Take a gap-year risk into the unknown

What was it that made my gap year? My first real taste of work (and earning from it)? The stunning gorge which splits the Spanish town of Ronda? Endless hours behind the counter at my local off-licence? Or lying awake in a tent in the Canadian bush listening for bears?

It was all these experiences and many more. It was independence and cooperation, freedom and responsibility.

I began my gap year with a fourmonth office placement, with another one planned (through GAP) as a volunteer in a summer camp in Canada.

However, I left six months free between the two and, at the end of my stint as a wage slave, decided to travel independently. I bought an Interail ticket, which entitles you to free or reduced fares on trains in Europe, and headed off for a month. I travelled with my girlfriend and our route took us through some of the major (and a few of the less major) cities of Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Spain and France.

What is perhaps most amazing about travelling in Europe is the level of variety you will see over such a small area. Travelling by rail allows you to see the landscape and people changing around you, rather than simply getting on an aeroplane in one place and getting off somewhere different.

The most stark contrast we saw was when we went from a small town called Brasov in Romania's Transylvania to Rome in a day. Romania was in some ways the low point of the trip and yet the most interesting. Arriving in its tiny Alpine resort of Predeal after a nightmare overnight journey, in which we had seen everything from fake customs officials to a 'journalism student' who turned out to be a confidence trickster, we realised the country was poorer than anywhere we had been before.

For the five days we spent there we were constantly looking over our shoulders and fending off incredibly persistent beggars. We also realised that our intended route, which took us to Istanbul and back through Athens, might have been a bit ambitious.

The most important thing about independent travelling is to be flexible and not overplan - you have to just let things happen and accept you're only in control up to a point. If you plan on Interailing, the one vital piece of kit is an up-to-date Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable. Ours proved indispensable.

After some eventful nights in Romania, we caught a train to the capital, Bucharest, and flew to Rome that afternoon. In moving from Central Europe to the western Mediterranean countries you get both a greater confidence in your own safety and a rise in prices.

From Rome we headed to Ventimiglia on the Italian Riviera. Then on into Spain, with a day in Barcelona while waiting for the train to Malaga, followed by a brief comic interlude in that little bit of Britain on the Costa del Sol - Torremolinos. From there our route took us through Ronda and Cordoba with a connection in Madrid on our way to taking the Eurostar home from Paris.

While I spent only a month in Europe, I felt that the way I saw the places I visited meant they had a greater impact on me than if I had gone to all the same towns and cities on package holidays.

I spent the next few months working in an off-licence, waiting to go to Canada without getting into debt in the process. I viewed my placement there with some foreboding since I knew next to nothing about what I was going to be doing.

I had spent the previous few months watching my friends head off travelling one by one, mainly along the usual student backpacking routes. But I was travelling into the unknown, without knowing a single person where I was going and without the feeling that I was in control of what I was doing.

However, within a few days of my arrival, I realised that it was exactly for those reasons that I was going to get so much out of the summer.

I worked at Camp Stephens in Kenora, Ontario, as a counsellor. I had a group of between eight and 12 children in my care, with whom I lived almost 24 hours a day, acting as instructor for most of the activities in which they participated - including canoeing, kayaking and sailing.

The job is a constant one, with few breaks from the children, but it rarely feels like a job. Often you find yourself simply becoming one of the kids - joining in with them and having as much fun as they do. But the work can be hard, and how you get on with your children can make or break a session. But I always felt I could rely on the support of the staff, who became some of my best friends.

Perhaps the aspect of Camp Stephens which I liked most is the wilderness programme. Set on an island in the enormous and virtually unpopulated Lake of the Woods, canoe trips are a huge part of camp life.

All the children go on camping trips of either one, two or three nights depending on how old they are. However, the camp also runs two-, three- and six-week-canoe trips, which are seen as the pinnacle of achievement for campers.

The six-week trip in particular operates on an invitation-only basis and takes seven campers (usually around the age of 18) and two leaders into the wilderness with nothing but a change of clothes, canoes, dried food and a tent. Even my limited experience of canoe trips as a counsellor showed me what I would like to think is the real Canada and certainly introduced me to a bit of myself which hadn't really met before.

By the end of my placement I was ready for a break but at the same time didn't want to leave the place or the people.

School leavers are taking gap years more and more. Some want to 'find themselves', some want to earn some money or improve their CVs before university, some want to do nothing at all.

With a bit of effort you can do all of these. The most important thing is to be flexible in your planning and do what suits you - don't just stick with the usual 'gap year experience', backpacking around South East Asia is not for everyone. Disasters aside, a gap year can be one of the best years of your life.

For further information on jobs abroad call GAP Activity Projects (0118 959 4914). STA (0870 160 6070, www.statravel.co.uk) specialises in student and youth travel. Interail tickets are available from Rail Europe (08705 848848, www.raileurope.co.uk).