This week get an inside look at the job and lifestyle each Italy cast member is leaving behind, starting with Courtney:

It’s hard to put a finger on my job title these days.  A friend put it best when he called me a “cubicle refugee, travel writer, tv personality and full-time vagabond.”  I’ll take it.

Most of my daytime hours are spent doing what I love: writing travel articles, editing videos and cooking up crazy ideas like a season of Jet Set Zero in ITALY.  I work from my home office or anywhere that has Wi-Fi.  I set my own hours, eat home-cooked lunches and take conference calls in bed.

Where the magic happens

This one's coming with me to Italy

My Starbucks

When I’m not spending long periods on the road, I have no problem picking up part-time work to pay the rent.  A cube refugee’s paycheck just doesn’t cut it sometimes.

Lately, I’ve been working nights at Emporio Restaurant in NYC.  I set my camera loose in the restaurant this week to get some international goodbyes and JS0 shoutouts:

I work alongside artists, singers, actors, expats and other hilarious characters.  It’s like hanging out in a hostel every night… we share travel stories and learn how to say curse words in each others’ languages.

Emporio Om Nom Nom

Courtney and Aussie mate Emily at Emporio

Hello! I am Perrin Bailey. While I’m intensely organized (bonus traveler points) I’m also extremely clumsy (points voided!). Think Danny Tanner meets Pinky from Pinky and The Brain.

I grew up in Virginia with my older sister, fellow cast member Sarah. After a nerdy suburban youth I moved to Philly to be an English major then NYC to plan ad campaigns – at first for a no-name publishing company that went bankrupt (the slow, painful Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 way) and ultimately for Disney. Regardless of progress on the job front and 5-night-a-week event schedule, I began to feel stifled in the smoggy day-to-day of the City. When you wake up and realize that the friendliest face in your neighborhood is that of a mustached hag who hollers at you every morning, “Hey handsome, wanna buy me a hot dog?” you realize you’ve got to get out, if only for a sabbatical.

However, I know nothing about living anywhere but America’s eastern flank. I’ve been plotting to travel worldwide in search of an optimal Perrin niche. A Perrin niche would be a place that welcomes lazy sugar addicts but doesn’t venerate McDonalds; a place where I could boat daily, own 5 dogs, dance by night and dress only in cashmere and high thread-count cotton. I don’t know if such a place is out there. But I don’t much care. I have late-stage Ferris Bueller syndrome.

I’m probably a fairly typical young adult, some key symptoms being: chronic restlessness; dissatisfaction with a good job; preoccupation with doing something meaningful with my life. Certainly when my dad asks what I’m going to do when I “return to the workforce,” it seems a bugger of a question. It’s better not to know when the return will be, isn’t it?  Now that I’ve quit my job, the only time in my head is T minus 20 days until Italy.

In the words of the feisty entrepreneur Jack Donaghy of 30 Rock, “You’re a lion. Take what’s yours.” Though Jack is a fictional character who talks to himself, I can’t shake his wisdom, and I can’t WAIT to take on Italy with Jet Set Zero.