If you are thinking of taking a Gap Year, you will have all sorts of decisions to make and factors to think about.  Is it right for you?  Will it help me get a job?  Can I afford it?

For a little inspiration, read what Sasha Peakall from “onURwaytravel” down in Australia has to say about her thoughts on taking her next Gap Year

“I’m taking another Gap Year so I must be either really crazy or incredibly smart!!!

It’s no secret that I’m an advocate of the Gap Year you only have to look at this website to see that!!!  Now at the incredibly wisdom full age of 21 this will be the 4^th year since I finished school.  I took two Gap Years when I finished school and it took me that long just to get over the insanity and stress of study that had nearly sent me to the loony bin.

It took me that long to completely change my mind about where I wanted to go in my life and to realise that I didn’t need to plan out every step.  It took travelling for me to realise that travel is what I needed to do with my life and insanely that is what caused me to spend this past year studying (tourism).

I realised just the other day that I have spent so many years as ‘Gap Years’ (although not spent entirely travelling) that if I were to ever actually settle down and stop setting off on adventures then I would technically have to call that my ‘Gap Year!!!’  Now despite my love of ‘Gap Years’ and although I’m insanely obsessed with travel, deciding to take 2010 as another Gap Year was not exactly a straightforward decision, I had many more conflicting opportunities competing for supremacy.

So what would I do in 2010 I had three options; Continue Studying and get a higher qualification, get a job in a travel agency or work overseas.  I really enjoyed my year studying learning about the ins and outs of the tourism industry, it has made me so much better informed for my own travels and indeed for this website.  However the idea of continuing to be a poor student and only get to travel for one month of the year was not going to stop that really annoying itch on my feet.  Option two, get a job in a travel agency, great in theory, discount travel products getting to talk about travel and most of all sending people away on their dream trips but this still didn’t sit right.  So option three and the one most people had a problem with, work overseas.

Ever since I had gotten back from my mid year month long trip to South East Asia I knew that I couldn’t continue studying in 2010, my heart was no longer in it.  When the opportunity arose to Teach English in China I immediately jumped on it!!!  I had always wanted to do the whole ESL teacher thing and within a week I had booked and paid for it!!!

Now of course everyone had an opinion!!!  There was a mentality from many people that I was throwing away everything I had worked for in my studies or that I was mental for even wanting to go to a place such as China where ignorantly people only associated with communism and the bad press it gets in the west.

Never to be hugely swayed by opinions I stuck to my ethos Do It While Your Young!!!  (I just don’t tell them the next line of my ethos which says keep doing it until your to old too be allowed to fly!!!)

I’m in the home stretch now leading up to my next great adventure due to begin at the end of February for 6 months but maybe more.  I’m happy with my decision to take ‘Another Gap Year’ who ever regrets travelling!!! and who knows it may turn from a ‘Gap Year’ to simply my way of life.”

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I’m a self-confessed travel addict spurred on by a desire to discover, learn and live the world.   I studied tourism to broaden my travel knowledge. However, I am not content to simply look at the pictures in the brochures, I want to be there to take those pictures!  Follow me on my journey to discover more about our world.