Photo courtesy of Lauren Melcher
Lauren Melcher and Alissa Wilcox hiking in Austria.

Many young Americans take a ‘gap year’ to explore other countries

by TARA SHLIMOWITZ

Lauren Melcher, a junior at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, put her studies on hold last fall when she opted to backpack across Europe with two friends. Melcher and two other young women traveled through Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic, making other stops along the way. They shared Russian novels with fellow backpackers and landed in Rome just in time to celebrate Halloween.

Melcher and her friends are among the many university students who choose, during or after college, to take “gap semesters” or “gap years” to travel abroad. At American University, about 5 percent of May 2006 graduates deferred a career or graduate school to travel, work or volunteer abroad in their post-graduate year, according to AU’s Career Center.

Volunteering abroad

While abroad, some students choose to spend their time volunteering. Some organizations provide room and board, but many charge fees. It costs $1,740 to volunteer in South Africa for nine weeks through an organization called Bunac. The fee covers placement expenses, orientation, food, three-month’s worth of travel insurance and some transportation costs. Volunteers are responsible for their own airfare.

Learning Enterprises is a volunteering agency that teaches English in small villages throughout the world. The program does not charge its volunteers a program fee; volunteers are required only to pay airfare and personal expenses. The organization offers more than 10 global summer programs to anyone older than 18 who has a strong command of English and has completed at least one year of college. Locations include Siberia, Indonesia, Panama and Mauritius.

“By helping the kids with their English and praising them for their accomplishments — the other teachers and I could tell that we were not only improving their English skills but raising their confidence levels, which is an extremely rewarding feeling,” said Candace Hopkins, a Rhode Island native and alumna of the summer 2005 Mauritius program.

SOS Children’s Village, another volunteering organization, operates in more than 100 countries. The program serves children who lost their parents or are not able to live with them. The villages are family-style environments with educational and onsite medical facilities.

Like Learning Enterprises, SOS provides food and shelter for its volunteers. Kate Mahoney, a recent graduate of Columbia University, is volunteering at an SOS village in Bethlehem, Palestine, but her experience has been somewhat exasperating.

“I came as a total stranger and was expected to develop my own program with very little support from the organization, which was very frustrating,” she said. “Being in the Palestinian Territories has showed me how little I knew as an American, about what the situation is really like here. The more time I spend here, I see more and more how biased our perception of the Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict’ is, and I feel more of a responsibility to educate my friends and family at home.”

Having no program fee makes it an “ideal way to volunteer — and a much better deal than the programs that make you pay to work,” Mahoney said.

Helpful Traveling Hints

To find transportation and hostel advice, visa information, routes to take in various countries and other helpful hints for planning a prolonged trip abroad, check out gapyear.com and statravel.com

Working abroad

Students who can’t afford to work as volunteers often choose to work abroad. Jeremy Rovinsky of Long Island, N.Y., is working as a bartender in Australia for four months before starting law school.

“Australia is amazing, but I find that it is very Americanized,” he said. “For a place so far away, I sure feel like I am still very close.”

Rovinsky found a job after he arrived in Australia. He had saved up nearly $2,000 from his college jobs as a teaching assistant and resident assistant. That came in handy while he stayed in a hostel and applied for jobs. For travelers who don’t have financial cushions, there are programs that find jobs for temporary workers.

Tom Shubbuck, 27, said he was bored with his life after graduating from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. A friend recommended teaching English in Korea. Shubbuck did some online research, then sent his resume and picture to employment agencies in South Korea.

“The very next day they called me, and within two months, I was on my way there,” he said. “They paid for my travel, and I had free housing there and only 5 percent taxes, plus no car payments.”

During his two-year stay in South Korea, Shubbuck taught English to students ranging in age from 5 to 65. He said employers expect teachers to leave Korea after three months. Shubbuck said part of the reason Americans leave is because they don’t feel welcome.

“People threw peanuts at me when I was at a party with other Koreans,” Shubbuck said. “I couldn’t go into a nightclub because the guy said, ‘You are white.’”

But not all of his experiences abroad were negative. Shubbuck is now engaged to a Korean woman he began dating during his travels.

Some students worry that taking “time off” will set them back in the workforce. Two years traveling could be spent getting a graduate degree or job experience. But Melcher has no regrets about her time backpacking in Europe.

“I wouldn’t change anything about the trip I took,” Melcher said. “It was perfect for us.”