Not long ago, the accepted way to record your gap year experience was in a
leather-bound notebook that ended up buried under your bed, covered in
melted chocolate and stuffed with bus-tickets, flattened insects and
beer-mats with strangers' phone numbers scribbled on them.
The modern alternative, the web log, is much cleaner and considerably less
likely to get ruined if the water bottle in your backpack leaks. Blogs are a
great way to keep people at home in touch with what you are up to, and of
creating a lasting record of your experience of a lifetime.
For globetrotters interested in starting a blog while they’re away there are a
host of free websites that allows you to set up an online diary, and
accompany it with maps, pictures and even videos... just don't expect
friends to want to hear about it all over again when you come home.
Travelblog.org
Travelblog has a vast collection of travel journals, accompanied by photos,
videos and maps. Great functions include a visited country map, highlighting
where you’ve been, a slideshow function for your favourite photos, comment
and message functions to contact other travellers and an email upload
function, which will pluck the emails you select from your existing email
account and update these chosen contacts when you update your blog. You can
search blogs by country, which then filters down to a city and region
search, from which you can read journals, browse photos, or enter a travel
forum – it’s great for inspiration and advice from fellow travellers.
Travelpod.com
Like Travelblog, this site allows you to create a free travel blog, with
pictures and videos. The site has a more ordered design than Travelblog, but
it is also more commercial, with a flights and hotels search, plus links to
car hire companies and hostels. There’s also a search function that allows
you to find out about travellers who are in a particular country at that
time.
Getjealous.com
This amusingly named site is the neatest of the bunch, which means it has a
clean design but less of a community feel. The usual features of a free map,
photos and video content are there, and you search blogs by keywords, rather
than dropdown menus. The search is fast and effective but can pull up less
relevant copy if place names are mentioned in blogs, e.g. a comparison of
Prague and Paris will mean that the Prague blog comes up under a Paris
search.
If you are considering taking a year out, but want a realistic impression of
what you are letting yourself in for, you could do worse than to read about
the warts and all experiences of gappers who are abroad at the moment.
India
Katie Revell (18) is teaching English in a women's college in the city of
Vijayawada, Andrha Pradesh, with the gap year charity Project Trust. When
she first arrived in India, even the most mundane tasks, like crossing a
road, became a big challenge.
"India doesn't seem to have such things as traffic rules, instead,
people use their horns and a dose of luck to navigate their way through the
streets."
Namibia
Lucy Hayes (18), from Newcastle, is a reporter and editor on the local
newspaper in the coastal town of Luderitz. Her new home is on the edge of
the Namib desert - and a long way from anywhere else.
"The landscape out here is completely amazing, just miles of sand and
windswept dunes as far as the eye can see, with not a single sign of human
settlements anywhere. When we took off from Windhoek I remember thinking "If
the plane breaks down, we're so dead."
Uganda
Caroline Brindle (19) is working in a village school, and helping out at a
malnutrition clinic near Kabare on the Rwandan border. Her work and new life
have made her re-evaluate the accepted values of her own society.
"At the moment the students in school are writing to pupils in
England. One boy wrote a letter about how he must gather firewood in the
evening and collect water. "I could just imagine the students reactions
in England. They would think their pen pal was very poor, had a difficult
life and possibly needed pity or charity. With this student the opposite is
in fact the case. He has a brilliant life, with both his parents and several
siblings at home. Every evening he enjoys a big family meal that his mother
prepares from fresh ingredients. Not only this, his parents can also afford
to put him through school."
Japan
Nathaniel Nicely (18), from Coventry is teaching English to adults and
children in Toya, near Tokyo. The dramatic scenery also gives him the chance
to pursue his passion for photography.
"On the first morning I woke up at about 5am and couldnt sleep, so I got
up, get dressed, grabbed my camera, hat and scarf and went exploring. OK, I
say exploring, I just kinda went walking to the shrine. I sat and watched
the sunrise coming up over the mountains, and wrote in my journal. All I
could hear was birdsong, pretty idyllic. That evening I had a welcome party,
where I managed to stumble through a Japanese speech - and even got a round
of applause.">
Guatemala
Henry Charge (18) is teaching English in Manabique, where he is developing a
taste for the local delicacy, crickets.
"November now and I´ve been here for over two months. I can´t quite
believe it. On Saturday we started our English lessons with the locals. It
feels good to be teaching, like you´ve really made a difference. Apart from
that everything´s fine and I´ll be shaving my head soon."
Check out www.romanticcottages.uk.com
We stayed in this little cottage in Devon during September. It was absolutely fantastic.
The stars were so bright and the air so clean it was hard to believe we were in England.
Chirs and Amanda Mockford
Wiltshire
Chris Mockford, Hilperton, England