The Guardian and STA Travel – The gap year forum
STA Travel UK has got together with the Guardian for a six week initiative titled The Gap Year Forum that’ll give you everything you could possibly need, short of the actual plane ticket, on taking a year out for travel adventure.
The Gap Year Forum gives you the opportunity to ask a question and see a response posted in a day or so from an expert. The six weeks have been split into topics (one a week) covering all the relevant bases of gap year travel – planning your trip; working, volunteering and learning overseas; the next big thing; Australia; taking a tour. Currently it’s all about the planning stage, so if you have got a query why not get involved?
You can click here and meet the experts on hand to answer all the enquiries and should you fancy a Nomad ‘gap pack’, there is a chance to win one here. It contains a luxury travel towel, ‘no water’ handwash , a silk sleeping bag liner and a 65I ‘Worldwide’ rucksack amongst other things.
And if you’re not in full time education, don’t worry,
“the gap year isn’t just for students, and needn’t last a year. There are a whole range of options available these days, whatever your age, budget or timescale.”
Comments
Just one tip for anyone thinking of doing some volunteering. Do LOTS of research into any placement you are thinking of joining. Have a look at
http://www.ethicalvolunteering.org
This gives you a list of questions you should ask any organisation about their volunteer placements, to help ensure it is right for you (and that the project is genuinely worthwhile)
Good luck!
Let’s try again without pressing the button too soon!
Gap Year Forum? An excellent idea. But in the context of the pre-university gap may I suggest that the best advice should begin: Ask not what can I do in my gap year, but what can I learn from what I do? In my view there is still an overemphasis on travel for the sake of travel. In current circumstances, more than ever before, students will have to face the day of reckoning on graduation with employers demanding more than just class grades. How did you use your gap and what did you learn that will be of use in the workplace? School leavers would be well advised to keep an eye on their future, casting their net wider and concentrating on skills and worthwhile experience, ethical projects and not voluntourism. There are fifteen months into which to fit some travel – and as anyone with experience knows: travel is interesting in inverse proportion to its rapidity.
The director of Gap Enterprise has been advising on gap year planning for 25 years.
Thanks for the comment John.
This fits in well with the current topic at the Gap Year Forum – Working, volunteering and learning overseas. – http://www.guardian.co.uk/sta-travel-the-gap-year-forum/working-volunteering-learning
Questions received on this are being answered on the site by Guardian freelance travel writer Helen Ochyra and STA Travel’s experts.