A-level results day: How to take an emergency gap year if you failed
No university place? You could keep bees, join the circus or go rally car driving across the desert
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Your support makes all the difference.If you haven’t quite got the A-level results you were hoping for, don’t despair – it’s the perfect time to get out of town. A gap year adventure is calling your name, and it doesn’t have to involve stinky hostels or teaching English as a foreign language. Here are our top suggestions for the quirkiest ways to avoid university.
Make films with Buddhist monks in Thailand
If you feel like your creative juices have been stifled at school, head to Thailand and join a programme to teach media and film literacy skills to communities in the north of the country. You will help schools and temples plug into the modern world and provide local people with a platform to express themselves and tell their stories. It has the added bonus of teaming you up with an experienced filmmaker against a backdrop of lush green landscapes and spectacular temples.
Map coral reefs in Madagascar
The magical island off the south east coast of Africa is home to thousands of animals that are found nowhere else, as well as some of the world’s least-explored dive sites. You can help teams record the wildlife by undertaking diving surveys, mapping the pristine coral reefs and studying the communities living in them. On land you will record wildlife in the famous Mangrove Forests. Don’t worry if you can’t dive, training will be provided at the start of the trip for novices.
Join the circus
Feel like it’s time to run away and join the circus? With time on your hands you can enrol on a six-week full-time circus skills course that includes classes on tumbling, trapeze and silk work. You don’t need any prior experience to sign up and it's intended to shape students up for entry into a professional programme. So you could go from clearing to Cirque du Soleil within the year...
Bee Farm in the Bashkortostan Republic
Want to surprise fellow travellers who are all headed to famous backpacker spots in South America? Make Machu Picchu seem mundane with a trip to the Bashkortostan Republic, a federal subject of Russia, where you can live on a bee farm in exchange for around five hours' work a day. As well as learning all about our endangered honey-making friends it promises to be a rural haven, perfect if the last thing you’d rather do right now is explain your life choices to teenagers in a packed hostel.
Hit the road
There are road trips. And then there is the Mongol Rally, where you can tick off the travel, charity and adventure boxes on your gap year list. The world famous “no rules” race begins in a top secret location near Prague and ends up in Mongolia but the route between the two is up to you. Teams have chosen to pass through Turkey, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The only rules are that rally vehicles must have a 1000cc engine limit, rally teams must be unsupported and you must raise at least £1,000 for charity.
theadventurists.com/mongol-rally
Become a qualified game ranger
Head to the Eastern Cape of South Africa and work on a game reserve while learning how to be a Level 1 accredited Field Guides Association of South Africa Guide. You will work with experienced rangers to study animal behaviour, learn about different types of flora and fauna and observe cloud formations as well as how to interact with visitors and build interpersonal and presentational skills. In one of the most beautiful places in the world, your days will shift between roaming on the range and studying for your exams.
Hit the slopes in Canada
If a ski season has always been on your bucket list, you're in luck. Ski le Gap offer snowboarding and skiing qualifications in the wintery wonderland of Mont Tremblant in Quebec, Canada. Fans of the white stuff can participate in an intensive 10-week programme, successful completion of which will see you leave with an internationally recognised Canadian Ski Instructions Alliance (CSIA) or Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructions (CASI) qualification. Optional French language classes are also available, in addition to weekend cultural trips to Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City. Gnarly.
Perfect your downward dog in Buenos Aires
If the stress of exams has got the better of you, consider taking some time out to relax and recuperate on a yoga retreat in Buenos Aires. In addition to working on your practice, budding yogis can also take part in tango lessons and work on their Spanish skills. No experience is necessary and the course is suitable for beginners and more experienced students.
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