Volunteer On Gap Year And Take Your Parents?

Thank you to Andrew Singer at WYSTC for allowing us to publish this post.  Source: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225836/One-Gap-year-students-ditch-hedonistic-tradition-invite-parents-travels.html

One in four gap year students want their parents along.

Gap year travelling provides teenagers with the ultimate escape from parental surveillance.  Unless, of course, mummy and daddy are coming along.

One in four students taking time out before university are, it seems, turning their backs on hedonistic parties and adrenaline-filled activities in favour of taking their parents (and, hopefully, their chequebooks) along on their travels.

In a poll of 3,000 students due to take a year out before university next year, 750 said they would prefer the comfort and stability of their parents coming on the trip with them – whether it was trekking the Inca trail, or lion-spotting in Africa.

Incredibly, the researchers also found 400 of the students wanted to bring their childhood teddy with them – some declaring it to be more critical than a mobile phone.

The survey, by the online reality series The Gap Year: Challenge New Zealand, found the most popular reason for taking a year out, cited by 25 percent of the students, was ‘exploring wildlife’, closely followed by ‘taking part in cultural activities’, which was listed by another 23 percent as their main reason.

Student John Hendry, 18, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, is embarking on a year-long trip to Australia.

He said he wanted his parents to go with him for part of the journey.

‘I’m a bit nervous about going away by myself. I’ve never lived away from home before so it will come as a bit of a shock.

‘If my mum and dad came with me for the first six months or so, then I think I’d feeler safer and more confident about doing the last six months by myself.’

He added: “I know it sounds a bit pathetic, but I think my mum and dad would like it too – they are both retired so could do with a gap year just like me.”

Around 250,000 students took gap years in 2008, but the number is expected to fall this year due to the recession which has hit 18-25-year-olds hardest.

A spokesman for the company Gap Year For Grown Ups said: ‘An increasing number of parents not content with weekly email updates are jetting off and joining their children on their travels.

“The newfound popularity of mature travel is not solely based on parents’ desire to check up on the kids; it also gives them the opportunity to get in on the excitement and new experiences offered by gap year travel.”