Gap Year Venues

Spend your gap year in the Caribbean doing a range of activities and working in roles unparallel by any other gap year destination.

Travel Tree have organised a program in which you can learn Spanish and become a scuba diving instructor. Spanish is the second most important language, after English, to have in the diving industry and predominant in the Caribbean. Otherwise, you don’t have to learn Spanish but do a scuba diving instruction internship.

Adventure Sports Holidays have a massive directory of jobs paid and unpaid available around the Caribbean.For example, you can work as a horse riding instructor or you can volunteer to preserve and protect coral reefs and endangered sea creatures such as turtles. The list is almost endless!

Other jobs available include patrolling beaches in preparation for turtle nesting, working as a waiter / waitress in hotel bars or on yachts, teaching hotels to effectively use social networking or helping organise a wedding. If you are trained as a beautician, sports instructor or sports therapist, there are many health clubs and spas that would welcome a fresh pair of hands.

Your spare time away from work can be spent doing all sorts of outdoor activities and you may never want to come back home!

Jumping aboard a plane and flying into the world is an exciting prospect but what happens if you run out of money or have major problems abroad? Consider signing up for a Gap Year Program that can set you up with a job when you’re away that also takes care of accommodation and food.

Best Gap Year have all sorts of programs to choose from including paid Norway expeditions on the archipelago of Svalbard, 78N just 600 miles from the North Pole. Training and accommodation are both provided, as well as a £5200 salary.

GVI organise volunteer action abroad including a 14 day trip to Cape Town, South Africa, in which volunteers teach English to local school teachers or help out in an orphanage. Many schools are overcrowded so volunteers relieve teachers from the stress by helping out in sports and organising classes.

Frontier realise that many people will teach English when they are overseas and so can provide TEFL training. TEFL stands for Teach English as a Foreign Language and is required more frequently by teaching centres around the world. After attending a training course that teaches people how to teach in a classroom as well as completing online tests over four weeks, TEFL students are rewarded a certificate that is recognised worldwide.

It’s well known that students like to do the Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, India trail because going on to Australia and New Zealand. How about going somewhere different on your Gap Year?

We at gapyearvenues.com suggest somewhere new.

Hop over to the Caribbean. It is not as expensive as you think. For the range of activities that are available (such as wakeboarding, hiking, dancing, jet skiing, scuba diving, water skiing, cooking etc), you will laugh at other travellers who have chosen visiting cities via trains.

Wake up looking over the sea and spend the day treating your body right – and do not leave covered in holiday tattoos or prison scars.

There are opportunities to work out there too. If you studied Osteopathy at university, join one of the health-orientated hotels as a practitioner or advisor. Alternatively, go as an internet-savvy executive who can teach locals how to promote themselves using all the social networking sites you love to use. If you don’t want to be stuck indoors, jump aboard a beautiful yacht and serve martinis and canapés all night.

If you don’t want to work however, just go island hopping and enjoy the sunshine!!

Typically, gap years are taken either after a student finishes A Levels but sometimes take place after graduating from university. A student will work never-ending shifts in their local bar, restaurant, et cetera, saving up money for an average of six months – and/or if the student has generous parents, they take a loan from deeper pockets.

Meanwhile, world maps come out and a plan is made. Whether it is in-depth or ultra-flexible depends on the individual. Some leave no detail unchecked: connective flights and trains are scheduled, tours are paid for and hotels are booked.  For free spirited individuals the scenario is usually: one outgoing flight booked without a fixed return-date.

Travelling in a gap year is a low budget adventure. Sleeping in dormitories with 7 or more others is normal. Putting up with snorers is an everyday issue, as are using squat toilets and outdoor showers.

A gap year traveller’s reading mostly consists of Lonely Planet, stolen or swapped-for along the way. Conversations are based on life’s theories. Sitting in the hostel bar drinking cheap local beer and talking to other travellers may be the highlight of many a gap year story – because, as with anything, good company means a good time.