Gap Year Advice

Communications

Keeping in touch with home while you’re away is pretty essential for most people, even if you can’t wait to skip town. Here’s how to make sure you stay in contact, and stop your parents notifying Interpol:

The internet

Widely regarded as approximately four thousand times as useful as smoke signals, the net has revolutionized communication, and can stave off homesickness in lots of different ways:

Email

The group email is a great tool – with very little effort (other than the six hours you have to spend compiling all the addresses in the first place) you can let everyone who cares about you keep up on your adventures. Just make sure you think about the content (do you really want your Nan to know about that explosive diarrhea?) and try and set it up so that the people you’re sending it to can’t see the other recipients – lots of people like to keep their email address private these days.

Instant messenger

The other immediate contact the net offers is instant messenger. Check the time differences before you log on to make sure you’ve got the best chance of catching your mates.

Travel blogging

Why not start a blog to document your time away? Blogs are like online journals, but you can set the privacy settings so only you, your friends or everyone can read what you’ve written. A blog is a great way to get your experience out in the public and to document it for the future. It also means that you can show everyone a photograph and not worry about it clogging up their email inboxes. People can comment on your blog, too, so you’ll usually have something to read every time you come online, as well as a lasting record of what you got up to.

Photo Shops

Nowadays, you don’t have to wait till you get home to fascinate everyone with a three hour, annotated discussion of your gap snaps. If you have a digital camera, find a decent internet café or photo supply shop – they usually have the equipment to put the photos on a CD for you (using your memory card), which you can then send home, upload into emails or onto your blog! This is a great way to really bring your experience to life for everyone back home, and it also safeguards your snaps, so even if your memory cards or camera get lost or stolen, there’s a permanent record in cyberspace. Indeed, consider setting up an account on a free photo sharing website and uploading your latest snaps every time you drop into a net caff.

Websites

The net is perfect for keeping up to date on life at home. If you’re feeling homesick, holing yourself up in a café and browsing your favourite websites can really help – make a point of looking for stories featuring cold and hideous weather, or cats up trees – they’ll remind you why you decided to come away!

Skype

You may have a Skype account before you even think about traveling, but if not you might want to set one up. Skype allows you to message other users like an instant messenger, but also allows you to call other Skype users for free on VOIP phones (they need to have one too), or for a fairly small price if you call their landline or mobile. The price varies for country, so check first. You can also video conference on Skype.

Phone

Conventional calling can be pretty expensive while abroad, but there’s nothing like hearing familiar voices. Finding a payphone usually reduces costs, and buying phone cards can be good too. If you’re out for a while, consider getting a sim card for the country that you’re in.

Postcards

The quintessential symbol of traveling – almost everyone manages to send a few, and you might get in trouble if you don’t! Be creative, however, and postcards can be a useful, unique, extra record of your gap: send your parents or your own home address a postcard from every different place you visit, then on your return you can put them in the album with your photos so in the future you’ll be able to see what you did, with who and when, not just an image of someone you can dimly remember! An added bonus is a miniature collection of country-specific stamps.

Poste Restante

This means that a post office will keep your post until you collect it. Lots of travelers use it to make sure they can get post if they’re not staying anywhere permanent. You just get the sender to address the letter to ‘Your Name, Poste Restante, Address of Post Office’, then collect it when you can. In the internet age, this might seem slightly prehistoric, but could appeal to those into the vintage aesthetic, and it’s also useful if you’ve forgotten your universal adaptor and aren’t anywhere near an airport.

Letters

There’s nothing quite like getting post. Everyone likes it, and when you’re traveling it’s even better – usually unexpected and never a bank statement! While on a project you’ll be in one place for several months – long enough for even the slowest postal services to get you a good few letters from home. If you fancy writing, pick up some Air Mail paper and envelopes to write on before you head off, and make sure you get addresses. Then sit back and pretend it’s the 1950s. A safari suit can help with this.