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Parents have their say

Click here >> for Richard's story
Click here >> for Gillian's story
Click here >> for Susan's story
Click here >> for Jo's story

Richard's story

"My daughter Holly is about to start studying medicine and when she told us she wanted to take a gap year after her exams I was very enthusiastic. Any parent naturally has concerns, but at the age of 18 you have to encourage young people to see a bit of the World before they get stuck into another round of academic work and a whole new set of friends.

I was keen for Holly to do her own things and she has had some amazing experiences of both work and travelling in places as diverse as Canada, Asia and South America. The World is an amazing place and has never been easier or cheaper to explore. If well planned, even a round the world ticket can cost less than £1,000. If young people feel confident enough and mature enough to take responsibility, fly the nest and learn from their own mistakes, let them go" - Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group, parent.

Gillian's story

"When our laid-back school-leaver announced he fancied Australia for his gap year, we didn't know whether to applaud his initiative or reach for the Valium.

For 18 years, Andy had enjoyed comfortable accommodation, home cooking and laundry services. A part-time job paid for clothes and social life and he had use of the family car. Life Downunder would be radically different, but that, of course, was the attraction.

The temptation as a parent is to leap in and 'help' by analysing options, but you can soon stifle the pioneer spirit, so we did our best to stand back. Eventually Andrew and his friend chose the Work Australia programme offered by BUNAC. The package included all international flights, a Hong Kong stopover with tours, and a welcome meeting in Sydney, plus a 12-month working holiday visa and an Australian bank account. Participants book their departure date and but need only specify their return route. When they want to come home, they simply book direct with the airline.

Having no contacts or knowledge of Australia, the big advantage of BUNAC to us was the support package. Help was simply a phone call away and because BUNAC does not arrange employment, the boys would be free to organise their own work. Or so we thought.

They planned to earn money at home after A levels, leave in November and return in June to replenish the funds before uni. The BUNAC package - with return stopovers in Auckland, Honolulu and Los Angeles - came in at around £1,700, but the Australian High Commission require all applicants for Working Visas to have £2,000 in a UK bank account.

Long hours working at the local leisure centre and generous contributions of birthday money all added to the funds and in mid November, they were off. A week later, we got a postcard, an email and a phone call within hours of each other. Hong Kong was 'unbelievable' and Sydney 'amazing'. Already they'd left the hostel and were leasing a house with other BUNAC travellers, but there was no sign of a job. It was early summer and Australian teenagers were eager for holiday work.

Australia is hugely popular with British backpackers and BUNAC had warned that finding work could take time. But by New Year, no-one in the house had found anything better than selling ice-cream. So in late January, the boys enrolled on an agricultural skills course outside Brisbane run by Visitoz.

The course cost $550 (£195) but successful completion guaranteed placements of two to three months with board, lodging and a modest wage. Pairs of travellers are harder to place but ours were lucky and ended up 500km north of Alice Springs on a cattle station larger than Cyprus.

Within hours of arrival they were rounding up cattle on quad bikes, driving pick-ups, and learning welding and angle-grinding - Bob the Builder meets Jeremy Clarkson.

Those six weeks in the Outback- or 'Red Centre' - proved a highlight of the whole trip. Not just for the chance to learn new skills but also to learn about themselves.

Sadly, torrential rain after six weeks made the dirt roads impassable and further work impossible. Funds were getting tight and the boys considered another placement, but felt nothing could top the cattle station. Instead, they decided to come home early and pack as much as they could into the last few weeks.

First stop was Ayers Rock. We'd been dubious about how exciting it would prove in reality, but Andrew's enthusiasm and stunning photos have since convinced us otherwise. What do parents know anyway? Then it was back on the bus for the long journey to the Barrier Reef and Scuba diving off the Whitsunday Islands.

Early in April they left Sydney for New Zealand where they packed in two bungee jumps, a skydive and a dip in the volcanic springs, before flying on to Honolulu for six days. Moved by Pearl Harbour and wowed by Waikiki, they chilled out in America's playground before a 48-hour stopover in Los Angeles, then home.

As they walked through arrivals - tanned, fit and full of it - all the clichés about men, not boys, ran through our minds. There are, we know, some experiences we'll never hear about - nor should do - but parents are often best left in the dark. For their own good!

But something indefinable happens to gap year travellers. And it's not just learning to cope. Seeing the world changes the outlook and, as university approaches, Andrew's certainly got a new incentive to work hard and do well. After all, he's already planning the next trip Downunder!

Tips

If you trust your teenager to use it sensibly, a Visa card on your own account is a cheap way of accessing money when funds run low. But do make sure you have card protection and that they have the Helpline number in case of loss or theft.

You can only have a Working Visa for Australia once and Andrew's was hardly used, the only regret from the trip. Casual work can be menial and repetitive - our boys were lucky - so it's worth earning here in the UK and taking sufficient funds to get out and see the country.

Think hard before signing up for maximum stopovers, especially short ones. When you've been travelling for months, they may not be as welcome as they sounded back home.

If your traveller does come home early, it's not a failure. At the very least, they'll have learnt to be self-sufficient, live with other people, and be open-minded.

If they phone or email with a crisis, don't say 'I told you so'. They need support, not criticism, and learning from mistakes is part of the experience.

Expect some readjustments when they return. Re-establish the ground rules, but remember they have been living unsupervised and still survived!

Don't panic. Yes, there are tragedies that make the headlines, but teenagers are equally at risk on home territory. The dangers are different when travelling but not necessarily greater." - Gillian Thornton.

Click here >> for more info about BUNAC's Work Australia programme

Susan's story

"I think a gap year is a very good idea. They have time to mature and if they don’t know what they are going to do after school they have time to crystallise their ideas. Two of mine have taken gap years so far, one is just finishing. Simon came back so much more mature and with confidence as he was quite shy when he left. They are also doing exams the whole time up until the end of year 13 and when they go to university they have exams again, so it’s great to get a break from exams. For the money my kids have worked, got weekend jobs and have done sponsored events. Kate did a sponsored silence which everyone was very grateful for - 24 hours - it was brilliant! We did concerts for both Simon and Kate. You do have to help and Simon’s school was very supportive as were some of this friends who went around the pubs in fancy dress collecting money. My other two will probably take a gap year as well.

It is quite daunting and you have to have courage, but so many are doing them nowadays - someone up the road has just come back from China and had a fantastic time. It can be a lot of money, but raising it can be done. Between them they wrote loads of letters and got sponsorship from Lions, Rotary and local charities, but none from companies. We didn’t actually know about the local charities, but then found out from a friend about one and they were very generous. I am very grateful to all our friends and all the local people who helped as you do need goodwill.

I thoroughly recommend it and I hope my other two will take a gap year. I was very nervous and really worried about it when my first went off, but fine with my second, Kate. With Simon it all seemed well organised and we went over to Belize and met the family he lived with which was great as they are such nice people. A gap year definitely makes them much less materialistic as you see people with absolutely nothing." - Susan Hardman

Jo's story

"January, 2001: standing on the doorstep, determined not to cry too much, saying goodbye to a daughter who was too excited to notice anyway. Flashback to January 1996, saying the same goodbye to a son who had spent the previous evening at Rock City watching Blur and then packing to travel half way round the world at some time during the intervening hours. The only similarity between the two was my determination not to travel to Heathrow where the goodbyes would have been dragged out and I would have become an absolute embarrassment; this part was left to their father who not only had the journey to contend with but also the lonely trip home.

At the moment, we are approaching the end of our daughter's gap year. Having experienced it once, I have to report that it does get easier but I think that is the result of modern technology and the difference between the sexes. Four years ago, the arrival of an all too rare pale blue envelope was our only means of knowing where and how our son was, apart from the time when I became unreasonably anxious having heard nothing for five weeks so we contacted the credit card company to which he had access.

They reassured us that he had been alive and well some five hours earlier when he had drawn money. They offered to put up a code which would tell him to phone home so even then there were ways and means to contact an oblivious son. Now we have e-mails, text messages and the ability to contact our daughter by mobile phone should the need arise.

In my experience taking a gap year has been beneficial to them but also to us. I have walked around Sydney harbour, vicariously enjoying the restaurants my daughter was describing before she returned home to beans on toast. Her father replied to her text message sent at an ungodly hour asking how long she should boil potatoes for. Now she can live on £1 a day and still remain reasonably healthy. She has discovered the public transport systems of Singapore and Australia, and also hopefully New Zealand, and where to stand to accost the night bus after a late shift working in a large hotel, a job she got by being resourceful and very economical with the truth.

Our son, who together with three friends followed a similar route, found less salubrious accommodation, not in a smart suburb of Sydney, but in the rather more run-down quarter where killing cockroaches developed into a sport. He too managed to find some work, I think altering sell-by-dates on biscuits and other foods. He discovered that to rent a flat needed more than just a week's rent but he also caught every plane that he was booked on. This fact alone amazed me as his grasp of mundane things at home was never impressive. His rejoinder to his father on his return was that he (father) "worries too much at airports".

Writing this, I am very aware that there are many young people who are very capable from an early age and all the things I have described could be considered as trivial, resulting from perhaps a protected adolescence. To an extent this is true. Both children attended independent schools but they are used to walking home late from a large city and they both worked to pay for their trips. Travelling during their gap year gave them the independence which by virtue of their background, they had not needed to demonstrate.

We have missed having our daughter and her noisy friends around, but she should be back in the summer for a few weeks. When she leaves for a mere 10 weeks at university, saying "Goodbye" will be much less painful than it was in January." - Jo Hodges

Click here >> for more Australia information