‘A gap year offers that feeling of absolute freedom’: readers’ trips of a lifetime

Euphoric Indonesia

After a 10-year slog at work, my boss agreed to my taking a year-long sabbatical. We used this to revisit south-east Asia – not to relive past travelling glories of my 20s (where my destinations usually revolved around partying). Instead we floated around the more “cultured” parts that were not on my radar in days gone by – South Korea, Japan, Taiwan (a revelation) and more remote areas of the Philippines and Indonesia. I could list a hundred special moments and locations over the year – but the memory I revisit in my head the most is my daily moped drive to a beach on the Karimunjawa islands in Indonesia. It’s not the crystal-clear sea, smiling locals or amazing food that sticks, but the feeling of absolute freedom and euphoric joy that made me smile from ear to ear on that ride, sometimes laughing to myself hysterically for no reason (I must have looked a bit crazy). It’s joy that I felt from simply being alive. It’s a feeling that can be elusive in life and one I cherish so much.
Benjamin

Farm stays

Hands down, my tip is to check out Wwoofing (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms). This organisation (operating in more than 130 countries) pairs you with a farm or business requiring a helping hand, for which you’ll receive food and board (you can apply based on type of work, length of stay, and location). It’s an excellent way to save money and see new places. In 2017, during a university exchange semester, I wound up Wwoofing in Chamonix, riding horses as “work”, eating an ungodly amount of cheese, practising my French, and sharing many laughs with a lovely host family.
Isla

Happy global campers

We drove around the world in a cheap VW van with our three daughters, aged 13, 11 and nine. An incredible year taught us much about the world and its people, and the impact on our family stays with us, how it brought us together as a unit. My tips are – travelling is hard. Allow yourself an occasional “duvet day” to recuperate. Have goals. We aimed to busk Beatles songs (badly) in every country from Liverpool to New York. It was scary, but weirdly gave the trip some structure. Let home go. Don’t be disheartened when your friends lose touch. They have lives too. The initial fanfare of your departure evaporates fast. Look forwards, not back.
Simeon Courtie

Go it alone

My tip isn’t a country; instead it’s encouragement to go and to do it alone. Travelling on your own can be completely life-altering and help you figure out and learn some things about yourself, your resilience, your needs and wants. I’m not going to use the phrase “find yourself” because it’s not for everyone, but if you can face the idea of doing it alone, be brave, meet people, be spontaneous, make plans and alter them at your own whim, be yourself or whoever you want you to be, and go live it.
Layla

New Zealand, top to toe

After finishing university, I spent all my savings on a year Interrailing around Europe, travelling around Australia and then flying on to New Zealand, where I spent four months hiking Te Araroa: 1,900 miles along the length of New Zealand. I made my way through dripping rainforests, over volcanoes, down living rivers and across windswept mountains. The friends and memories that I made, coupled with the skills and self-confidence I gained, have shaped my life, two years on. I cannot recommend it enough, to take a big chance and spend a solid amount immersed in nature, gaining perspective.
Alasdair

Career auditions

Time spent travelling can also be used as opportunity to try for a limited time anything you might be interested in as a career: teaching, working as a chef, helping as a gardener, a junior at an insurer’s office, playing sport at a competitive level. The opportunities are endless! When planning your time away, identify some definite goals, but remain open-minded for anything else that might also come about. And keep a journal so that you can revisit these best days of your life.
Richard

Grandma wrestling in Bolivia

Bolivia is the place to go for otherworldly adventure, a warm welcome and many bangs for your buck. Dinosaur migrations. Swimming with pink dolphins in the Amazon. Grandma wrestling. Llamas. The most fantastic indigenous food and culture, a festival every weekend, complex social and political history – but an easy, safe place to travel, especially as a solo female. Dramatically cheaper than neighbouring countries, it’s the best way to afford a lot of bucket-list adventures, such as the Amazon rainforest and the Uyuni salt flats.
Liz Cheesbrough

Surf and support local kids in Peru

I took the opportunity to volunteer for a few months in the surfers’ paradise of Huanchaco, Peru with Otra Cosa Network. It’s run by a British-Peruvian couple, alongside some European managers, and provides educational support to marginalised children. The accommodation was cheap (about £10 a night for a private room) and there were incredible culinary opportunities both in the town and the nearest city, Trujillo. The local ceviche was absolutely delicious. It was also well placed for exploring the less-visited parts of Peru, such as Chachapoyas and Cajamarca, both within easy reach by bus.
Will

Puma cubs and prowling orcas

My husband and I spent eight weeks camping, hiking and driving 4,000km through South America’s Southern Cone. We started in the Chilean Lake District, an impossibly beautiful region of pristine lakes, volcanoes and dense, temperate rainforests. We drove south on the Carretera Austral, the only highway that connects Chile’s remote southern regions. We took a 40-hour ferry through fjords, spotting whales and dolphins. In Patagonia, we were awed by jagged peaks and lunar landscapes, and saw three puma cubs from the road. We returned via the Valdés peninsula on Argentina’s east coast, where orcas prowled the shore, hunting lion seals.
Grace Hetherington

Volunteer on a ranch

Workaway is a fantastic scheme that helps to connect travellers seeking cultural experiences (and accommodation) to hosts who require volunteers or work in varying shapes and forms. We spent a month looking after a working ranch in Maryville, Tennessee. Daily tasks included gardening, painting, cooking for our hosts and taking care of horses, donkeys and cats. During our free time, we used the ranch as a base to go hiking, kayaking and caving in the wonderful Blue Ridge Mountains. A perfect way to spend a break in employment, learn some new skills and completely disconnect from the usual routine.
Char

Life-changing mentoring, Eswatini

At 18, I volunteered for a month in Eswatini (then called Swaziland) with All Out Africa. I’d never heard of Swaziland before, but read in a gap year brochure that it had the highest density of HIV/Aids in the world – an issue I was fundraising for and keen to learn more about. Those four weeks turned into a 19-year love affair with Eswatini! I’ve since lived there, I run my own charity there and I’ve closely mentored one of the girls I met at the children’s centre where I first volunteered. Meeting her changed the course of my life!
Georgie

Sail la vie, France

We had four months to take our 10-metre yacht, Shearwater, to the Med. We opted for the canals through France. In at Honfleur, delightful; mast down at Rouen. Dawn through Paris. Up the Marne, kingfishers flash by. Canal du Bourgogne-Champagne, 155 locks. Tableau of changing architecture, food and wine. Fast down the Saône and Rhône. What did I learn? To gaze. To be. I had taken 100 books and meant to teach myself Italian. But the reality: I sat and gazed and gazed. Being in the present, enjoying every slow, slow detail.
Sarah Ackroyd

Winning tip: protecting painted dogs in South Africa

Gap years and volunteering are not just for students: I have enjoyed a number of conservation projects in Africa and South America and actually felt useful. There are so many organisations offering to “match” you with a volunteering role, but dealing directly with an in-country organisation means you can get exactly what you want. My favourite was with Wildlife Act, which protects endangered species in Africa. Tracking African painted dogs in KwaZulu-Natal meant close encounters with the dogs while supporting rangers doing amazing work to keep them safe. Hard work and early mornings but so fulfilling, I will be back! The organisation has two weeks starting at about £900.
Simon