WEBVTT - What's a gap year anyway? 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.520 Hey, San Francisco, Hey Seattle, Come see us because we're 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:08.360 gonna be there January, and that's right, we're going backwards 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:10.320 in time. Will be at the More on the sixteenth 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:12.280 in Seattle. Will be at the Castro on the eighteenth 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.400 in San Francisco as part of Sketch Fest. And as always, 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:17.279 you can check out ticket links and get all the 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.920 info you need at our touring home on the web 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:25.600 thanks to squarespace at s y s K live dot com. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.920 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:37.040 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.519 I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.840 over there. Me so free since, which is not true 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.560 at all, but it does rhyme, so it's catchy. She's 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.440 it could be maybe me so three since three o'clock 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.880 yesterday afternoon. Maybe No, that doesn't count because she's still 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.520 got a little hunk in her teeth. Oh god, so 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.120 um Chuck. Yes, we are gathered here today to discuss 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.080 probably the most important topic we've ever covered, the most 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:13.720 hard hitting, timely topic that we've ever taken on. And 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:15.480 I'm I'm not sure if we're up to the task, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.520 but we're going to give it a try. And what 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.360 we're talking about today our gap years. Yeah. Did this 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.440 remind you to the old days of stuff you should know? Yeah, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.600 a little bit, hopefully not the new current days of 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.320 stuff you should know when the occasional topic would come along, 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:36.920 that's uh slight and we and we do it anyway, Yeah, 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.520 because as everyone knows, but we haven't said it for 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.880 a while, we are dedicated to explaining absolutely everything in 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.640 the universe, and that explained that includes gap years. This 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:48.800 is a thing. And I should also point out to 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:54.120 the reason I picked this. Uh, it's not a turkey 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.320 Thanksgiving on the brain, but it's not a turkey now. 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.240 The reason I picked this was because when I was 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.960 a teenager, I had never heard of a gap here, 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.799 and up until very recently, I had heard the term 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.200 and thought it meant taking a year off after college 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.919 before you go into the workforce. Uh. Yeah, I did 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.880 not know you could totally do that if you want 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:25.200 to completely ruin your life. Shoot, I didn't. I mean 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.240 I didn't enter the workforce allows in my thirties. No, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:34.400 it's true, it's true. I had jobs, right, Yeah, so um, No, 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.520 it's it's a gap year. From what I understand is, 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.320 like you said, it's between it's taking a year off 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.400 between high school and college to do things like find yourself, 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.840 to make yourself a more creative person, to um see 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.960 the world, to immerse yourself in other cultures. Maybe volunteer. Yeah, 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.760 volunteering is a big one. UM. But the the crux 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.440 of it is that you are you are becoming a 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.840 more mature person during this year between high school and college, 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.880 almost like it's a rite of passage, and that when 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.639 you're done with this year and you go to enter college, 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.639 you're a UM, you're much stabler, You've worked on things 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.760 like grit and resilience and UM, you've you're a much 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.120 wiser person than you would have been had you just 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.919 hoped from high school off to college. That's the idealized 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.680 version of it. Yeah, that's the idea. UM. I Like 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.560 I said, I did not know this was an option 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:36.200 to me. UM. And maybe that's because I'm a I'm 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.000 an American like you, because this is not it's gaining 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.280 some traction in America, but it is certainly not. Uh, 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.480 we're not gap You're heavy here in the States. It 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.240 seems to be very popular in Europe, especially among the Brits, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.920 and then especially among the Aussies. They like to take 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.080 a year off and and go see the world and 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.840 do stuff and kind of this what they want to 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.800 do in college. Yeah, And I mean it's been around 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.320 for a little while, but it really did just kind 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.320 of stick to the UK and then Australia and even 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.320 still today. Like I'm sure there's plenty of people who 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:14.000 have no idea what a gap here is who are 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:15.920 listening to this. Did you do it or I'm not 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.120 I know you didn't do it, but did you know 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:22.800 this was a thing? Um? No, I didn't. I didn't. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.279 I think in the United States it does happen more 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.680 than we realize, but people don't call it a gap here, 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.840 and it's not necessarily intentional. Did you take a gap here? No? No, 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.359 I didn't. Yes, I did, And I just kind of 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.760 worked my way through, um and over time, actually going 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:44.200 from college college I actually kind of became a much 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.479 better student than I was had I just followed like 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.560 a traditional path, um, yeah, where you just go from 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.480 you know, one high school to your you know college, 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.479 your choice. Uh. And so I guess I had some 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.000 of the benefits of a gap here. But I didn't 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.560 just take a year off and travel or or even 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:04.560 you know, work or anything. He took a year off 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.919 while you were in school, right, I'm like Van Wilder 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.240 and Ferris Bueller rolled into one. I will say this, 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.240 you know, I've I've talked about it before. It took 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.720 me six years to complete my degree at Georgia, and 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:21.240 the first three of those years I had I was 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:23.600 completely up to date, and then it took me three 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.719 more years to get that final year. Well yeah, let's 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.320 I mean, what was it that stretched it out? I 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.719 just I just tapped the brakes. Man. I was having 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.680 a good time and I dropped my first classes like 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.640 my junior year. I was like, man, that's that feels 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.360 good to go to a class once and be like, nah, 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.839 you know what, I'm not gonna come back. And so 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:49.719 after I did that a couple of times, I felt 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:51.320 and I was, you know, paying my own way at 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.000 this point. Um, my parents helped me out the first 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:55.440 couple of years, and then I kind of just worked 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.680 my way through. But uh, I was like, you know, 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.119 I'm gonna do it style and I'm just gonna slow 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.840 my role and I love Athens, and my friends are 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.760 all here, so I'm just gonna take maybe a class 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.560 a quarter, maybe two, and it takes me how long 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:13.640 you know it's gonna take me? How long it takes me? 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.440 So that that song don't go back to Rockdale, like 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.760 really spoke to you, don't go back to Rockville. Well, no, 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.640 it was originally Rockdale, it was. It was, Yeah, it 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.559 was a Michael Stipe song maybe or he had something 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.480 to do with it, and and they were talking about like Conyers. 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.760 Oh really, I did not know that. And I the 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.159 reason I also said Rockdale because I couldn't remember what 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.160 they ended up naming the song, right, But it really 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.400 was originally Rockdale. I believe you Rockdale County. So you 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.720 use the Spicoli method of graduating your senior year? Yeah, 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.360 I was. You know, we're gen xers, so we very 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.920 famously as a generation, weren't like chomping to jump into 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.800 the corporate workforce when we were twenty two years old, right, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.159 we were way too cynical for that. No, man, I 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.880 had no aims to to get a real job anytime soon. 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.159 So no, And did you have friends, because I certainly did? 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.359 Who man? Hit that track? We're in business school, um 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.640 like had their major completed in like three or three 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.960 and a half years, maybe went on to get their 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:18.240 m b a. And were miserable by like age twenty two. Well, 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:21.679 I knew people. I wouldn't say my close friends, because 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:23.600 my close friends were all sort of in my boat, 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:28.640 which is to say, the the slow steamer paddle boat 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.360 that the Colie method at the end of the race. Yeah, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.480 but I knew of people who did that, and they, 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.200 you know, some of them got jobs, you know, like 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.040 real jobs at twenty three years old. And I just 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:41.240 I don't know, it seemed so weird to me at 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.760 the time, but now that's sort of what it seems 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.000 like most people are trying to do. No, it's and 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.240 it's true. But and I remember, like all of those 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:49.840 people are the ones who have had four oh one 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.200 case for like fifteen years longer than you and I 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.720 have a good point. But they also, if I remember correctly, 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.120 we're to a person miserable at least at some point 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.880 immediately host college. They were not happy people. And a 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.440 lot of that reason is because you get burnout. And 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.280 I was researching burnout, and it's definitely a thing. It's 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:11.640 it's it's a it's its own thing. But I couldn't 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.440 find any studies on like, you know, what was actually 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:20.160 going on neurologically or biologically. Now I was kind of hoping, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.640 but but it is treated as a real thing school burnout, 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.440 study burnout. And there's this idea that if you just 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.080 kind of hit the books too hard for too prolonged 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.760 a time, you develop a mental and even physical and 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.120 emotional fatigue to where your stress levels just as such 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:40.440 a high pitch that you're basically your baseline is raised 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:45.880 and you're you're cognitively affected your perhaps you develop a 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:50.120 diagnosable mental health disorder. UM. I read that something like 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.920 a third of students enter in college in some poll 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.280 taken in the last few years had considered suicide and 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.240 that they had diagnosable mental health conditions and they attribute 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.040 this to burnout. And so that is one of the 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.480 one of the big marks in the favor of taking 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.320 a gap year, is this idea that you can you 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.760 can you know, cut that that cord of straight from 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:18.600 high school to college and then into the workforce, um 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.560 and just just like take some me time and do 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.560 something different and really explore yourself in the world, and 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.680 in doing so, you'll kind of recharge your batteries and 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.520 you can hit college with a fresh start rather than 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.240 grinding it out from high school straight into college. Yeah, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.400 and I actual should add this. Back when we were 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.960 in high school and applying to colleges, it was a 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.240 different deal. Like I, I didn't have to work very 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.839 hard in high school to get a's and b's. My 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:47.720 high school. It was a good public high school, but 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.880 it was not that challenging. Is that the social experiment 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.800 high school? Okay, it was just a regular high school. 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:56.600 But do you remember, like didn't you have like no 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.680 walls and and just did you see all those people 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.640 who wrote in and said, Josh is right, this is 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.240 like an actual experiment that was done in the seventies. Well, 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.120 maybe they'll publish the findings because I didn't you know 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.880 it was a secret experiment if it was one. But uh, 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.480 it just wasn't that hard, and so I was never 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:18.240 burnt out and felt like, boy, I could use some 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.520 time off. And then getting into college was a lot 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.080 easier back then too, before the Hope scholarship, Yeah, it was. 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.040 It was not nearly as competitive even for state schools, 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.280 and um, there are high schools, though, like that are 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.560 really tough now. Public high schools. Roswell High School here 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.480 in the suburbs is notorious for being really really hard 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.680 and competitive, and like there are seventeen year old kids 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.560 suffering from academic burnout because of such a challenging environment 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:49.800 and then trying to get into the schools, you know, 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:51.560 with a you know, I have a four oh, and 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.720 it's not good enough, and it's like, are you kidding me? Right, 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:56.480 it's like a four oh. In our days, you kind 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.960 of write your ticket, you know, oh, yeah, you go 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.760 to Harvard Gale since you had your pick basically. But 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.000 all that is to say that I get the benefits 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.760 for sure of a gap here these days, Yeah, because 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.720 I think what you're saying is that things have changed 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.200 since we were in high school or college. Yeah, and 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.240 like it's that I guess it's the whole rise of 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.959 helicopter parenting, where kids are just like, it's not good 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:21.360 enough to have good grades. You have to have a 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.960 well rounded resume by the time you are trying to 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.880 get to college. And yeah, kids are probably way more 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.520 burned out today than they were back in our day. 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.160 Back in our day, if you were burned out. It 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.760 meant you smoked a lot of pots teenager burnout, right, 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.000 So so there's a gap here. There is such a thing. 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.080 And like you said, it's it's kind of popular in Britain. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.800 There was a little lull in two thousand eleven, I 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.680 think between two thousand and eleven and fourteen where it 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.760 drops significantly, which we'll talk about later, but um, it's 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.960 studied again and it seems to be a rite of 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:59.800 passage among British um high school kids. Uh, that's here 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.080 to day. It's kind of a thing. Not not everyone 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.360 does it, in fact, not even close to the majority 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.080 does it, but a significant amount too. And the United 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.520 States is far less. It's something like eleven in the 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.640 in Britain, two compared to one point two percent in 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.120 the United States. That was back in two thousand and eleven. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:17.800 And this are sort of old, but I bet it's 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.640 not too different now, right, Yeah. And the reason why 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:23.520 it's is I think it's kind of rooted in that 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.559 American mentality of like, can you really afford to take 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.000 a year off? Even if you can afford it financially, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.520 what are you doing to your future? And that's something 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:36.600 that people have really started to explore, especially since Malia 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.640 Obama took a gap year famously back and I think 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.240 two thousand sixteen. It really kind of called the idea 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.559 to the attention of Americans more than it happened before. Yeah, 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.120 she went to she did it through a program, and 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.640 we'll talk a bit about this. There's a couple of 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:53.800 ways you can do it. You can wing it and 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:55.880 do your own thing, or you can actually sign up 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.440 for a program that will um set you up for 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.760 your gap year. Used one called Where there Be Dragons. 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.840 It's a pretty crazy actual name. And she went to 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:10.359 Peru and Bolivia and at one point and turned uh 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:15.040 sort of unfortunately at the Weinstein Company pre uh you know, 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.960 scandal right, so um so yeah, but she brought like 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:25.000 a lot of attention to the idea of like taking 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.440 a gap year, and then went to Harvard because this 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:29.760 it's not like she was slouching. And that's sort of 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.880 the point as a gap here. It doesn't mean you're slouching. 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.080 It means you're probably you're probably more of a go 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.840 getter than somebody who might just go straight into you know, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.160 public university, right exactly, that there's this whole kind of 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.800 an year two at this idea that like you're going 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.320 to you're so good at this, you can take a 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.360 year off and go see the world and and really 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.120 get an idea of how the other half lives before 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.560 coming in to get your education, in the hopes that 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.680 your education will now be based on a foundation of 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:05.360 understanding and awareness rather than like entitlement, so that after 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.559 you do graduate, you can take everything you learned and 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.360 use your powers for good, like Spider Man. Yeah, you 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.640 want to take a break. Yeah, let's let's take a break, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:15.200 and then we'll come back and talk about where all 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:45.760 this uh laziness started in the nineteen sixties and jo alright, Chuck, 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.280 So it's kind of appropriate that the gap here started 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.360 in the sixties. Um there there, you know it was 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.200 the sixties. You don't really need to say anything more 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:58.400 than that. Yeah, In the United States, our conception of 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.840 the sixties is pretty close to what happened in the 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.320 sixties and Great Britain, Um, where the gap here kind 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.360 of began. Um, And there was already this kind of 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:14.320 desire for more and for meaning and spirituality among Western 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.480 kids that really kind of dates back to the Beat, 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:22.120 the Beat generation. Um, who really kind of laid this path. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.280 But um, there wasn't anything like a gap here at 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.920 the time. And even in the sixties when people started 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.680 setting up these the thing these programs that would become 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.120 the foundations of what would become the gap here, um, 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.360 they still didn't call it a gap here. It was 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.960 more like a year of giving back, of seeing the world. Um. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.040 All the stuff that you would do on a gap 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.440 here today, they kind of came along in separate little 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:52.680 instances that eventually kind of coalesced into this formalized procedure 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:56.160 of taking a gap here. Yeah, and it seems like, um, 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.560 and we got some of this stuff from there is 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.520 a website called gap here dot um if you want 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:03.680 to know everything you need to know about gap years 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:06.280 and uh it seems to have really kicked off in 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.480 earnest aside from just like sort of hippies going off 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.200 to find themselves in India in the late sixties and 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:16.320 sixties seven with a man named Nicholas McLean Bristol who 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.320 set up something called Project Trust wherein he took some uh, 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:25.080 some kids to Ethiopia and to do exactly what you 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.280 do at a gap here, which is to help people 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.720 out there to learn about the country to sort of, um, 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.520 devote yourself to them for a period of time, to 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.720 learn about them and yourself and how to you know, 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.480 live independently and stuff like that. And after that it 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.560 seemed like the gap here was really sort of a thing. Yeah, 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.280 well they made it a thing, like they were the 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:49.080 first ones to establish it. And then so that happened 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.360 simultaneously to like you said, those hippies going to India 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.720 to find themselves and following the Hippie trail, and that 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.880 was that was a thing that was significant. Like there 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:03.240 were there were people who would go backpack from London 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.159 to Catman do in some cases or at least to 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:12.919 goa on the coast of India. They would go through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.320 they would like hitchhike through these places and um, it 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.160 was like a real experience to do something like this. 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.760 So that was going on at the same time that, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.000 like the a formal program that introduced the idea of 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.160 taking a year off and going to you know, volunteer 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.399 was going on as well. Um. And there was a 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.160 guy who in the nineteen seventies, I think nineteen seventy three, 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.680 his name was Graham Turner. His nickname was screw as 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:45.320 k r o O. Uh. Yeah. He bought a double 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.400 decker bus like a you know, the famous London busses 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.919 and sold tickets on it and drove from London to 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.359 Catman Do following that hippie trail and really kind of 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.399 um spread the word that this was a it was 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.840 no longer just backpacking. You could take like a tour, 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.760 an actual tour of us tour down this hippie trail, 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.960 and um, he actually ended up founding two companies. One 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.800 was top Deck Travel which refers to that bus travel, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.439 and another one's Flight Center, and they were like the 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:21.840 first hippie gap year travel companies that were ever established, 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.560 which was another big deal to help kind of build 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.040 this foundation for gap years. Yeah, and he was successful. 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.800 He was an ausie that was based out of London. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.639 But um, I think this the first one was in 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.439 seventy three and by uh he had between seventy and 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.840 eighty of these busses. Yeah, I saw that. So it 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.520 really really gained steam pretty fast because, like you said, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.800 people were doing it anyway and for someone to make 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.080 it easier on you by formalizing it and saying, hey, 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.280 we'll take you. Just save up a little bit of money. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.280 And you know, these were bus trips, so imagine they 0:18:55.280 --> 0:19:00.160 were fairly affordable in the seventies and early eighties. Um, 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:02.040 so it didn't cost a lot of money and it 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:06.160 really made uh gap here's kind of explode at the time. Yep. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:08.920 And then so you've got all these kind of components 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.520 revving out there doing their own thing. Um. Another one 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:14.800 that kind of came along and helped things was when 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.720 Tony and Maureen Wheeler um did like a trip to 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:24.160 Asia over land. Like they basically backpacked to Asia from 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:29.120 I think London, um, and they they made it to Australia, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:30.879 I believe, where they lived for a few years and 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.480 got jobs and we're just kind of hanging out. Um. 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.160 But people they met in Australia kept bothering them for 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.360 like tips on how to do that same route to Asia. 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.720 And they ended up putting everything together into a book 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:48.639 called Asia on the Cheap and um Across Asia and 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:52.960 the Cheap Sorry, and um, they they they wrote it themselves, 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.399 they published themselves. Um. Tony took it to bookstores and said, hey, 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.080 I've got this book, you guys want this, And people 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.960 started buying it, and it became the first title in 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.600 the Lonely Planet series. They ended up founding Lonely Planet. Yeah, 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.480 which is I mean, if you if you're a kid 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:09.760 who has put on a backpack, then you have probably 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.280 uh seen some of the Lonely Planet titles in your 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.120 in your travels. I never owned one. Uh I think 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.280 we were me and my buddy where Let's go dudes. 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.880 So there was another brand called the you know, Let's 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.760 Go Europe or whatever, Let's go Costa Rica. So we 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.240 had Let's Go Europe. But they were definitely Lonely Planet 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.640 people in the hostels and we used to get into 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.920 you know, knife and chain fights with them over which 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.840 was you know, the better the better book series. Yeah, 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.200 those are brutal fights stuff. But that so that's another 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.360 thing too. So and so as all this, all these 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.800 people are kind of contributing these these different pieces, Like 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:52.160 this alternative travel industry is starting to develop. Right where before, 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:54.399 if you wanted to go see the world, you really 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.760 kind of had to pay like a tour operator or 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.280 a travel agent or something like that. And now if 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.240 you had the where with all to say, I don't 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:02.679 want to do all that tour stuff I want to 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.800 see the real world. UM. There was this new kind 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.760 of industry that was being generated in the late sixties 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.760 and early seventies, mid seventies at the latest UM that 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.080 would help you do that, like on the cheap um 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.479 on your own, like you could buy a Lonely Planet 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.360 book and follow the guide and just do it yourself. 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.000 UM and and all this stuff was new, and so 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.640 as people started to kind of notice that like, oh, 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:30.200 this would this would I could go do this for 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:31.760 a year, and maybe a good time to do it 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.160 would be after high school, this idea of a gap 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:38.679 year really started to kind of develop. UM. In nine 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.680 seven there was a group called the Gap Activity Projects. 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.560 I think it's called Latitude Global Volunteering now, and they 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:49.960 kind of picked up where Project Trust um let off. 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.159 And I think Project Trust is still around, so I 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.919 guess they would be competitors or colleagues or whatever, but 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.199 where they basically organized tours for people who want to 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.560 go volunteer or where you just say there's why I 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:04.080 want to go and that's what I want to do, 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.960 and they say, perfect, We'll handle all of your visa applications, 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.440 will handle all of your plane tickets, will handle your itinerary. 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:13.800 On this day, you're gonna go sight seeing. On this day, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.840