What where you went on your gap year really means

At Brookes we have Cheney – the most densely populated area in the UK for gap yahs.

You are at the heart of the gap year culture, and people here just don’t care what you’ve done on your gap year because everyone thinks they did the best one.

Here’s what the most typical gap years say about you:

Become a ski instructor

Let’s start with something everyone in Cheney has done: a ski season.

Now we are talking, you get to ski everyday all day, yes Daddy payed for it, but are you getting a qualification that you can use? No. You spend the season getting hammered every weekend in Europe with the same seasonnaire deals – just you don’t have to be up at 7am. Even missing midweek training because you just have to quickly pop in to Folie Deuce, then show off your sweet skiing skills to drunk strangers on the way back as you barely remember where you are staying, buzzing off your tits.

Becoming a Canadian ski instructor on the other hand, that’s when you meet the serious skiers, they train every day, not much night life but then again, who needs that when you have clear empty slopes every day? There are no queues any time of the year and at (the few) bars they have much cheaper booze. These guys ski through their lunch break, and when it is a bluebird day they don’t need to wake up early to get the best snow – there is always snow.

LOOK AT ALL THAT SNOW

Chalet Host

Let’s start with something everyone in Cheney has done: a ski season.

You wanted to do a ski season, you’ve seen the movie Chalet Girl, and you made your dreams a reality. Some got the best jobs, only having to work Sundays doing the cleaning for three Chalets, others had to cook breakfast lunch and dinner, do sheets everyday and keep everyone else’s champagne topped up. Some got it good, but at the end of the day it’s so basic, how much skiing did you actually get with all those seasonnaire deals in Val Thorens?

Working at home

Usually working in hospitality, pulling pints and serving food, these guys are saving up to pay for adult stuff. A car, a house, a holiday – these guys slog it out until the end and know what they want. They don’t go out much but when they do they go crazy. These are the people you meet in Clive Booth none en-suite. They have the best work ethic and are the most fun.

Living in Australia

You probably came back with an Australian accent and a master of BBQ’s because ‘you do it the Australian way’.

Then you went down the tourist route there too, which was disappointing to say the least as it was nothing like the Inbetweeners and Simon’s description. It was more like stuff you can do in Europe, but harder to travel around.

His shirt even says Australia

Travelling around south-east Asia

Congrats – you are the most basic person around. South-East Asia is the pinnacle of ‘I don’t know what to do on my gap year so I’ll just follow everyone else’. The place is basically made of tourist traps. Going for an elephant ride, doing a full moon party in Koh Phangan – everything is tailor made for tourists. Did you really do anything cultural?  Probably not. Did you have a great time? Sort of.

Sadly South East Asia doesn’t make for great conversation, as everyone has done it.

Braving it in Mongolia

These people are completely off the radar. They went to a country with no chance of being able to contact anyone for a month, and to do what? Look at empty grasslands for weeks on end? See a herd of horses, camels and goats mixed in? To drink alcoholic horse milk? When you ask them ‘so what was in was Mongolia?’ they answer, ‘lots of horses’, ‘lots of goats’, ‘lots of empty areas’, and ‘lots of temples’, and they seem to love it.

The most colour you’ll ever see in Mongolia

Going to Africa

In a land filled with the most dangerous beasts ( I’m personally terrified of hippo’s), there is sweet sounding work out there. Herding buffalo away from villages,  looking after reserves and leading safaris through Botswana come to mind, the pinnacle of a beautiful place. Honestly I can’t bitch about Africa (Other than Malaria) it is a unique place to go very few cons of going. Except hippo’s.

Terrible game of odds on

Inter-railing

These are the people that went travelling without the fear of being kidnapped. They still want to be easily able to contact all their friends (and parents – money purposes) to show them what an amazing time they are having on a train and taking stereotypical photos of European cities and landmarks. This is the dream, these people have paid a huge fair to sleep on trains. Found a cute view on a train? Sucks for you, you missed it.

What I’m trying to say is these people need to push their limits a bit. But great photos of the Berlin Wall.

You can cycle to Rome from Paris and have a much better time than on a train

China

You were curious of china because of how often it is in the news, you think ‘hell yeah this looks amazing’, so you think you’ll backpack from city to city when you want to or need to when you get there.

NOPE. Getting a visa to China is like trying to boil the ocean, they need to know everything about your stay.

It’s all worth it though as you see some of the coolest stuff on this Earth: The Terracotta Warriors, The Great Wall of China, Tienanmen Square, bamboo forests, pandas, The Worlds Largest Buddha and The Forbidden City.

It’s a shame you have no Facebook to continually post photos of every weird thing you see, but luckily you are blind to everyone else’s South East Asia pics.

Shame everyone is in South East Asia 🙁