04 Mar 2020

Trying to decide what to do on your gap year can take you on a one way trip to stress-city. Backpacking is an obvious option and can prove to be one of the best ways to spend your year off and really ~find~ yourself, but it isn’t the be all and end all of gap years.

There’s a few options on how to spend your time off if you want to think outside the box.

 

Volunteering

Volunteering can take you around the world and give you a glimpse of an experience completely outside of your own. The options on what to volunteer in and where to volunteer are endless. Teach kids in South Africa or India? Volunteer in a Wildlife Sanctuary in Namibia? Help contribute to conserving Fiji's marine ecosystem?

Whilst travelling the world can be an undoubtedly formative experience, you may prefer to stay on home soil and that's completely okay. There are a bunch of volunteering avenues that may speak to you, whether that be at a homeless shelter or perhaps helping Australian Wildlife at a conservatory.

Volunteering is an incredible way to spend your time off study, you just need to figure out where and what.

Au pair

Working with kids isn’t for everyone. But if you enjoy working with children, that trait could send you flying around the world.

Being an Au pair means living with a family and helping them run whatever a family needs help running with. It can be a super fulfilling gap year because you potentially get to see another part of the world whilst also becoming apart of another family and community.

I’ve met a few Au pair’s around the world who have also been invited on elaborate holidays with their host families, which could be a nice bonus.

We've even got a handful of Au pair programs that can take you to the likes of Canada, Italy, Spain, the US or the UK. Neato, right?

Live creatively

Devoting an entire year to exploring your creative tendencies can be a really useful way to figure out what you want to do.

You could start painting more regularly, getting into photography, try to start freelance writing. Very rarely in our lives will we get to press pause like a gap year lets us, so use it to explore who you are and what you like.

You can still work and travel of course, but making a conscious decision to devote your year to investigating who you are creatively can be really formative in deciding what you want to do after.

Work overseas

Backpacking is obviously an insane and special way to spend your gap year, but it can get exhausting.

If you were really itching to travel but not sure if you were keen on the backpacking lifestyle, you could always have a year abroad. You could work at a pub in the UK, do a working holiday visa in Berlin, teach English and get paid. 

Putting down your backpack and forming a base can be a much better way to really absorb yourself in a city, plus you might be able to save whilst travelling if you’re smart enough.

Contrary to popular belief, gap years aren't just your usual overseas holiday to kick back and get absolutely sloshed. There are a bunch of different type of gap years people can take, each having their own special unique kick to it. Next time you're having a think about taking a gap year, think of all these different options and see which one feels like your calling.