Every year there are more and more choices for your gap year - from working in an industry that you will give you experience for your future career to going on a crazy adventure around the world. And once you have made a decision on what you want to fill your gap year, you then have to decide how to do it, how to finance it, who to go with, which companies to use.
Here at Quest we know it is a tough job choosing which organisation to go with and what to do. We will give you honest advice about what we think would suit you. Rachel, our gap year advisor did her Gap Year with Quest last year and raised over £3,000 for her trip. She loves chatting to people about what you can do as well as how to fund all your adventures and can give you advice and support on how to make the right decision for you. Just give her a call for some friendly and helpful tips on 01444 474744 or drop her an e-mail rachel@experiencequest.com
Below are some stories from past gappers and how they organised their gap year and the experiences that they had ...
"I decided to use the time to just have fun. I knew that I would probably spend the rest of my life on a career path and this could be my last opportunity to see the world. I worked hard in a local pub and saved money and then did a ski season working as a chalet girl in France. I didn't earn much in France but I didn't spend anything either and had a wicked time - met lots of new people, got to ski nearly everyday, added French to my CV and felt really free and away from normal life. Once the ski season finished I organised to go away with Quest to do some volunteering - I was interested in Conservation - not as a potential job - just as something that I felt would be good to help with, so choose to go on the Ecuador Amazon trip. It combined learning Spanish with volunteering and then 6 weeks travelling in Peru and Bolivia. I had heard good things about Quest and although it cost a bit more, all the activities were included and I really felt like the work I was doing helped the community. Also there weren't many companies that combined volunteering with travel - I wanted to travel with a group first so that I could get used to being in South America and afterwards there were a few of us that went off travelling together - I made some really good friends - we still meet up in Uni holidays. I really think I made the most of my gap year & also managed, without meaning to, to add some languages and volunteer work to my CV. "
"I knew that I wanted to work in overseas development and as it's quite a tough career to get into, I was looking for something that would add to my CV. Because I didn't have much money saved, I wasn't as keen to spend money on travelling - I just wanted to go to a decent project and build up my experience. I must have looked at hundreds of different projects and there were so many companies it was really confusing. I met Liv from Quest at a gap fair and was impressed with what sounded like well-run projects. They had a leaflet on Ethical Volunteering which had questions that you ask volunteering organisations to make sure you are going with a good company. Ethical Volunteering also have a website too. That really helped to sort out the different companies for me. Some companies are just agents for projects - they don't actually seem to support them or even have that good an idea of what you'll be doing out there. These are normally the cheaper ones and I was tempted especially with my lack of money but in the end it was more important to me to be on a decent project and I found out with Quest I could fundraise part of the cost. I wrote to loads of different local companies to ask for sponsorship and did a half marathon and in the end raised just under £1,000. I went out to Malawi that summer and luckily the project was everything I'd hoped. I really felt like I made a difference - and I got so much out of it. I'm definitely going to do this as a career. I'm hoping to go back to Malawi again this summer to help build a clinic with Quest and am about to start sending out letters for fundraising again!"
"I just wanted to go to South America - that was all I really knew - I don't even know where the urge came from. As soon as I left school I went through an agency and got a job at an office just doing general admin stuff and a few evenings a week I worked in a bar. The office job was quite relaxed. The people were nice enough and it was good experience to add to my CV. The bar work was really good fun. I met loads of people. Most of them were at Uni so it gave me a good idea as to what to expect when I got there. I planned to travel after about six months of working and saving money and to start with was going to go with friends but we all seemed to want to do different things and in the end I thought I'd just head out on my own. My parents were worried about it so I did quite a bit of research. I used Lonely Planet mainly and went on forums. I realised I'd have to learn Spanish when I got to Peru and started researching all of that and then tried to work out the places I really wanted to see. There was loads to look at and it was quite hard trying to come up with an idea of where to go just by reading about it - it's hard to picture these places that are so far from home. And it's hard to really get your head around the distances involved. I spent most of my time talking to people about it and one of my Uni friends from the bar told me about Quest. I actually just looked at their website to get an idea of their itinerary to give me more ideas for my own trip and to try to work out where I could learn Spanish. The volunteering side hadn't crossed my mind but then when I read about their Peru project I thought I'd try and find something like that to do by myself. To cut a long story short, basically it was too difficult to find a project which I felt I could trust and once I worked out all the money that I would spend going it alone including all the food and travelling and accommodation, I realised it was far easier and not that much more expensive to go away with Quest. I had also saved enough money to carry on for a while on my own and I thought that doing a Quest would probably give me more confidence to go off alone and travel and show me how to do it. I booked about a month before the trip was due to depart! I guess when it came down to it I was worried about heading out there and not meeting people so it was great to just put all the organisation into Quest's hands and know I'd be looked after and get some Spanish lessons and be with a group of people my age and I got to work on the Peru project. I couldn't have found something like that on my own. It was an experience I will never forget, calling out to the kids each morning in the shanty town to come and play and all the kids just appearing from nowhere so excited to be spending the day with you. The travel afterwards was good too - it took in most of the places I'd planned to see but we probably stayed in better places than I would've known about or found - but who knows? I travelled on afterwards with a guy from the group and it was great to have that independence - I don't know if I'd have been so confident though if I hadn't done my Quest first."
"I had no idea what to do in my gap year. It was just sort of expected that I would take one and (sadly) my mum did most of the organising - she had heard of Quest and made me go along to an open day. She thought that the combination of volunteering and travel would be good for me. I booked to go to Tanzania and am so glad I did it - I think because I had no expectations and I suddenly found myself in the middle of the Africa that you see in films - really colourful people everywhere walking on long dusty roads all so friendly - and then you're on the project working in the community and you get to know everything around you so well - you feel like an Africa expert - an honorary local. I got really into the project life. It was hard work and basic living but because it was so different and so far away from life at home, I enjoyed it all. Then we went on the Explorer - I learnt to dive in Mozambique and did a bungy in Zambia. Just an amazing time. I didn't want to come back. I think my gap year changed me - not so much on the outside but just in terms of how I view things and my confidence in meeting new people and coping in new situations. It was definitely one of the best experiences of my life!"