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It’s not every day that ageing parents feel glad they’re not 18, but this
Thursday is one of them. Three words, one instantly recognisable horror:
A-level results. The good news is that Thursday also spells the start of
your gap break – and we’re not just talking to you smug bugs deferring
university until next year.
Even if you’re starting this autumn, there are five or six glorious weeks left
until freshers’ week, and gap specialists are increasingly keen to fill that
void. From orang-utan conservation to surf coaching, teaching to turtle
protection, bite-sized chunks of life-changing projects abound. You need to
act fast: by Friday, the phones will be red hot. Here’s a round-up of the
best of what’s left.
ORANG-UTAN CONSERVATION, Borneo
One of almost 7,000 tours and volunteer projects in 86 countries on the superb
Gapyear.com database, this two-week trip, working with vets and biologists
at a rehabilitation centre in Sarawak, is serious conservation – hands-on
here means tracking orang-utans through leech-infested rainforest, not
hugging them as you gurn for your Nikon. Based close to Kuching, the trip
includes longboat river trips and waterfall hikes, market visits and temple
tours, plus two nights by the beach in Kubah National Park.
Details: £995 for two weeks, full-board, including transfers; this trip
can also be combined with a two- or three-week (add £495 and £595
respectively) conservation project near Kuala Lumpur. Contact i-to-i (0800
011 1156, www.i-to-i.com). Student
Flights (020 7724 9330, www.student
flight.co.uk) has fares from Heathrow to Kuching with Malaysian Airlines
via Kuala Lumpur from £579.
TEACHING AND BUILDING, Ghana
Ten years ago, John Lawler did his gap year in Ghana, came back a chief, then
set up Madventurer, running volunteer projects from Ghana to Guatemala. The
Ghana project – building school buildings and teaching English and sport
throughout the Volta region – can be done as a two- or five-week trip, both
of which can be combined with a three-week Mad to Timbuktu expedition
(£980), by bus, 4WD and camel, through Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali to
Timbuktu.
Details: from £800 (two weeks) to £1,250 (five weeks), including all
meals, accommodation and transfers; flights arranged from £500 with British
Airways to Accra. Contact Madventurer (0845 121 1996, www.madventurer.com).
BECOME A WINDSURFING INSTRUCTOR, Greece
Freshers’ week bragging rights are guaranteed on this one, a six-week
instructor course taking you from novice to RYA Level 1 windsurfing
instructor, with buns of steel and pecs of burnished mahogany thrown in for
free. It’s based in Vassiliki, on Lefkas, Europe’s windsurfing mecca – a
gentle morning breeze just perfect for beginners becomes a stiff,
sail-hungry wind by afternoon for when you progress. The course is run by
Flying Fish, which provides a free job-placement service to all its
graduates, and has so far found jobs for 98% of its students.
Details: £2,590, self-catering, including all equipment, tuition, exams
and transfers to/from Lefkas. Flights with TUI to Lefkas can be arranged for
£300. Contact Flying Fish (0871 250 2500, www.flyingfishonline.com).
STREET KIDS PROJECT, Ecuador
A veritable Tardis of a trip, this packs more into four weeks than most
gappers get in a year. Yes, there are 10 days working with street kids in
Quito, but before that there’s a five-day, one-to-one Spanish course, also
in Quito, followed by an Ecuador highlights tour that includes trekking,
riding and biking in Cotopaxi National Park, an Amazonian cloudforest
eco-lodge with jaguars and spectacled bears, plus three nights on the edge
of Machalilla National Park, right on the beach, with as much snorkelling
and surfing as you can fit between smug postcards back home.
Details: £1,650, full-board, including all tuition and transport; five-
to eight-night Galapagos extensions from £650, full-board, including flights
and park fees. Flights from London to Quito arranged from £600. Contact
Outreach International (01458 274957, www.outreachinternational.co.uk).
INTERRAILING, Europe
Okay, so your parents did it, but don’t let that put you off. InterRailing is
still fun, it’s still the best way to bite off a big chunk of Europe, it’s
still a great way to meet young backpackers from all over the world – and
it’s cheap as chips, with under26s getting about a third off the adult fare.
Details: Flexi passes, giving you access to 30 countries, from Portugal
to Turkey, Norway to Greece, cost £117 for five days’ travel out of 10, or
£175 for 10 days’ travel out of 22; £226 gets you 22 days of unlimited
travel, and £292 covers a month’s unlimited travel. Contact Rail Europe
(08708 371371, www.raileurope.co.uk),
the official InterRail broker in the UK.
MARINE CONSERVATION, Kenya
You might need generous parents for this one, but, boy, will you be grateful.
Based in Pemba Channel Lodge, in the fishing village of Shimoni, south of
Mombasa, this is three different gap projects rolled into one, with mornings
involving conservation work, including recording – and even swimming with –
dolphins, humpback whales and whale sharks, afternoons teaching English and
football in local schools, and evenings free for kitesurfing and
scuba-diving, game-fishing and sailing in dhows.
Details: £1,880 for two weeks (£2,300 for six, £3,475 for 10),
full-board, including transfers from/to Mombasa. Contact The Leap (01672 519
922, www.statravel.co.uk). STA
Travel (0871 230 8512, www.statravel.co.uk
) has fares from Heathrow to Mombasa, via Nairobi, with Kenya Airways from
£539.
SPORTS COACHING, Sri Lanka
Most sports projects have you staying in residential halls with loads of other
volunteers. Good parties, obviously, but for serious cultural immersion,
this project, working in a school in Tissamaharama (about 180 miles from
Colombo), staying with a host family and travelling to work by public
transport, takes some beating. While afternoons are spent coaching football,
volleyball, basketball, netball and cricket, in the morning you are free to
explore, but you can also help teach English and maths.
Details: £699 for four weeks, full-board, including one night in
Colombo and transfers. Contact Real Gap Experience (01892 516164, www.realgap.com).
STA Travel (0871 230 8512, www.statravel.co.uk)
has fares from London to Colombo, via Doha, with Qatar Airways from £512.
LEARN SPANISH, Costa Rica
With accommodation with a host family, and 60 hours of one-to-one tuition,
this four-week course couldn’t be more total immersion if they dunked you in guaro,
the local rum you’re bound to encounter when you should be doing your
homework. Based in the northwestern city of Liberia, within easy reach of
numerous national parks, volcanoes and beaches of the Pacific coast, the
course is a great foundation for the community projects, sports coaching,
journalism and even medical and veterinary work that can be done later on
with the same operator in Costa Rica, as well as Argentina, Chile, Mexico
and Peru.
Details: £895 for four weeks, full-board, including travel and medical
insurance, and transfers from/to San Jose. Flights arranged for £835.
Contact Teaching & Projects Abroad (01903 708300, www.teaching-abroad.co.uk).
TURTLE CONSERVATION, Greece
It’s not often that you get to hang out on one of the best beaches in Greece
and help save the planet at the same time, but working with loggerheads in
Gerakas Bay, at the southern tip of Zakynthos, you get to do just that.
You’ll earn your self-satisfied smile, mind: eight- to 12-hour working days
often start with dawn nest surveys – it’s hard, hot work, and you’ll be glad
of the crystal Ionian Sea. Working with Sea Life Centre scientists and
volunteers, you can do the project in two- to 12-week chunks, though six
weeks is the longest you’ll manage now before freshers’ week.
Details: from £815 (two weeks) to £1,485 (six weeks), including all
meals, accommodation and airport transfers. Contact Global Vision
International (0870 608 8898, www.gvi.co.uk).
Thomsonfly (0870 190 0737, www.thomsonfly.com)
has flights to Zakynthos from £198.
SURFING, South Africa
New from the sports specialist Gap Sports, this is a six-week surf blitz in
Africa’s boardshorts capital, Jeffreys Bay, with mornings of intensive
coaching, and afternoons free to hang 10 and pigdog on some of the phattest
tubes on the planet. That said, J-Bay is only 40 minutes from Port
Elizabeth, so afternoons and weekends can also be spent on Gap Sports
projects in the townships there, helping at orphanages and assisting with
sports camps and festivals – assuming you’re not distracted by other nearby
Garden Route rushes, including skydiving, canyoning and the world’s highest
bridge bungee jump (709ft) over the Bloukrans River.
Details: £2,195 for six weeks, full-board, including all surfing
equipment and tuition. Contact Gap Sports (0870 837 9797, www.gapsports.com).
Student Flights (020 7724 9330, www.studentflight.
co.uk) has fares to Port Elizabeth with KLM, via Amsterdam, from £585.
Why failing can be good, too
Singer-songwriter James Blunt got a U (ungraded) for music A-level
(some might claim that was entirely deserved). More surprisingly, the
British Nobel Laureate for physiology/medicine Richard J Roberts
failed physics A-level and had to retake it.
After failing geography, Ben Fogle spent a year working in an
Ecuadorian orphanage before taking Latin American studies at Portsmouth.
And the neurophysiologist and TV presenter Dr Mark Lythgoe also flunked
his A-levels. He then went to Australia to research with the flying-doctor
service, before studying nuclear medicine – on which he now lectures at the
Institute of Child Health.
Ellen MacArthur claims her disappointing results due to glandular fever
were a blessing in disguise; with university scuppered, she ran away to sea
instead.
