‘Other cultures seem to respect rather than ignore older people’ – how to have a ‘golden’ gap year
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A gap year is about more than just taking a holiday, according to Milly Whitehead, the co-founder of theleap.co.uk, a company specialising in gap-year travel for young people. She explains: “Gap years are about pushing boundaries, challenging yourself, being curious about culture.” And now empty-nesters and other midlifers are getting in on the act. “As we age and our children leave home, our focus shifts back onto ourselves. We want to recapture that spirit of adventure,” she adds.
Whitehead has seen such an increase in demand among the older demographic that she’s established The Leap MidLife. “Parents of the young people we help started saying, ‘I want a bit of that!’” she says. And David Flaschner, the marketing director of Projects Abroad, which organises overseas volunteering opportunities, agrees the trend is here to stay. “Older people are realising they have the time and freedom to take longer trips. They’ve holidayed in France and Spain a million times and want to explore further afield. They have the ability to travel outside summer, which makes things cheaper, and with advances in healthcare, age really is just a number now – we get people in their 80s who travel with us.”
So if you’re keen to pack your bags and go, what’s the best way to organise it?
Getting the time off work
“A golden gap year is absolutely feasible,” says Tina Woods, the chief executive of Business for Health, a coalition of major UK businesses pushing for preventative healthcare in the workplace. In fact it’s never been a better time to ask your boss for time out, with businesses looking for ways to retain talent in today’s competitive labour market. This, combined with employee burnout and stress levels on the increase, means ‘an extended pause from work acts as a great way to reset,’ says Woods.
A growing number of companies actively offer sabbaticals or opportunities to work abroad, while others may offer unpaid leave or a guaranteed role on return. Woods’s advice for those requesting a gap year includes taking time to understand your company’s policy and checking your contract for fine print. “You need to make your case,” she says. “Talk about how exploring another culture could be beneficial to the line of work you’re in – or explain that taking a break to reset your mindset will boost your productivity on your return.”
Funding your trip with your property
Unless you have a specific plan to downsize, selling up is a drastic move, particularly if you’re only away a year. Property experts advise that letting your house through a reputable agent offers the potential to provide useful additional income during your travels, while making sure your home stays occupied and secure. Properties are usually let on an assured shorthold agreement basis, which has a minimum six months’ term. If you have a mortgage, you’ll also need to ask your loan provider if they allow you to let your home. If they’re not keen, you may need to review your mortgage options. You’ll also need to check your home can be let legally and safely meeting the Housing Health and Safety Rating System requirements. When choosing an agent to look after the property for you, ensure they are members of the Association of Residential Letting Agents.
Planning your adventure
Planning is the fun part, but can also be tricky and stressful. What you do and where you go will depend on your budget, your circumstances and what you want to do while you’re there. If you are wanting to travel independently you can hire a travel consultant to help you do this. It’s also worth getting advice from the point of view of laws around visas – particularly as Brexit has not been kind to UK travellers in terms of extended stay or working in certain countries. If you’re a travel newbie or a solo traveller, consider booking onto organised or volunteering trips where local travel and accommodation is covered as part of the cost and there will be staff on the ground to help you. Although jobs abroad for seniors are more limited – for example in Australia, New Zealand and Canada working visas are limited to 30-35 years-old – opportunities do exist, for example via the TEFL Academy, where you can train to teach English abroad.
Setting a budget
Setting out a budget beforehand and keeping to it is vital for a stress-free gap year experience. Apps such as Tripcoin can help you stay on top of your finances. “Take time to really crunch the numbers,” advises Izzy Kelly, gap year traveller and co-founder of The Gap Decaders blog. “A gap year always costs more than you think. Our website offers a budgeting tool to help you stay on track.” You can keep accommodation costs down by using hostels, which due to a boom in global tourism can be as comfortable as a boutique hotel – a bunk in a shared dorm will set you back around £4 a night, while a private room could be as little as £10.
Be safe and don’t skimp on insurance
Never try to save money at the expense of safe travel. For example, hitchhiking may seem a popular activity in some countries, but is it really worth it for the cost of a bus or train fare? And always take out insurance. Midlife British couple Rachel and Paul Chandler who were sailing around the world regretted skimping on £15 kidnap insurance when they were snatched from their yacht by Somali pirates. While this horror story is an unlikely scenario for most gap yearers, when it comes to insurance, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. The insurance industry is amending its products and services to match the needs of golden gappers: Tom Riley, the managing director of the insurer True Traveller, says, “An increasingly large proportion of our Gap Year and Backpacker policies are bought by people in their 40s and 50s. Each of our policies has been designed following feedback from grown-up gap year travellers, so includes great medical cover of £10 million, with baggage cover as an optional extra, and our entry-level policy, True Value, has lower cover for cancellation.” If you’re planning on bungee jumping, diving or rafting you’ll need cover for extreme activities. Always look for insurance which allows breaks in your travel to come home for emergencies and bereavements, too.
Meet the empty-nest gappers
‘We were met with nothing but warmth and kindness. Other cultures seem to respect rather than ignore older people’
Clare Brown, 57, from Wiltshire, works in brand licensing. She and her husband Mike, 58, a self-employed property developer, spent 2023 backpacking around the world.
Mike and I had been working without a break for more than 30 years. Both of our children had enjoyed gap years and our youngest would soon be going off to uni. We thought, “Why not us? Why not now?” We still feel young, we’re fit – we felt there was an “adventure before dementia” window before our health potentially waned and we started needing hip replacements.
Mike works for himself so could take a break between big projects – and take his laptop just in case – but I have a corporate role. I felt nervous about talking to my boss, but he immediately agreed to 12 months’ unpaid leave, saying I was coming at the right time, that the firm – like many others – was really considering ways to improve the wellbeing of staff.
We let our house – the rental income would cover our mortgage and give us a bit extra each month. We used a small amount of savings and money from selling our cars to book our flights and the first accommodation. We didn’t have a huge budget so would be backpacking and staying in double rooms in hostels most of the time (£10 a night), with the odd cheap Airbnb thrown in.
We flew out to Mexico City on January 10 2023. Friends worried we’d run into trouble, be held up at gunpoint, but there – and to be honest everywhere we went – we were met with nothing but warmth and kindness. Other cultures seem to respect rather than ignore older people. We did hang out with lots of younger backpackers we met in the hostels, but as we have kids that age that felt invigorating and familiar rather than strange.
The highlights of our trip were endless: trekking up a volcano in Guatemala, diving with sea lions in the Galapagos – our kids flew out to join us for their Christmas present. The experiences were intense: we visited salt flats in Bolivia which are so vast they’re visible from space, and attended Spanish school for two weeks. We had some beautiful experiences learning about people and it brought us closer together. I really relaxed and rediscovered the real me without the weight of work, mortgage payments and the minutiae of daily life.
There were certainly occasions where things didn’t go to plan: we had a colossal row in Tokyo at one point... we fell off a motorbike in Ometepe, Nicaragua – I hurt my ankle but it was nothing serious. We missed a connecting flight out of Florida... However, just because it works out differently, it doesn’t mean it’s bad – it all adds to the richness of the experience. It’s important when taking a trip like this to be flexible.
We came home briefly in the middle of the trip as we had a family bereavement, but we spent 297 days away and visited 20 countries. I feel privileged to have had this gap year which has left me a lot more accepting of people with new perspectives. I have even enjoyed going back to work. Things are exciting and new again.
The Browns’ top tips
Don’t be afraid of the ‘year’ It’s a neat chunk of time in terms of letting your house and for employers to temporarily fill your position giving someone the opportunity to try out a senior role.
Plan for your pets Our dog went to our neighbour and the cat to a friend. They were a bit perplexed when we returned but they soon slotted back into life.
Get tech savvy Use apps such as Tripcoin to budget, Busbud to book bus travel in advance. I used Instagram like a journal. It served as an aide memoire and kept my brain cells going.
What it cost
We were out there for 297 days and had a budget of £114 per day for the two of us: that included accommodation, on which we spent between £15-£30 per day, food and drink, all land travel (bus and train) and activities. We did spend extra on special activities and flights. In total:
Gap Year Leap VIP consultancy to plan itinerary £150
Flights £8,890 (mainly in/out of South America and in/out of SE Asia and Australia)
Accommodation £6,750
Activities £12,250
Overland travel £7,200
Food and drink £9,500
Insurance we used our travel insurance plus a length of stay upgrade for £200 extra every six months
Total about £45,140 for the two of us
The solo gapper
‘What if I was the one OAP among groups of twenty-somethings? I needn’t have worried’
Sara MacDonald, 70, from Yorkshire, spent her 2019-2020 gap year volunteering with Projects Abroad in Mexico, Peru, Cambodia and Vietnam.
A friendly chat with an elderly resident in the sheltered housing unit where I worked triggered my gap year. I’d realised I only had only 15 years until I turned 80 myself. “If you have an idea, Sara, you’d better get on and do it,” the resident chuckled. She had a point. My job had made me aware of how important it is to live life while you can, and a couple of my friends had just been diagnosed with serious illnesses. I’d taught my sons to go out and grab opportunities, to experience the world – I even gave them money from my divorce settlement so they could travel – why hadn’t I ever taken my own advice?
Then my landlord unexpectedly gave me notice on the house I’d been renting for years in Eastbourne and that was the prod I needed to take action. I knew I wanted to see South America but going alone terrified me, so I began researching online until I found Projects Abroad, a company organising volunteering experiences overseas. By the end of my first call I had a draft itinerary of the countries I wanted to visit including Sri Lanka, where my father was born. Next, I had to work out how I was going to pay for flights and the fee to Projects Abroad who would organise bed and board in each place. I cashed in my small private pension to cover this – friends thought I was crazy but my sons were supportive. “You have to do it, Mum,” said my youngest who was still at uni, while my eldest accompanied me to Victoria Station to board the Gatwick Express. On May 12 2019 I waved goodbye and trundled off with my one suitcase on wheels – I’d got rid of 75 per cent of my possessions as I didn’t want to pay for expensive storage. Although I had no idea what to expect, I felt hopeful and excited rather than scared. I had something to prove not just to friends and colleagues – whose universal reaction been an incredulous ‘you’re brave!’ – but also to myself. Could I really navigate the traditions and systems of cities and cultures so different to my own? What if I was the one OAP among groups of twenty-somethings?
I needn’t have worried. Projects Abroad have people on the ground to help you settle in and as soon as I arrived in Guadalajara, Mexico, I was met by Eduardo who helped me get money from an ATM, source a local SIM card and travel to my host family – a charming lady called Lesli. I then spent a couple of days meeting the other three volunteers in the city, all staying with different families. They were much younger but friendly so we explored the city, travelling on the packed buses and visiting the bright markets. Every morning I volunteered at a Migrant Centre for refugees. I helped in the roperia, giving out supplies of clothing and wash kits. I spent six weeks there before moving on to my next 12-week project, on an eco reserve in Peru. From there I went to Cambodia to help with a public health programme and Sri Lanka, where I taught English to young monks. It wasn’t all work: in each place I had time to really explore and have fun. My highlight was learning to dive in Thailand at Christmas.
I’m now settled back in Yorkshire where I’ve set up a massage practice – I was doing this part-time before I left so have been able to develop it into full-time employment. To anyone considering a solo gap year I’d recommend an organisation like Projects Abroad which checks and vets all its partners to offer extraordinary experiences with that extra element of security and reassurance.
Sara’s top tips:
Don’t let the language barrier be an obstacle. It’s great to learn some key phrases and if you can speak a language it does open doors – but there’s always Google Translate and English is spoken far and wide – in the remotest of places.
Pare down your packing – I had all sorts of things that never left my case and I ended up dumping, and I took heavy books in case I got bored – which I never did. If you forget anything, there are shops abroad!
When choosing a project, go for as long as you possibly can – two weeks is just a holiday. You’ll need longer to shed expectations and fully immerse yourself in the experience.
What it cost
Total Volunteering Projects including accommodation, food, airport transfers £13,576.50
Flights £2,670
Property Nil, as I had been renting and had been asked to vacate anyway.
Cost of storage for the items of furniture I would need on return £100 per month (£1,200 for the year).
Insurance This was included in my Projects Abroad volunteering trip costs. Nowadays it’s extra and you can expect to pay from £60 upwards a month depending what activities you’re intending to do.
Additional costs for weekend trips, restaurants out etc £2,000
Total £19.446.50
The extended gappers
‘We planned to go for a year... six years on, we’re still not back’
Izzy and Phil Kelly, both 55, sold their idyllic home in Wiltshire in 2018 intending to take a gap year in a motorhome. They ended up repeatedly extending their trip and are still travelling.
We were in the bath when I floated the idea of a gap year. We had good careers, a lovely home and were financially stable but I felt we needed a reset. We’d had some great holidays but nothing longer than a week – before working as a buildings inspector Phil had spent 25 years in the army so there’d never been an opportunity for a long trip. I was in a senior role within the care sector and found the environment very stressful. I needed time out to reassess.
There were definitely moments of fear and doubt around giving up our jobs. We considered taking sabbaticals but I didn’t want to return to the same industry. Phil was well-qualified and respected in his role so we knew he’d easily get another job. So, we handed in our notices. Deciding what to do about our “forever home” was equally daunting. Our first thought was to let it, but we decided we didn’t really want to return to live in the south of England and as we’d ploughed all our savings into renovating the house, we had no spare money to buy a motorhome and pay for a gap year, so we sold up. With hindsight we could have been more patient; saved up the money and kept the house, but once we’d made the decision to travel we just wanted to go. Sorting through 20 years of stuff was surprisingly cathartic: we sold a lot, stored a little and gave to charity.
On a gloriously sunny day in May 2018 we boarded the ferry to France. It was so exciting. At the time we fully expected to be home in a year to 18 months, but six years on and we’re still travelling. We’ve since been to every European country, plus Morocco, Turkey, Georgia and Armenia in our home on wheels. We started off in a motorhome and now have an overland truck, which means we can travel off-road too. There have been so many highlights: Turkey was amazingly eclectic and the people are kind and friendly. We also really enjoyed Albania and Norway. Of course there have been lows. The first winter was hard. The clocks changed and it was dark at 4pm and even in southern Spain it cooled down. We’d been travelling for about six months and the combination of the weather and short days, along with the rose-coloured specs coming off, gave us pause for thought. I spent a month or so feeling down and we argued a lot, but we realised we now had time to focus on ourselves – Phil took up surfing and I began writing – and we came through it stronger. I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved. My writing turned into our travel blog The Gap Decaders.com, which we’ve built into a business. We had to learn the technical aspects of building a website and video editing which might have terrified us, had it not all happened so organically, as a passion project rather than a way to make money.
Will we ever come back to the UK? Eventually. England is our home. But our gap year has turned into a lifestyle we never thought possible and the idea of returning to the rat race just doesn’t appeal.
The Kellys’ top tips
Try and find a way to manage a gap year without selling your property, even if you have to rent it out.
Crunch the numbers: it will cost more than you think (we share an annual budget on the website along with lots of other resources).
Don’t embark on a journey like this as a couple unless your relationship is solid: living in a small box together can be tough!
What it cost (first year)
Motorhome £90,000
Costs involved in selling home and putting possessions in storage £7,000
Activities £2,000
Insurance £2,000 (for motorhome, travel and health)
Maintenance or repairs on motorhome We didn’t spend any money because the motorhome was new with less than a thousand miles on the clock
Cost of parking up/camping etc £3,000 (we found a lot of free places to camp in Europe and only stayed on sites about a third of the time)
Subsidence (food and drink etc) £4,200
Fuel about £3,800
Ferries and getting home to see family £800
Total for the first year £97,000 upfront costs plus first year total living expenses of £15,800
