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Round the World Complete Tailor-made Gap Year
Tailor Make a Complete Gap Year
The Real Gap Completes team can tailor make you your very own Complete Gap year to suit your every whim and fancy (within reason of course!). You can combine any number of our 100s of volunteer projects and adventure programmes to create a gap year that can last from 2 months right up to a whole year – all you need to do is decide what you want to do with all that time away.
Getting Started
Follow this five-step guide to create your complete trip of a lifetime...
Step 1: Consult your world map/ globe/ atlas and have a think about where you would like to go, note them down and keep your list to hand!
Step 2: Think about how long you want to go away for and how you would like to fill up your time away – volunteering, adventure travel, paid work, independent travel and sightseeing or a mixture of the whole lot.
Step 3: Peruse the Real Gap website – we have hundreds of programmes in over 40 countries. Have a look and see what projects we have in your top countries, or anything that takes your fancy.
Step 4: Time to think budget – how much can you afford to spend on the trip and how much spending money your going to need. Time for some research!
Step 5: Once you’ve decided on all of the above – top countries, any programmes/projects, amount of time etc, give us a ring or drop us an e-mail to discuss your trip and get yourself a quote.
Working Holiday Visas
If you’re in between the ages of 18 and 30 you might want to think about getting a working holiday visa so you can earn yourself some money whilst you are travelling. You may be eligible to apply for a working visa for the following countries:
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Japan
• China
• USA Please contact a Real Gap Travel Adviser for further details.
Quality, not Quantity
It is really tempting to try to cram a lot of countries into one big trip. You might think ‘Oh Vietnam is right near Thailand, I’ll just pop there as well and New Zealand is only a couple of hours flight from Oz, I’ll see that too’. But you should be careful not to try to fit too many places into a relatively short amount of time.
Travellers who rush there way through countries rarely get the most out of their trips and never get to see all the best sights their destinations have to offer. If you cut down the number of countries to 6 or 7 at the most for a 12-month trip you will get a much better feel for each place and probably enjoy the whole of your experience a lot more!
Your Flights – consider a Round The World ticket…
If you’re considering taking in more than just the one continent on your trip, then a Round the World ticket could be your best option for flights. You can stop off in a combination of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Latin and North America…or all of them (depending on the ticket you go for).
These tickets are especially good if you are planning to visit Australia and/or New Zealand, as you’ll find that the majority of Round the World tickets stop off down under.
The general rule with most Round the World tickets is that the more miles you travel and places you stop over, the more expensive it will be. Stopover locations are generally in the main transport hubs (Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, South Africa, Sydney, Santiago, LA etc) but you are able to add on extra stops to a ticket if you want to. However this will add a couple of hundred pounds on per extra stop, as it will be adding miles to your ticket. The best thing to do with Round the World tickets is to work out your flight ‘plan’ and then give Real Gap a call and we will find you a really competitively priced ticket.
The concept of the Round the World ticket is that you travel in one direction around the world (though it doesn’t have to be literal circumnavigation!) with a set number of stop offs along the way. It is not possible to back track, for example going from Thailand to Brazil to Australia but you can go in either direction, via USA/Latin America or you can make Asia or Africa your first stop.
Round the World tickets are a lot cheaper than booking individual flights to individual countries and tickets are also very flexible in allowing you to make multiple date changes en-route if you decide you want to stay somewhere longer or leave earlier.
To give you an idea, the simplest, and therefore cheapest, round the world ticket looks something like this:
UK – Asia (i.e. Thailand) – Australasia (i.e. Australia, New Zealand) – North America (i.e. LA) – UK ‘Overland-ing’ it…
Overland travel is travelling between countries on land-based transportation (also water in some cases!) rather than flying. You can do this independently by hiring some transport or travelling by bus or train, or joining an overland tour.
Travelling overland is a great way to really see a lot more of a country – perhaps even getting off the beaten track - and gives you more of a feel for the day to day lives of the native people. Travelling on local buses and trains is an especially good way to interact with the locals. It is also a very good option for seeing a country on a bit more of a budget. Here are a few examples of round the world flight tickets with popular overland routes added in:
UK – Thailand //overland // Malaysia – Australia – New Zealand – Fiji – Los Angeles //overland // New York – UK
UK – Moscow //overland // Beijing – Australia – New Zealand – Cook Islands – Los Angeles //overland // New York - UK
UK – Singapore – Australia – New Zealand – Chile //overland // Brazil – UK
UK – Beijing //overland// Bangkok – Christchurch //overland//Auckland – Santiago //overland// Quito – San Francisco //overland// New York – UK
UK – South Africa //overland // Kenya – Australia – New Zealand – Hawaii – Los Angeles //overland // New York – UK Flexibility
Whereas doing a little bit of pre-trip planning, getting together some sort of structure is a good idea, its really not very realistic to try and plan everything (accommodation and daily activities) before you leave the UK, especially if you’re going for anything more than a month!
If you’re taking part in any of Real Gap’s projects or programmes, the majority of them have the accommodation and a daily schedule set out well in advance. But when you are off doing any independent travel or are in places such as Aussie and New Zealand (especially if you went for the working holiday option), we will generally sort out the first week for you – with a proper party welcome, a few touristy activities and accommodation – then it is up to you! This may sound a bit daunting but we aren’t going to leave you out on the street or anything – the on-site staff will always be around if you need any help or advice – you can extend stays in the hostel your initially put up in, or we can help sort out longer term accommodation for you as well – no worries!
As for being organised, it isn’t always best to pre-book too much of your accommodation – anything could happen! You might book 3 months of hostel accommodation in Sydney but make some really good friends you want to get a flat share with or go off travelling with or something… could be pretty disappointing. Plus, when you arrive all your plans might go out the window and you might want to head off travelling about straight away…who knows! However, it’s always a good idea to book your first night accommodation – you can always extend if you want to hang about longer.
We want to provide you with all the freedom and flexibility or structure you want, so let us know if its too much or too little either way.
What does a Complete Gap Year include?
• International and domestic flights as per itinerary
• Fully comprehensive travel insurance for the duration of your trip
• Visas for countries where necessary
• Personal travel advisor in the UK
• In-depth pre-departure information
• Volunteer programmes as per itinerary
• Accommodation and meals whilst on projects
• Airport transfers
• Full orientation programmes
• Emergency assistance (both onsite & UK)
• Excursions, tours and activities as per itinerary What is not included?
• Accommodation & meals when not on a project or tour
• Extra activities not on the itinerary
• Personal expenditure
• Communication costs When can I go?
You can choose whenever it suits you best. You will find that flights can be busier (and more expensive) at certain times of year, when it is the school holidays and around Christmas, which could make it a little more difficult for you to get the flights you’re after. You might also want to think about the climate of your chosen countries – when is the best time to arrive for great weather? To avoid the monsoon? And so on. Check to see if there are any major dates/festivals you would like to be around for such as a Sydney New Year, Chinese New Year or the Rio Carnival. These very popular times to party, so everybody wants to be part of it, so they do take a little forward planning, as accommodation can get booked up months in advance.
Contact Us
Our team of Complete Gap / Round the World specialists have all taken their own gap years and will be able to give you lots of advice and options to help you plan yours. Please contact our Complete Gap Team for a tailor made Complete Gap quote. For more information on anything Complete Gap related, call 01892 516164 or e-mail roundtheworld@realgap.co.uk
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