Kenny Chesney Bit By the Travel Bug

A mega-superstar, the biggest North American ticket seller of the past decade, named Entertainer of the Year by both the CMA and the ACM four times ... it would seem that Kenny Chesney has it all. Fame, fortune and phenomenal success -- what more could he want?

Time, it seems. Time to taste and enjoy the life he's worked so hard to provide for himself. And so, Kenny stunned the country music world by famously announcing that he would be taking a year off from touring.

First stop: a vacation in Italy.

"We went to Capri, Positano and a little town called Ravello," Kenny tells PEOPLE magazine. "I ate a lot of bread, drank a lot of wine and ate some really good cheese. It was great. It's somewhere I've wanted to go my whole life, but I never afforded myself the time to do things like that. Now, it's one of my favorite places in the world."

Kenny came to realize in one stunning moment that he really needed to find balance in his life, after a friend made a certain comment. "Someone said, 'You sure give a lot of your life to this'," Kenny remembers. "And I said, 'No, this is my life. There's no room for anything else.' He says, 'And that's gotta change.'"

The first thing Kenny began changing was to spend more time with his family. "I've been getting reacquainted with people who you shouldn't have to get reacquainted with -- my family," he admits.

The country star also admits he would really like to cultivate a relationship in his life, now that he's given himself the gift and luxury of time. "It's not like I'm taking a year off so I can get married again. Because that could or could not happen," he explains. "But I want to put myself in a position to do it, if it did happen. I want to put myself in a position to have a relationship in life."

And what matters most is Kenny finally has the time to simply enjoy life! "(Taking time off) was the hardest decision I've ever made, [but] I'm so glad I made it. I haven't felt this content in a long time," he says. "I want to go to places I've never been -- China? The Pyramids? Who knows? I want to go explore, I want to taste everything. I want to take a big spoon, dip it in and taste it all!"