Year Off

If all you have done in life so far is worked your way through the education system or steadily followed a career path it's common to daydream about taking a year off. Many people never get around to taking a year off as it's all too easy to put up barriers and think up reasons not to go ahead and do it. If you're really crying out for a change and feel you need to re-charge your batteries, taking a year off is a great idea. There are so many things you can do with a year off. A year off doesn't have to involve spending the bulk of your time lying on a beach somewhere. On the contrary, if you put some thought in to what to do on a year off you can turn it in to an extremely constructive and positive experience - and have plenty of fun and experience new things at the same time.

Taking a year off is such a popular thing to do these days and it can be easier than you think to arrange a year off. For example many educational establishments offer deferrals to students to enable them to take a year off and, if you're working, many companies now offer sabbaticals to employees who've been with the company for a certain period of time. A sabbatical is essentially an unpaid long-term leave, but give you the chance to take a year off safe in the knowledge that your job will be held open for you when you return after your year off. If you're thinking about taking a year off there are numerous options available to you:

Take a year off to go travelling

It's an old cliché, but a very true one, that you only live once. If you take a year off you have the time to travel to all of those places you've always dreamed about visiting but never found the time to do so. If you take a year off it's amazing how many places you can get to see in just 12 months. If you plan to travel extensively on a year off the best way to do so is by taking a round the world gap year. Round the world tickets allow you to circle the globe in one continuous direction on your year off, making use of ‘free' stopovers along the way. Once you've decided on the places you're going to visit on your year off with a round the world ticket you can't change your itinerary, but you have a full year to complete the journey and are permitted to change your dates of travel. A real bonus about this form of travel on a year off is that the cost of the ticket is often not much more than the price of a return ticket to Australia either. For much more detailed information on this method of travel on a year off visit Real Gap's ‘Round the World' page. The Real Gap website is also an excellent source of information on places to visit (Real Gap has programmes in over 30 countries) and things to see and do on your year off - and it's worth spending a good bit of time exploring the site for information.

Take a year off to volunteer

If you want to do something really worthwhile on a year off, whilst seeing some amazing new places at the same time, working as a volunteer is an excellent option. There are all kinds of volunteer projects throughout the world you could get involved with on a year off - volunteering with wildlife, the environment or on people-based community projects. For example on your year off you could help to re-build houses destroyed by the Asian Tsunami in Sri Lanka, work as a Conservation Volunteer in Australia or care for injured or orphaned animals in Africa or Latin America. Working as a volunteer on a year off gives you a real sense of personal achievement and you learn so much from the people you meet. Having worked as a volunteer on a year off looks great on a CV too and, if you're taking a sabbatical from work, many companies will even sponsor you as well.

Take a year off to learn some new skills

Another way to boost your CV whilst travelling on a year off is to learn some new skills. For example you could learn Spanish or Portuguese on a year off in Latin America or, teach English - either as a volunteer or paid work abroad - in a number of countries throughout the world or learn the skills to work on a game reserve in Africa.

If you are inspired by the above ideas to take a year off then give one of Real Gap's travel advisers a call. All of the Real Gap Team have taken a year off to go travelling at some point themselves and will be happy to answer any questions you may have.


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