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Focus only on your own growth.
GapYear is a time for growth and happiness.
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Live the life you love, love the life you live Love the life you live, live the life you love. If you're planning a gap year, be brave. Take one step further forward. Do what you love, something you can pour your passion into. If not now, you might never get the chance. Believe in yourself and trust the choice you made. |
62nd Gap Year Tribe — GapperLee Mi-kyung
Gap year period:January 2015–January 2016 (total 1 year)
True happiness found on the road while traveling the world by couchsurfing and hitchhiking.
Currently, South Korea is,
Each year, 60,000 middle and high school students drop out of school; 346,000 people in their twenties are just idling because they have no dreams; the turnover rate within one year after employment has entered the 40% range,75% of university students are not satisfied with their college life, and over 80% of workers report that they do not feel happy.Many people tell them to dream, but to address this problem that lacks practical methods and support,we aim to introduce the 'gap year' to South Korea.
'Gap year (Gapyear)'is a time to either combine or temporarily pause studies and work and, through various activities such as volunteering, travel, internships, education, and startups,it is a period for setting the direction to move forward, a practice encouraged in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and other countries.
*Check out a variety of experience opportunities on the Gap Year website!(Click)
# I wanted to spend time focused on myself and see the world beyond the one I live in with my own eyes.
In the summer of 2014, I went on my first solo trip to Europe for about 70 days. In fact, until then I wasn't very interested in traveling and didn't even take domestic trips. I just wanted to see Europe that everyone said was so wonderful. While preparing for the trip, I had no idea it would change my life so much.
But for about two and a half months, each day my heart raced and the trip was filled with happy moments that made me look forward to the next day.I was so overwhelmed that I grabbed my diary and sobbed for two hours on the flight back to Korea. Lying in my room, the dreamlike moments—the times I sat in front of the Eiffel Tower and watched the lights go out—flashed by like a panorama. It was the first time I had felt my heart pound like that every day.
So I vowed to travel again. I didn't know when, but I definitely wanted to go on a long trip before graduating from college.I wanted to feel again the passion, happiness, and the stirring in my heart that I experienced while traveling. And I wanted to spend time focused solely on myself and see with my own eyes the world outside the one I live in.
# I wanted to observe their 'daily lives' up close.
When I first went to Europe, I lacked information and, since it was my first trip, I stayed at well-known hostels and had a rich experience. Last year's trip concept was to try everything other travelers do and to see and learn as much as possible. The goal was to visit many countries in Europe. I spent money freely, visited landmarks, dragged my suitcase around, and enjoyed what I considered a somewhat luxurious trip.
So for this trip I set a different goal: to try a very low-budget journey. I was confident and thought, 'Other travelers do it, so I can too.' I started referring to blogs of people who had traveled before. I contacted travelers directly to get information and attended talks.
At that time, there happened to be someone who had crossed Turkey for three months on a budget of 1,000,000 won using couchsurfing and a bicycle. The thought that I needed to earn money made me feel bleak, but seeing the possibility of low-budget travel gave me hope. AndOn this trip, I wanted not to just observe the country's culture from the outside but to blend into the local culture. Because I wanted to experience and understand locals' daily lives up close, I decided to use couchsurfing and hitchhiking.
In what environments people in other countries work and how their daily lives differ from mine,I was curious about what values people my age from various nationalities hold, so I wanted to observe their 'daily lives' up close.
# Hitchhiking more than 200 times made my journey more precious and special than anything else.
When I'm standing on the road ready to hitchhike, thumb raised waiting for a car, I feel truly free in that moment. But I don't think hitchhiking alone can be without fear or nerves. I get tense. What if I can't recognize a bad person and get into the car? It can't be 100 percent safe all the time.So I thoroughly checked articles and news to see whether the country I planned to visit was dangerous, and from two to three days before going to a country I would fill A4 sheets with basic conversational phrases to memorize and practice them with drivers while hitchhiking.After all, I think the quality of a trip depends a lot on whether you can speak even a little of the country's language.
I tried couchsurfing for the first time in Turkey and began hitchhiking in earnest in the Caucasus. My first couchsurfing host in Turkey was a female college student the same age as me; the second host was a couple who were really good cooks; the third was a male tattoo artist. I stayed on the living room sofa of the tattoo shop. Every morning they would buy kebab and chocolate milk from the kebab shop near the tattoo shop, drink them, and then open the tattoo shop.
The tattoo shop was apparently quite famous in Trabzon and was bustling with Turks. Customers would come by, sit in the living room, and chat together. Perhaps because English didn't work, they served Turkish tea and even gave me intensive Turkish lessons. When the host finished work, they'd have a beer with neighborhood friends, come home, watch a movie, and sleep. And when I visited the art university in Yerevan, Armenia, a photography professor happened to see the photos on my camera and had my pictures exhibited in the university's photography exhibition.
I went to an outdoor concert with Armenian friends, and when it started raining we even danced together in the rain. I took acting classes and went to see plays with Yeonyeong and friends I wouldn't have had many chances to meet in Korea, and I met a travel mentor whom I truly admire — someone traveling the world by motorcycle — and traveled with them, gaining many tips and courage. Thanks to my mentor's teachings, I think I was able to travel joyfully, happily, and safely for a year.
Iran had a strong Middle Eastern atmosphere unlike any country I had experienced.In Iran I traveled without money. Not simply because I had no money, but because traveling without money allowed me to feel the warmth and generosity of the locals that I hadn't felt when I had money, and it let me step away from tourist sights to get closer to the lives and culture of the locals.
Iran, where Islam and free-spirited souls are wildly intertwined. After I started traveling without money, things I’d never paid attention to before began to catch my eye first. I met many different families and, being invited, began to sleep in all sorts of homes. Every house had carpets full of distinct personalities, some had verses from the Quran hanging on the wall, and most apartment toilets were squat-style.
In every home I visited, cucumbers, apples, and puffed bread were neatly placed in the kitchen almost like essentials. At 5 a.m. I would throw on a chador and walk into the neighborhood mosque without planning, learn how to pray from Iranian women, sit on the mosque steps drinking chai, and be struck once again by the dazzling splendor of Iranian mosques.
I did many kinds of work in Europe. I believed that gaining direct workplace experience by working with locals was part of travel, so I tried to do whatever opportunities came along.In Slovakia, through Couchsurfing I was introduced by a boy my age I met by chance and ended up joining a Slovak youth scout camp as a staff member.
It was truly a plain in the middle of the forest with nothing around. A vast meadow stretched endlessly and was surrounded on all sides by sturdy trees. There was no electricity and it was quite far from town. We foraged herbs to brew natural tea, built a shower ourselves, and used stream water for showering.
We ran around mountains and fields enjoying various programs with the children and ran a workshop teaching Korean.We also opened a shop. It was probably the first time I had been away from the electricity, electronic devices, and civilization we normally use for such a long time. Even now when I close my eyes I remember a midsummer night. At nightfall, even without electricity, the Milky Way spread across the cloudless sky. The weather was warm, so my coworkers and I spread sleeping bags on the grass, crawled inside, and chatted through the night while watching a sky that seemed as if stars were pouring down.
If you quietly follow the passage of time, meteor after meteor sometimes crosses the sky. Each time that happened, I would make a wish. I wished that even if I left this place someday, I would still see shooting stars like those of today, and that I would not forget this happy moment but keep it deep in my heart.
In Belgium I picked plums at an ecovillage/farm and cooked meals for the people I worked with using ingredients sponsored by Carrefour. On the dreamy island of Hvar in Croatia, I worked at a hostel for three weeks making pancakes for breakfast, blending vegetable juices, cleaning, and guiding guests on tours of the island. Oh, I also dove off a cliff over 15 meters high in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It was a truly thrilling moment.
There were really difficult moments. It was October, when many refugees from Syria and Afghanistan were entering Europe. At first, I simply wanted to help the refugees who had lost their homes because of war and terror. Although it would have been far if I were in Korea, at that time, with refugee news frequent in Europe, it was something I really wanted to do.
Because the German refugee volunteer community was the most active, on a German friend's recommendation I went to a refugee camp without much planning. At first I planned to help for two or three days and then leave, but I ended up working for about two weeks and, because I had a plane ticket booked in advance, I had to stop working reluctantly. The refugee camp was truly intense. I think people who only read about it in newspapers would never be able to relate. I was like that too.
After experiencing the reality of the refugee camp, I witnessed the harsh conditions and heartbreaking stories and felt that I didn't have the strength to help, and I cried all night. Even when my body was tired and exhausted, when more than 5,000 refugees arrived at the camp in a day and shivered while waiting for immigration checks, we were short-staffed and sometimes slept less than three hours and worked until sunrise.
On a cold day when the autumn rain poured all night, there was an incident where a woman who had been waiting in the rain for immigration processing for almost eight hours suffered hypothermia and miscarried her child; it was truly heartbreaking, and I resented the indifferent world that turned its back on them, and I was so shocked that I could do nothing but cry in hiding. Providing clothes to refugees shivering from the cold, serving warm cooked food, and helping refugees receive immigration procedures in better conditions was extremely hard, but seeing refugees leave the camp smiling after finishing their immigration checks filled me with a sense of fulfillment.
As Europe began to get colder, I took a plane and went to Thailand.When I'm bored, my feet always head to the university. I would go to the university library to catch up on current affairs reading I'd fallen behind on and write, watch local university students playing basketball at the court, and sometimes, with a professor's permission, sit next to locals and take diligent notes while attending classes.
So in Thailand, rather than traveling, I spent time like an exchange student, hanging out with various Thai university friends. I lived with a Thai friend in a women's dormitory in the Maepaluang area, rode a scooter to school to attend classes and eat at the cafeteria, and after class went for coffee with friends and visited the night market to snack, seeing and learning more closely about Thai university students' daily lives.
I also went to school festivals and helped friends with assignments or projects. Then I went to the beach, lay in a hammock and enjoyed some alone time while drinking coconut juice. I visited several families' homes and watched with shining eyes as my friend's father cooked tom yum goong. Seeing how families lived in very different housing conditions, I also felt the seriousness of Thailand's wealth gap.
And finally, I ended the trip in Japan, a distant neighboring country. A close college friend came to visit, and we hitchhiked together, made local friends, and had a really good time. On a cold snowy winter day, we hitchhiked from Tokyo to Osaka, blowing on our cold hands. When we were so cold waiting for a car for an hour, we ran in circles in the service area parking lot next to the highway.
We even slept rough at Kyoto Station spreading out flyers, but having my friend with me made me feel really secure. We went to Japanese friends' homes and cooked Japanese food together, turned on variety shows all night and lay in the kotatsu chatting, and after walking until our feet hurt all day to save on transportation, we entered a warm, cozy onsen. It was tough, butLike the saying that when you're young you even buy hardships, these were precious and happy moments that couldn't be exchanged for anything.
For me, travel was another form of education. Of course it was a 'school on the road,' different from what you learn at school.
For me, travel was another kind of learning. Of course, it was a 'school on the road,' different from what you learn in school.It was a new way of learning experienced with my two feet, two eyes, and my heart. I wanted to know about the daily lives of people living outside my small room.
What kind of lives do the countless people my age, people working in various fields, and families in the world actually lead? What values and cultures do they live by? Exploring these questions was my greatest interest.Day by day I studied life anew, sharing perspectives with people outside my world and wandering somewhere between reality and ideals. And while traveling the world I did many things I had never challenged before.
Over 371 days I traveled through 27 countries observing the daily lives of locals. It started simply with couchsurfing, but somehow I got hooked on hitchhiking so much that during the year I could count on one hand the times I took intercity buses or trains.By hitchhiking I crossed borders and traveled 19,105 km. I met more than 200 drivers while hitchhiking, and many of them left a strong impression. Some still keep in personal contact with me.
Thus,Hitchhiking over 200 times made my trip more valuable and special than anything else.If I hadn't hitchhiked, I would never have been invited to a Belgian family's home to make Belgian pancakes in the morning. I wouldn't have met a Hollywood film director or worked a day as a temp at a Slovak rock band's concert. There is so much uniqueness that hitchhiking gives that it's impossible to give it up. Looking into a driver's eyes and having short conversations before getting in the car and meeting many people taught me how to read people.
- Things I learned while hitchhiking
You can learn the kindness of others, quickly pick up the country's culture and language, visit local places that ordinary tourists easily miss, encounter unpredictable and dynamic events, and learn how to distinguish people and how to trust.
At first I really didn't trust people. I probably felt that way even more after going to India (the touts...). Honestly, when I said I was hitchhiking people would say, 'Oh come on, who would pick you up these days?' but people really did give me rides. There are many strange people in the world, but there are also many warm-hearted people.I felt that the world is truly beautiful and worth living in.
It's enjoyable. When you learn and experience things like this, you develop a sense of duty to give back what you've received. It's fun to ride many different cars, to learn and prepare for each highway, and to entrust your body to the road. Waiting a long time for a car can be boring, but when you succeed in hitchhiking it's fulfilling and rewarding. You come to trust people more and get many more opportunities to acquire culture, so hitchhiking enriches travel. Taking a bus alone for 10 hours can be boring, but hitchhiking is completely dynamic with no chance to be bored. You're always talking with the driver. I was busy 24 hours a day.
Through hitchhiking I learned a lot of basic Turkish conversation. When I was in Turkey I could basically communicate with Turks without problems. When English didn't work at all, I carried scraps of paper with Turkish and Persian written on them in my pocket, took them out to practice with drivers who couldn't speak English, learned new sentences and had my pronunciation corrected. Drivers would sometimes take me to local restaurants when they got hungry, and in those cases I discovered truly local eateries. Also, unlike buses, hitchhiking often passes through or briefly stops at many intermediate points that tourists miss, which is another great aspect of hitchhiking.
It's easy to improve your language skills, and you meet people in a variety of professions—doctors, film directors, mechanics, shop owners, and so on. You also learn everyday aspects like what kinds of cars people usually drive and what radio stations or music they listen to, and you pick up basic information about the country, its history, and politics. And of course, since you don't pay for transportation, it's a win-win!
#Rather than pursuing qualifications just to add a line to my resume, I want to do work that genuinely enriches my life and allows me to live more passionately.
Through my gap year I learned that the world is vast and there are many wonderful people, and that I have so many shortcomings. I always learn while traveling. There is a saying, "travel is a school on the road." Meeting various people, seeing and trying different things, I am always learning something. (djembe, portrait drawing, meeting entrepreneurs, studying history, etc.)
I often think the world is worth living in and beautiful.It's really fun to break down prejudices while traveling.The prejudices and biases I had toward Islam, black people, and Europeans have been dismantled one by one. I want to see people as people regardless of religion, background, or age. I constantly think about how I should live in the future and how to make my life richer and more passionate. I used to believe that careers were simply about getting a job and focused only on big companies and attending university for employment, but that mindset has changed. I want to live passionately.
I hadn't really felt truly happy before.Sometimes I felt happy, but I never felt my heart pounding every day or wanted to live longer, or that my life was lovable and joyful. I used to wonder why my life was so bland and dull, but these days each day is dynamic and happy.
I think I've become more grateful for small things and more positive. I think more about life—about living a meaningful life. Even if I don't earn a lot of money, I consider how I can become a better version of myself than yesterday, and how my life can become happier and more fulfilling.
And these days I'm writing down and trying one by one the things that used to remain just thoughts. I always make a bucket list.Every early year I write it out concretely—where and how I want to travel. When I think of something I want to do, I jot it down and place it somewhere visible and look at it often, imagining myself accomplishing the bucket list. I also reward myself when I achieve goals and sometimes set concrete timeframes for taking action.
A tip for making a bucket list is to write it by category. I divided mine into travel, culture, career, and hobbies. Looking at my bucket list often makes me continually question what kind of person I am and think about how to live a happy life without regrets. Compared to my vague 'I'll do it someday' self, after making a bucket list I have acted on more things and found more joy in life. I really think life flows as you think.
I want to study my major diligently so I can confidently share knowledge in my field with others, and rather than building credentials for a line on my resume, I want to do work that genuinely increases the value of my life and allows me to live more passionately.Not obsessing over employment like other college students is unrealistic and idealistic, but it's my life so I want to live doing what I want. I feel like I'm doing well, so I'm not particularly worried about not getting a job. I believe that if I work hard, there will always be a way. I've also become very interested in languages.
Actually, before taking my gap year I had many concerns about my career path. Is taking a leave to travel the right thing to do? Am I making the right choice? I worried a lot, but after seeking enough advice from professors and seniors, I made the regret-free decision to spend my gap year traveling. I realized it only after the trip ended.I don't know whether the path I'm taking is right or wrong, but I have gained confidence in the path I'm on. The ideal life I dream of may differ from others' ideals, but I love myself for dreaming every day and moving forward to live the life I want.
My parents, who were very worried at first, came to see it positively later as I traveled: I kept in frequent contact, sent photos with local friends, and showed them how I was earnestly experiencing the world.
#These days I look forward to tomorrow every day.
These days every day is truly enjoyable like a trip. I'm spending time practicing and reviewing what I learned through travel. I'm constantly paying attention to international affairs, history, and social issues that I became interested in while traveling, and I'm enjoying a settled life that's different from wandering around.
In fact, my career path still isn't firmly decided, but through various experiences I think I'm gradually finding direction. I'm living each day doing what I want so I don't have regrets—working hard and having fun.These days I'm writing a book, traveling, and studying more deeply the subjects I wanted to learn.
Recently I've been spending a joyful summer vacation on the Han River windsurfing and doing SUP, hobbies I recently picked up. These days I look forward to each new day. I also want to be someone who helps society—I want to give the kindness I received to those in need. When foreign friends I met while traveling visit Korea, I show them around Seoul and take them to good restaurants. I also joined the university's exchange student club.
Like the local friends who took care of me and were a big support when I traveled, I want to be a helper and friend to foreign students when they need help. I hope exchange students who come to Korea enjoy their time and leave with many happy memories.
Next year I'm going on exchange to Barcelona, Spain. So I'm studying Spanish hard. In fact, someday I want to travel through Latin America, help local communities and NGOs, and do volunteer work when I can. I want to volunteer as protocol/interpreter at the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018.Above all, I want to focus on making my present life more meaningful and loving it more.
#Live the life you love, love the life you live
Live the life you love, love the life you live
'Love the life you live, live the life you love'
It's my favorite phrase and something I always remind myself of when I start to lose focus.If you always envision and imagine the life you want, live each day happily and diligently, and love your current life, won't you eventually find yourself living the life you once admired?
If you're planning a gap year, be brave. Move one step forward. Do what you love and what you can pour your passion into. If not now, you might never do it. Trust yourself and the choices you've made.Make good use of your gap year to do the things you wanted to do but found difficult to devote yourself to while attending school, and the things you wanted to accomplish before graduating.
'The "Gapper of 100 Gap-Year People" is not a mentor who appears on TV or in books.They are the stories of people who were a little ahead of me and who showed a bit more courage than I did.I hope the stories of 100 people who faced similar situations and had similar concerns will offer some help when you reach important decision moments in your life.
Recommendations and submissions for the '100 Gap-Year' series are always welcome.
Please leave a comment or message, or email marketing manager Da-young Choi (choi@koreagapyear.com)!