You might want to start by thinking about the geographical scope of your journey. There are fewer initial costs if you want to stick to Europe – an inter-rail ticket for the continent, for example, will cost less than four hundred pounds. Still, once you arrive at your destination, your money will go a lot further if you go to the classic traveller destinations such as Asia, Africa or South America. In addition, if you are interested in volunteering abroad, you may find different types of opportunities in Europe than you would further afield. Within Europe, you would be likely to find a need for volunteers teaching English, whereas the less developed countries are likely to offer a greater variety of opportunities, from construction projects to activism in local communities, educating people about AIDS or sanitation.

For those who enjoy a physical challenge, there are many different ways to incorporate sports and adventure into your gap year. The most typical option is a ski season, which offers less opportunity for volunteering abroad, but the chance to live in the mountains for five or six months, skiing everyday and enjoying the general holiday atmosphere is a very attractive prospect for many gappers. There are ways of incorporating sports into your volunteering work – there are many placements which enable you to coach sport. You could coach rugby in Cape Town or live the ranch life on a cattle ranch in the USA.

If volunteering abroad is not your cup of tea, and you are hoping to use your gap year to save some funds that will be useful in the student bar in freshers’ week, it might not be as easy as you think. Most paid work abroad will involve some sort of ‘learn to earn’ element, in the sense that you will need to gain some sort of qualification that you are unlikely to already have, if you wish to take advantages of paid work opportunities overseas. Many young people dream of becoming a ski instructor, but to succeed in this high-responsibility position you will need to undergo an expensive and extensive course, which may take up a large part of the season. Paid work as an English language teacher will often demand an accredited ‘Teaching English as a Foreign Language’ course, and to teach other classic activities such as sailing, you are likely to need to relevant qualification. With the expenses involved in gaining paid employment, you may find that you end up just as hard up financially than if you had decided on volunteering. In addition to thinking about financial constraints, it is important to consider what kind of skills you want to develop and what type of experience you would really value.

Volunteering abroad is just one way to spend all or part of your gap year, but it offers so many opportunities in itself that many people consider it worth factoring into their year abroad plans. It is perhaps the closest you will ever come to really influencing the lives of people who are less fortunate than yourself, and fulfilment one can derive from this is difficult to compare to other life experiences. Whether you find yourself building, conserving, teaching or gathering cattle, volunteering overseas can take you to places you would never otherwise have experienced, whilst giving you the satisfaction of knowing that your time is being truly well spent.

Author Bio: Gus Caje-Medina wrote the Article ‘Considering Volunteering Abroad’ and recommends you Google ‘Original Volunteers’ for more information on volunteering abroad.

Category: Travel
Keywords: volunteer abroad, work abroad, overseas jobs