30 Aug 2016

One of the most popular ways of filling in a gap year is to do some overseas travel. Tens of thousands of young Aussies jet beyond our borders each year to drink, selfie and adventure their way across a wide variety of different countries and continents, doing everything from bartending in the UK to teaching kids in Zanzibar. And if you get the chance to be one of those travellers, why wouldn’t you take it? 

Aside from the exposure it gives you to new sights, sounds, tastes and loves, it’s a chance to kick back and chillax after years of grinding study. You’ve had to work at school, you’ll have to work at uni, and after that you’ll be out in the workforce, working. A gap year is an opportunity for you to not have to work, at least for a while.

So put your feet up while you’re tripping, by all means.

However, if you have a bit of entrepreneurial flair, then you can inject a bit of work into even this time in your life. You can transform your holiday fun into something more again. With a bit of initiative you can leverage your travel to get even more from it than the experience itself: you can leverage your journeying to produce cash-flow, or to hustle your way into a job.

You can do this because travel = stories, and travel = adventuring, and these are valuable resources that you can potentially squeeze more goodness from than memories alone, if you want to.

For instance, if you like to write then it won’t be taxing to you to capture some aspect of your trip in written form. That could be keeping a diary, or penning some fiction while you’re on the bus, or even just tapping random thoughts, observations and yarns into the notes function of your smartphone whenever they enter your head.

Whatever it is, don’t underestimate the value of this stuff, it can be a veritable treasure trove.

It could be the basis of a best-selling novel, or content for an advertiser-attracting blog. It could be useful text for a travel agency or media outlet, who might offer you moolah for it, or a job.

Similarly, if you enjoy taking a few snaps and have a hidden talent for it, maybe you have it in you to be a travel photographer. Travel agencies, advertisers, event organisers, magazine publishers…there’s a decent list of payers who’ll recruit those with abilities in capturing eye-popping, mind-sticking-in imagery.

Even if it’s not travel photography specifically that appeals to you, there can’t be many better opportunities to hone your craft and build a portfolio for the photography job you really do want than while pottering about on foreign beaches, or amongst ancient castles, or atop cliffs of pants-threateningly frightening height above sea level.

If video is your thing, capturing compelling footage while gallivanting about foreign lands has seen travel vloggers like Kristen Sarah and Brian Cox punch out engaging content and net bankable YouTube views on their channels.

In fact there are jobs for travel vloggers—yes, paid-up, legit employment offerings for people to film their travel adventures, I sh*t you not.

But production companies, advertisers, tour-group operators and all sorts of others will pay for the right material too. That’s if you can’t make a go of your material yourself, maybe making docos, or films.

If it’s something other than content production that humps your camel, your travel can still help you. Fancy yourself as a leader? Being a tour guide could be a potentiality then. Piggyback on the knowledge, tips and tricks you learn on your sojourning to build a stockpile of info to pass on.

You’ll need to learn and know stuff about the cool places you’ll take people to, but hey, they’re cool places that you’ll want to learn about, and you’ll be taking young adventurers like yourself…it’s hardly a chore.

Or you could be a teacher, raking in the renminbi while shaping the minds of kids in China. You could help with research into orangutans in Borneo, or teach English in Fiji. Travelling offers so many opportunities to enrich your own and others’ lives, if only you think outside the square, and make it work for you.

You shouldn’t over-tax yourself trying to dream up opportunities to exploit while travelling—you’re supposed to be taking a break. But there are some things you can leverage from travel that won’t seem like work at all if you have particular talents or likes.

If you’re able to find a way to make your travel work for you, then your gap year can not only be a life-changing time, but a life-shaping time.