You’ve decided to take a gap year. Maybe you want a career break, or you’ve just finished university. Perhaps you’ve just been made redundant or you’ve retired. Whatever your reasons for deciding to take a gap year, well done you!
Now for the fun part: where to go and what to do. I’ve put together four issues to consider, helping you pick the perfect gap year.
1. What is your budget?
If you live by one gap year rule and one gap year rule only, it should be this: do not go into debt. Sorry to be blunt, but there’s no point in dreaming of a luxury cruise around the world when your bank balance is telling you to spend a year as a chalet cleaner. Either get saving or get real.
Budget: minimal
Don’t worry. A limited fund is not a sure-fire way to a rubbish gap year. Find a year out that pays, or at least covers your expenses. Try teaching English abroad – you’ll get to know a destination in depth, gain a new qualification and your new CV will help you land that job when you get back. Money issues solved.
Check out Dave’s ESL Café to learn more on teaching English around the world.
Budget: moderate
Set yourself a budget and stick to it. Religiously. You want to return from your gap year refreshed and raring to go, not broke and desperate. Consider volunteering. You’ll spend less and the experience will stay with you even longer than a bad credit rating.
Read How to volunteer to find out more.
Budget: substantial
Lucky you. You’re in a position to do something really different. Set yourself a travel theme, such as ‘World’s Most Beautiful Beaches’ or ‘Top Art Galleries of the World’ and jet off to see each and every one.
Read 1000 Places To See Before You Die for inspiration. Luxury tour operators can help you arrange the trip of a lifetime too.
2. What is your travel attitude?
Before you head off on that luxury beach break to make you the envy of all your friends and give you a to-die-for tan (bleak pun intended), think carefully about what kind of things you really enjoy doing. If you force yourself to visit museums only because you think you should but actually prefer to shop, don’t be afraid to incorporate your real interests into your gap year.
Travel attitude: urban enthusiast
Whether it’s shopping, dancing or soaking up the culture, you need some bright lights in your gap year. That’s not necessarily to the exclusion of everything else of course. Cities such as Sydney and Rio de Janeiro offer everything associated with city life with the added bonus of world-class beaches. Likewise, Vancouver and Geneva are minutes away from beautiful mountain ranges perfect for skiing or trekking.
Check out guides to Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Vancouver and Geneva, as well as Edinburgh, Bangkok, Singapore, San Franciscoand Mexico City for multi-purpose city breaks.
Travel attitude: adrenaline junkie
Whether you get that travel buzz at 13,000ft leaping out of an aeroplane or soaring through a jungle canopy on a zipline, you travel to challenge yourself. Sitting around in quaint little plazas just won’t do it for you. Turn your gap year into one long-term adventure by joining a global race such as the Mongol Rally and, in the words of the organisers of this 10,000-mile banger race, “Do a little poo on health and safety this summer…”
Brace yourself for adventure overload and check out The Adventurists’ inspirational, if slightly scary, website.
Travel attitude: spa addict
It’s all “Me, me, me” with you when it comes to travel, isn’t it? And why not? For a truly rewarding gap year, combine your love of luxury with some first-class wildlife watching, or challenge yourself to achieving new levels of nirvana on a retreat. You don’t have to blow your budget either. Whilst not exactly luxurious, a meditation course will give you relaxation skills for life and still give you that blessed-out glow. Plus, if you do it in an exotic location, such as Thailand or India, you can explore the country afterwards too.
Check out www.dhamma.org for free meditation courses around the world.
3. What travel experience do you have?
The kind of travelling you’ve already done should help you decide what you want to do now. You have two options: stick with what you know or try something new. I highly recommend the latter.
Experience: package holidays
If your travel experience to date has mostly been ‘call travel agent, get on plane, lie in sun, fly home,’ don’t panic at the prospect of arranging a whole year of travel. A gap year is the perfect opportunity to experience the joy of taking matters into your own hands, by researching and booking your own, tailor-made trip.
Plan your own itinerary around a continent that intrigues you.
Experience: UK only
If you’ve never left your home country you’re in for a treat! The world out there ain’t so big and scary; you just need to experience it to believe it.
Start with English-speaking Australia and New Zealand if a language barrier feels too intimidating. You can easily extend your trip in to Southeast Asia.
Experience: off the beaten track
Well done you for visiting places that most people only dream of. Traipsing around the usual sights really isn’t your thing, but have you ever thought that you might be missing out? After all, the world’s top destinations are popular for a reason.
Leave your comfort zone by joining a tour group for a week or so. You’ll glean plenty of information from the guide that you might otherwise have overlooked and will get to meet like-minded people.
4. Who are your travel buddies?
Your gap year experience will partly depend on whom you share it with, so choose your travel companion(s) carefully.
Travel buddy: friends and family
A year in each others pockets will test your friendship so make sure you discuss everything fully beforehand. You must want to do the same things and see the same places. Often overlooked, you need to be on a similar budget. Choose someone you can share comfortable silences with and, most importantly, someone who won’t take offence when you want to explore alone for a day or two.
Travel buddy: romantically involved
Aha. The make-or-break trip! Be sure it’s more make than break by budgeting for private rooms (with en suite), taking the time to go off and do your own things and packing ear plugs for those times when traveller’s tummy strikes in rooms with wafer-thin walls!
Travel buddy: me, myself and I
Everyone should travel solo at least once. It’s daunting but incredibly rewarding. Live by three rules: always carry a book; never be afraid to ask for help; and smile. More practically, stay in hostels when you want to meet people and pack a padlock and chain for those times when you absolutely have to leave your bag somewhere or you don’t trust a hotel/cabin door.
So there you have it. If these questions haven’t helped you pick your perfect gap year, may I suggest you spend your gap year taking a course in decisiveness? And remember, above all else, enjoy yourself. A gap year is an incredible opportunity to expand your horizons so make the most of what will surely be one of the most amazing years of your life.
About Emma
In July 2009 I left my job as editor of a large, commercial travel website to spend a year exploring India’s border regions and taking on an epic, strictly overland journey from Rio de Janeiro to Winnipeg, Canada. In 2004 I travelled overland from Holland to Singapore. I am, you see, the queen of the themed gap year, my chosen theme being, of course, overland travel. Nowadays I am a freelance travel writer and editor, running my own website, www.overlandtraveller.com, and ranting about the little niggles of life on the road at www.overlandtraveller.wordpress.com.
Author: Emma Field