Thailand is the 'most popular' destination for Britons considering a gap year

[surangw]

another reason to "mind the gap" ?

[richard_smith237]

Students have studied constantly up to the age of 18 years. A Levels are hard - They deserve a break... Perhaps get the degree out the way first though.

Anyone who has worked hard for A Levels and a Degree deserves to take a break. The stress of exams, constant deadlines and course work the results of which can have a dramatic impact on your future can be overwhelming, its great for anyone to take a break before commencing on a career or whatever crappy opportunity life affords them....

Some are lucky, but most will never have the opportunity to truly relax for any duration of time until retirement... I'm not thinking of getting these kids to give something back, they've worked hard for a break. They'll give something back in due time with the taxes most of them will pay throughout their careers.

Many study up until they are 15 or 16 and have to get a job to survive in this world. Maybe help their family to survive. This gap year nonsense is just that...nonsense and usually only seen in the realm of those with parents who can afford to allow their little darlings another year of mummy loves you darling = here's x amount of money to go play with. In all of my years on this planet I have never seen or known anyone who has had a gap year. I've known plenty who have taken a year off after leaving school and completing an apprenticeship or a degree...they really have earned it. To suggest that someone who has just finished school and somehow has done something special ... well we live in different worlds.

You don't believe they should go straight into Employment or directly to University do you ?

Perhaps physically fit people shouldn't be permitted to retire ?... After all, someone who has worked all their life until the age of 65 has done nothing more special than anyone else, why do they deserve it?... (rhetorical question, we know the answer - of course everyone has the right to a happy retirement, equally so, if someone can afford it they have the right to take a break for as long as they wish).

Thus - for someone who is going to work the rest of their life (until retirement) what is wrong with taking a year out ?...

This doesn't need to turn into a have's and have not's thread: If people can't afford a gap year thats sad, but that doesn't mean those who can afford to experience the world (at whatever level) shouldn't.

Who decides they have earned it? Did Bob and Jean down the road truly earn their 2 week holiday to Lanzarote this year ? (again, rhetorical question).

There are so many people on this forum who have lost judgemental balance - It seems as though threads like this always bring out 'some' of the Older folk to hammer the young and why? because they never had the same opportunities? Little darlings, really?... everyone on this forum, even the bitter old folk who enjoy throwing so much judgement around were once someones little darling. It's a shame the bitter folk were not afforded similar opportunities and experiences in their younger years to balance out the Chip weighing on their shoulders and to soften the bitterness eating away....

Would the critics have enjoyed a year long holiday after working hard at School and A-Levels, and even Uni ?...

Huh? Don't tell me the public purse subsidises gap years? If someone wants to travel, who the hell cares?

Exactly... But is this forum would suggest, some grumpy buggers forget they too were once young, full of energy and dreams and believe otherwise...

[zydeco]

Students have studied constantly up to the age of 18 years. A Levels are hard - They deserve a break... Perhaps get the degree out the way first though.

Anyone who has worked hard for A Levels and a Degree deserves to take a break. The stress of exams, constant deadlines and course work the results of which can have a dramatic impact on your future can be overwhelming, its great for anyone to take a break before commencing on a career or whatever crappy opportunity life affords them....

Some are lucky, but most will never have the opportunity to truly relax for any duration of time until retirement... I'm not thinking of getting these kids to give something back, they've worked hard for a break. They'll give something back in due time with the taxes most of them will pay throughout their careers.

Many study up until they are 15 or 16 and have to get a job to survive in this world. Maybe help their family to survive. This gap year nonsense is just that...nonsense and usually only seen in the realm of those with parents who can afford to allow their little darlings another year of mummy loves you darling = here's x amount of money to go play with. In all of my years on this planet I have never seen or known anyone who has had a gap year. I've known plenty who have taken a year off after leaving school and completing an apprenticeship or a degree...they really have earned it. To suggest that someone who has just finished school and somehow has done something special ... well we live in different worlds.

You don't believe they should go straight into Employment or directly to University do you ?

Perhaps physically fit people shouldn't be permitted to retire ?... After all, someone who has worked all their life until the age of 65 has done nothing more special than anyone else, why do they deserve it?... (rhetorical question, we know the answer - of course everyone has the right to a happy retirement, equally so, if someone can afford it they have the right to take a break for as long as they wish).

Thus - for someone who is going to work the rest of their life (until retirement) what is wrong with taking a year out ?...

This doesn't need to turn into a have's and have not's thread: If people can't afford a gap year thats sad, but that doesn't mean those who can afford to experience the world (at whatever level) shouldn't.

Who decides they have earned it? Did Bob and Jean down the road truly earn their 2 week holiday to Lanzarote this year ? (again, rhetorical question).

There are so many people on this forum who have lost judgemental balance - It seems as though threads like this always bring out 'some' of the Older folk to hammer the young and why? because they never had the same opportunities? Little darlings, really?... everyone on this forum, even the bitter old folk who enjoy throwing so much judgement around were once someones little darling. It's a shame the bitter folk were not afforded similar opportunities and experiences in their younger years to balance out the Chip weighing on their shoulders and to soften the bitterness eating away....

Would the critics have enjoyed a year long holiday after working hard at School and A-Levels, and even Uni ?...

Huh? Don't tell me the public purse subsidises gap years? If someone wants to travel, who the hell cares?

The only subsidy I received for my "gap years" were combat boots and an M16.

[thomash]

Yeah if they go to Phuket they will

get some life lessons in getting

ripped off as a tourist. If they go to Pattaya they will get whole another

type of life lessons about the facts

of life.

[sdanielmcev]

As an employer, I would not find a prospective employee that needed a "gap year" a worker i would want. That said, I have been on permanent vacation since 1974.

[jabek]

As an employer, I would not find a prospective employee that needed a "gap year" a worker i would want. That said, I have been on permanent vacation since 1974.

As an former employer, those are precisely the people I'd give a job too. At least they had the guts (albeit supplemented by family or whatever) to get off their butts and see something of the world.

Travel really does broaden the mind. Hopefully they'll be exposed to situations where they can see the difference between the value and the cost of something, whether it be an object or an experience - give me those people every time.

[Bagwan]

Yeah if they go to Phuket they will

get some life lessons in getting

ripped off as a tourist. If they go to Pattaya they will get whole another

type of life lessons about the facts

of life.

I doubt that anybody taking a gap year in Thailand will learn very much that will enable them to be attractive to prospective employers, and to rise high enough up the social and professional scales to earn enough money to keep their future families in a reasonable degree of comfort. If youngsters are so intent on a life of lassitude and pleasure seeking then they can expect to end up as being just another brick in the wall.

[55Jay]

You can't have any pudding unless you finish your meat.

[Time Traveller]

what is a gap year?

[anotheruser]

Many arrive and get a job in a " hole in the wall " language school, get a couple of months salary and move on to other parts of the region without telling the school they are going.

To be fair some work in more reputable schools and do hang around but for those intent in getting the best out of their gap year Thailand is only a jumping off point because it's easy to get to on cheap flights.

So what's wrong with that? They should feel loyal to some unscrupulous employer that probably hired them illegally?

[anotheruser]

what is a gap year?

gap = gay and proud.

[Ricardo]

what is a gap year?

Some young people are so traumatised at the prospect of finally having to work for a living, that when they complete their studies and leave school they need to take a year off to go travelling round the world, although only places with tropical-climates need apply, they usually attend a full-moon-party on Koh P'hang An (sp ?) and see how poor-people in the real (developing) world really live, and are suddenly inspired to return to college to spend another 3-4 years goofing off studying.

Happily they have rich parents who can afford to pay for this 'life changing experience', or can go fruit-picking in 'The Land of Oz Aus', to fund it.

Seems a great idea to me !

The word "gap" refers to the time between leaving-school & starting higher-education. I myself had a "gap summer", which I spent working to try to save a few quid, towards the poverty-years as an undergraduate-student sharing a 3-room terraced-house in Leeds with 5 other students !

My Yorkshire friend tells me that he spent his own "gap year" living in a wet paper-bag, in t'middle o' t'road, but that the young people of today don't believe him.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Ricardo

[gemini81]

Backpackers peopling the /spawn/ of the Me-generation: ohhhhhhhh! those Millenialist couch potatoes...HUGE carbon footprint...costs as much carbon to ship a backpacking Me-ist from JFK, NYC to Bkk as it does to heat the average AmneriKKKan home for a year...then, there's the d@mnable *eco-tourism--killing reefs & stuffing beaches w/scum & Russians--what more could a Nation want? ;-} rap.

What a load of incoherent rubbish.

[richard_smith237]

what is a gap year?

Some young people are so traumatised at the prospect of finally having to work for a living, that when they complete their studies and leave school they need to take a year off to go travelling round the world, although only places with tropical-climates need apply, they usually attend a full-moon-party on Koh P'hang An (sp ?) and see how poor-people in the real (developing) world really live, and are suddenly inspired to return to college to spend another 3-4 years goofing off studying.

Happily they have rich parents who can afford to pay for this 'life changing experience', or can go fruit-picking in 'The Land of Oz Aus', to fund it.

Seems a great idea to me !

The word "gap" refers to the time between leaving-school & starting higher-education. I myself had a "gap summer", which I spent working to try to save a few quid, towards the poverty-years as an undergraduate-student sharing a 3-room terraced-house in Leeds with 5 other students !

My Yorkshire friend tells me that he spent his own "gap year" living in a wet paper-bag, in t'middle o' t'road, but that the young people of today don't believe him.

hmm.. a completely unprejudiced, non-biased, balanced view point there...