It's possible, but many just join a new one in a different country. Plenty of people end up working 9-5 or 8-4 or 2-10 teaching English in another country.
So are you looking for an escape?
Hmm...
Maybe you won't find it or you are going to have to look harder. There are easy going jobs w/ part time hours teaching abroad out there, but there are plenty of jobs teaching 20-25 hours that still hold you ransom for another 15-20 hours.
They are called office hours.
Yuck.
I did one like that in Korea in a public school.
"What are you going to do with your life?"
Becomes...
- How much money do you make?
- What do you do?
- You're just an English teacher?
- You only work part time?
- Why don't you get a full time job?
You may want to run away from the questions people are asking you now about, "what are you going to do with your life?"
And you may think that teaching abroad is the answer, but maybe it isn't. I remember getting questions while teaching abroad in Asia like above. For example, I met a fair amount of people who would ask me how much money I make and they were often females.
Haha.
"Oh, you are going to teach abroad are you?"
Have you encountered that yet? Well, abroad you might get "oh, you are an English teacher. What kind of school do you work in?"
I remember people asking, why I only worked 12-18 hours a week in Taiwan.
"Ahh, because I want to do different stuff."
So you are going to encounter the same kind of stuff abroad and it just might be a little different. But it's not really an escape. Like they say some of your problems follow you.
They might or they might not.
Like I said it's possible to find an easy going job, but most people abroad are just trying to "keep up with the joneses" just like the people in your country. And in East Asia people tend to work even longer and harder than say many Americans do.
I think escaping the rat race is all in your mind mostly. You have to take a concerted effort to do something different, figure out what you want and there are always going to be people who think differently than you.
And do you want to try to please the people that you do not like or want to be like?