Skip to main content

Why take a gap year at this stage of life?

Gap years are for those under 25 right? Traditionally yes, but gap years were not really a thing when I was that age and trying really hard not to sound like my grandparents, we did not have the money and things were different back then. After months of planning and careful consideration we took a deep breath and jumped into our gap year. 



Who are we?  We are an Australian couple who call Melbourne home. We were working in corporate jobs, and like most others our age, we have a mortgage. We have a network of great friends and a comfortable life-style. Tanya worked for the state government as a communications advisor and Craig as a retail specialist in the fuel industry. Our interests are in food, wine and the great outdoors.



Four years ago our plan of working hard towards retirement was shaken when Tanya was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. This shocked us both and made us reconsider what is important to us; and what we wanted to do while both still healthy and active. We decided we wanted to travel, have more cultural experiences, and not leave it until we were unable to make the absolute best of our experience.



So here we are at the start of our adventure in a campervan in Europe. Over the coming posts in our blog we hope to share how we made this happen, the challenges and steps to overcome them before you leave plus our highlight and learning whilst travelling.

Comments

  1. Our most popular car rental for young drivers
    We have a versatile selection of rental cars are available to those under 25, each one is of the highest quality and generally replaced every six months. As a young driver, you can choose from compact sedans or convertibles and SUVs to minivans. Find out more about the available categories in our fleet.. More information read here: rental cars 18 and up . car rentals under 25

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Isle of Skye

Isle of Skye Skye, simply beautiful.  Our highlights were The Storr and the Kendram Turf House. The Storr Our GPS told us that we’d arrived, so we parked. At this stage we couldn’t see The Storr in fact we could not see much through the fog and rain. Being a wet cold day, we donned our waterproof jackets, hoods up to protect our ears from the wind. Craig felt the need to double up and wore a beanie as well. We set off, walking up the steep mountain for about 30 minutes before the fog cleared revealing The Storr, and in particular, The Old Man. The Storr are rock pinnacles, some 100+ metres high clinging to the top of a steep hill. The slopes of the hill are covered in lush grassland. Like the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, The Storr has been formed through erosion.   The Old Man is the most prominent of these rock formations. The walk up to the Storr starts with a steep gravel path that gradually becomes steeper then deteriorates into uneven rocks, m...

How to take a Van-life gap year

How to take a Van-life gap year You don’t just wake up one day, book tickets, fly to Europe and pick up the first campervan you see.  There is a lot of planning and organizing to make it happen. For us, it was a concept that we worked towards over two years and got serious about in the last 6-8 months.  Van purchase In researching vans, we learned that we could buy one, but couldn't insure or register it without being either European residents (read: address, bank account and utility bills in the country we wished to buy the van in) or set up a company to own, insure and register the van. Now this is not straight-forward as one needs to be able to navigate the system from the other side of the world and in another language (as vans in the UK / Ireland were considerably more expensive than on the continent). There are a number of companies who provide services in this space.  We chose EuroCampingCars, because they are based in France and deal in la...

Massif Central, France

The Causses is a limestone plateaux with green fertile canyon valleys. It is at the southern end of France's Massif Central. It is a vast and largely unspoiled territory with amazing scenery.  For us there were 3 highlights: Millau Viaduct (world's highest bridge), Gorges du Tarn, and the Roquefort cheese caves.  Millau Viaduct Loving most bridges and being fans of Lord Norman Foster's other architecture (British Museum, Hong Kong Airport, Bundestag in Berlin) we were excited to visit the world's tallest bridge in Millau. It has a structural height of 343m and is a 7 pylon multi-span bridge. It is not only beautiful with its needle pylons reaching for the sky but is also considered an engineering marvel.  Gorges du Tarn A canyon formed by the Tarn River near the beginning of its journey to the Atlantic Ocean is nearly 53km long and 400-600m deep. Over millennia the river has eaten its way through the limestone plateau. The gorges are flanked ...