Gap Year Travel Advice In An American Newspaper?

Posted by Mike Richard on August 16, 2007
Filed under: Odds + Ends

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Tsk tsk. I think not.

I was pleasantly surprised however to find that Telegraph.co.uk published an article titled Gap year advice: relish the freedom.

To my fellow Americans, can you imagine the NY Times publishing a “Top 10 Tips for Pre-College Students Traveling Around the World?”. Never going to happen. Bottom line in the U.S.: if you’re not a student and you’re unemployed, you’re a loser. You must either be working or be in school or you’re unproductively wasting your life. There’s no two ways about it here. It’s a shame really.

I haven’t even read the article, but it places in stark contrast the vastly different views on travel of Americans vs. the U.K. (and much of the rest of the industrialized world).

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Vagabondish editor Mike Richard lives in Rhode Island - a small patch of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats and speaking in the third person.



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Comments

Jeff
August 23rd, 2007 - 4:40 pm

“Bottom line in the U.S.: if you’re not a student and you’re unemployed, you’re a loser. … It’s a shame really.” Exactly! Looking back, I totally wish I had taken a year off between high school and college, if only to get my head together and work on finding myself or whatever. Once in college, it seemed OK to “stop out” for a while, but there’s still this pressure to do your time in four years and get out of there. (Found your blog via Upgrade: Travel Better, by the way.)


Mike
August 27th, 2007 - 11:44 am

Thanks for checking in, Jeff.

I find it ironic that many of my friends who decided to “make something” of their lives by doing their time in college have been out for some time and still have no idea what they want to be, career-wise. Many have a 4-year degree with some vague major and are now floating listlessly from one job to another - all completely unrelated to what they went to school for to begin with.