Gap years: Everything a parent needs to know
Coasting Australia, hopping through Thai rainforests and tubing in Laos: Henry's gap year didn't disappoint
I don't think the question of whether or not I’d take a gap year to travel was ever in doubt. My brother had returned two years earlier from his adventures in Asia and Australasia, and while the stories of his trip may have gained a gilded sheen (I soon found out the Koh San Road was not the cultural heartland of Bangkok), they instilled in me an urge to escape.
My A levels grades were as unpredictable as a populist election in Western Europe, so I’d shelved university applications for a year. Instead, towards the end of the summer, the focus of my attention became the hallowed grounds of STA Travel. Resisting the efforts of staff to sell us the new “Drink Till You Drop Balkan Booze Cruise”, four friends and I navigated the piles of weighty travel brochures and left with round the world tickets that would take us the following March to India, around South East Asia, on to Australia and Fiji and home via the USA five months or so later.
The first weeks were not without challenge. Delhi was a seismic cultural shift from anything I’d known - for both mind and stomach - and the indiosyrancies of India took time to understand. Paul Theroux wrote that “travel is glamorous only in retrospect” and lower moments included a sprint into a cruelly barren field next to a busy Rajasthani motorway, packable Andrex in hand, after some dodgy Butter Chicken. Yet India, with its opulent forts and painted cities, pristine golden beaches and lazy backwaters, stirred in me a new appreciation of the wonderful unpredictability of travel, and helped sharpen my teeth.
Did I ever envy friends who had eagerly rushed off to their new lives at university? How could I? I was hopping from Thai rainforests to the wondrous temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia; letting off steam at the hedonistic (now infamous) tubing centre of Vang Vieng and exploring Australia’s coastlines in a campervan that resembled an orange jellybean. All, I should note, with my best childhood friends. Of course there were duller days before we set off, when I was pot-washing in pubs or acting as a stand-in removal man, when university seemed a soft option. But any such thoughts had dissipated long before I reached the coral white beaches of Fiji. Travelling acted as a sort of decompression chamber between the familiar structure of school and the unregulated landscape of university life. It gave me time to adapt to the years of independence ahead.
Looking back, it's hard to comprehend how quickly time has gone since my gap travels. Yet, with hindsight, what’s clear is that there is no need to rush. School leavers are under increasing pressure to sign up for university, then leap on the career ladder, but many don’t have a clue about which subject to study or which career to choose.
I’m not saying I had an epiphany amongst the swirling throng of Koh Pha-Ngan’s Full Moon Party (many claim to...), but at least I gave myself the time to take stock about what lay ahead. Time is on your side - while time to truly travel certainly isn’t once work kicks in. So take a year out. Or take two - I wish I had.
The year was not without stressful moments for his mother, Joanna. But she wouldn't have changed a thing
Gap year breaks are a stressful time for parents. It’s not so much the worry about your son or daughter being swallowed up by the jungle or captured by a drugs cartel, it’s more the battle to rouse them from post A level lethargy.
Exams are over and they want to party - but one week stretches into another as summer spins out and there’s still no job, no travel plan. Taking a deep breath you try not to sound too strident as you point out that at some point soon they need to get a job because you are NOT going to pay for their gap travels.
Both my sons, two years apart, took a year out between school and university to work and travel and we fully supported their decision. They’d had three years of exams and deserved a break, time to pause and take stock.
It was a year of ups and downs for all of us. While the most heart-wrenching moment - for me at least - was watching the backs of their heads, just visible above a giant rucksack, disappear into airport Departures, the trickiest part was striking the balance between getting them going and not taking over. However frustrated I was, I knew it was crucial not do it for them.
Some local parents, from the most loving and protective of motives, had the whole year wrapped up for their children before A levels were barely over. But that missed the point that the planning, booking and budgeting, the earning money to fund the whole trip, are as important a learning process as the travelling itself.
In the end, both sons finally got organised, finding work and making travel plans. As parents we were there to give advice (most of which they ignored in favour of reports from older siblings and friends) and to check that they’d booked their first few nights accommodation, had got proper insurance and the correct innoculations.
As the departure date approached, I issued warnings about not hiring mopeds (which they ignored), reminded them to send postcards to their grandparents and told them they wouldn’t be allowed back in the house if they got a tattoo (thank heavens they didn’t).
Then, all of a sudden, we were waving them off at the airport. The first fortnight was an anxious one, but the parents of their travelling companions provided a great support network, and we swapped details of any texts, photos and emails we’d received (frequent and fraught at first, sparser as they got into their stride).
Generally we waited for them to contact us. Of course, as a parent, you wonder what they’re up to as the weeks roll on, but resist the urge to send daily texts. Give them a bit of breathing space. This is their time to cut free.
