishing my masters degree program in Life Sciences / Biotechnology by doing an industrial internship. After having obtained my degree, I would definitely like to do a PhD if I can find an interesting project in a location where I would also see myself living for a couple of years.
Another, non-career related ambition of mine is to go travelling for a couple of months. Now most would say that the time in between obtaining your degree and starting a PhD would be perfect for this, however, at the moment I lack the money to be able to make such a travel.
One option that came to mind would be to start a paid PhD program, which would me allow to save up some money to start a travel. Now the question is: would it be possible to take months off from my PhD work in the middle of the program? Note, I am not looking to spare up free days and use them all on this travel period, I would intend to take a real period off (and not be paid as a consequence).
I do realise that if this is possible at all it will be very specific and varying between different programs/supervisors/institutes, but I am looking for the general view in academia on this topic.
Edit: the geographical location where the PhD program would be done, is most probably Europe.