The perils of grown-up gap years
Forget teens, it’s now well-off mid-lifers taking time out to see the world. But it’s not all plain sailing . . .
THEY had enjoyed a gap year of extraordinary sights and unforgettable experiences: Machu Pichu, dance festivals in Rio, cherry blossom in Japan, the beauty and poverty of India . . .
Yet the travellers were hardly typical backpackers — neither carefree teenagers taking time out before university nor twenty-somethings ‘finding themselves’ in beauty spots off the beaten track.
This was a round-the-world trip undertaken by 53-year-old Jayne Youdan and her partner Graham Turner, 45, who in 2013 quit the rat race and spent £40,000 on 12 months of high-octane travel.
‘I think a lot of our friends saw it as some kind of mid-life crisis,’ says Jayne, from Solihull in the West Midlands.
‘But after devoting more than 25 years to the children we each had from our first marriages, we felt as if we deserved to do something for ourselves.’
The couple are not alone in their mid-life wanderlust. Last week, a study by Barclays Bank confirmed that the Baby Boomer generation spend more on travel — and have more fun doing it — than any other age group. On average, say researchers, the over-55s spend £5,419 a year on foreign holidays compared with £3,187 among the 35 to 54 age group.
They are more adventurous than previous generations, too. ‘They feel younger . . . with a desire to do different things, travel and enjoy themselves,’ says Mike Saul, head of leisure at Barclays.
And, crucially, they can afford it. Despite the economic troubles of the past few years, the over-55s are in better financial shape than ever, with a disposable income up by 5.1 per cent since the downturn, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
If their debt-laden children are finding it harder to fund that costly gap year, increasing numbers of Baby Boomers, often free of a mortgage, are taking their place on the backpacker trail. According to a recent study by the Post Office, a quarter of all over-55s are seriously considering a 12-month break to travel — or, as it’s been dubbed, a ‘grey gap year’.
But it’s not for the faint-hearted: the first thing Jayne did was resign from her £45,000-a-year job as an NHS manager, a career she’d been building all her working life, and then, with her children’s blessing (she has two from her first marriage, now in their 20s), she booked her ticket for a world tour.
Setting off from Solihull train station in March 2013, she and Graham planned to follow the sun around the globe, from East to West, taking in countries including China, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Jordan and Japan.
DESPITE t he price t ag, this was no luxury trip. ‘We went from our lovely fourbedroom detached house to sleeping in tiny mixed dorms with triple bunks,’ says Jayne. ‘
‘We saw some wonderful things, but we also saw some shocking sights: the poverty and deprivation, children starving by the roadside in India. There was a great deal of perspective in that.
‘I surprised myself by becoming resilient. Things I thought I wouldn’t be able to stomach — dirty toilets, creepy insects — became second nature.’
The couple kept in regular contact with their children via Skype — Graham has three teenage children, who live with his former wife— but there was one major disappointment: the attitude of their friends back home, some of whom didn’t keep in touch.
‘Friends we’d regarded as close didn’t contact us for months, and that hurt. It had a big effect on us when we got back. The trip changed us for ever and perhaps it’s only natural that our social circle back home had to change, too,’ says Jayne
‘After the experiences we’d had, we didn’t seem to have much in common with some of our former friends. We’ve tried to see that as a positive thing, but it’s a definite factor to consider.’
Graham has since gone back to work, but Jayne didn’t return to her big salary job, instead wanting to do something more worthwhile. ‘I knew that settling
back into the nine-to-five would be difficult,’ she says.
Now she works for Opcare, a company t hat manufactures artificial limbs, and volunteers for a charity called Shelterbox, which supports the homeless.
Catherine Howard, an assistant headteacher from Birmingham, agrees that a gap year later in life can change you in radical ways. In 2010, then aged 58, she went to Rwanda, Central Africa, to train headteachers in the north of the country as a volunteer.
‘I’d spent 30 years wanting to have a gap year, but we all get caught up with careers and children,’ she says.
‘By 2010, I’d paid off my mortgage, I was approaching retirement and I had much more confidence than I’d ever had in my 20s. So I thought: “Why not go now?” ’
A divorcee, Catherine had two children who were in their late 20s and fully backed her plans. She spent a year training with the Voluntary Service Overseas before heading to a tiny Rwandan village, where she whizzed along dirt tracks between schools on a motorbike.
‘It isn’t easy learning to ride a motorbike in your late 50s or spending two hours on one riding to a school. But I did it, and it was a wonderful experience,’ she says. ‘You can often get the feeling that you’re disregarded in this country as you get older, yet in Rwanda they respect age and experience.
‘Often you’ve far exceeded their own life expectancy and you’re treated very differently.
‘I thought I’d come back and retire, but I came back a completely different person. I felt rejuvenated and ready to bring my new experiences into my teaching career at home. I’d do it again like a shot.’
But the grey gap year isn’t always so rewarding. Ill health, theft of belongings, missed transport, bad accommodation — all can justifiably be called ‘character building’ when you’re a teenager, but for the ‘grey gapper’, there’s less fun to be had when a dream turns sour.
For 56-year-old Sue Irwin and her partner Ray, 57, their fantasy of an untroubled, extended holiday turned out to be a nightmare of ruinous floods, stress, sickness and relationship strains.
Both divorced, Ray and Sue had been together for three years when they decided to take a year out. Rather than travel the world, they wanted to immerse themselves in the beautiful countryside near the historic city of Narbonne in southern France.
‘It just felt right,’ says Sue. ‘ My daughter Gemma, who was 20 at the time, was moving to Spain for a gap year, and my son, Ben, who was 23, had been working away as well. Why shouldn’t we go, too?’
Ray ran a printing company and Sue worked for him. By relocating the business for the year, they’d still have an income, but also have the longed-for chance to absorb a different way of life.
Sue rented out her three-bedroom semi in Truro, Cornwall, for the year — taking most of her furniture to France — and Ray put his house on the market. Yet from the start things didn’t go as they’d hoped.
They had rented a two-bedroom cottage online — a gite built in the grounds of a much larger house.
Excited after a long journey, they drove up a two-mile, winding dirt track, only to find a bleak, isolated building nestling among electricity pylons. Sue describes it as ‘the haunted house’.
‘It was nothing like the photos on the website,’ she says. ‘And the place was so neglected, the garden was infested with snakes up to 6 ft 6 in long. We called it Hiss Valley.’
In theory, the couple was allowed to use the swimming pool at the main house — but they didn’t because the owners let their dogs swim in it.
STILL, they made the best of it, and three months into their stay, began to feel settled, only for the owners to sell up, leaving Sue and Ray with nowhere to live.
‘It was expensive to move again and an upheaval. The second place was smaller, so most of our possessions went into storage in the cellar of a fellow Brit who helped us out.’
And then came real disaster. September brought torrential rain and everywhere was flooded — including the cellar. ‘Almost everything was ruined,’ says Sue.
‘By then I was worn out. I thought I was going to France for a year of rest and relaxation. Instead, it was one debacle after another.’
Then Ray became ill and was diagnosed with high cholesterol. Their French dream had included lovely cheese and pastries fresh from the boulangerie — yet now they were off-limits to Ray, and Sue felt unable to indulge when he couldn’t.
Their relationship began to feel the strain. ‘Because I could speak more French than Ray, I felt the weight of all these crises was on my shoulders. I was in tears, I just wanted to go back to Cornwall. We were so jinxed that even the removal lorry taking us home wasn’t big enough — so we had to leave many things behind.’
Experiences are mixed, then. But one thing’s for sure — the Baby Boomer generation love to travel, and in many cases have money and ambition. The gap year is no longer a teenage rite-of-passage.
Instead, as more over-55s strap on their backpacks or sign long-term rentals in the European sun, it’s getting greyer all the time.