A Grown-Up Gap Year

Colin, Riana, and Ellie during their gap year in Prague. Aren’t they gosh-darn adorable? Czech Republic, 2019.

Riana reached out to me after reading a few of my interviews for my Stakes project. Riana’s situation didn’t quite fit the project’s profile, but she has an interesting story and perspective to share that I wanted to capture.

She and her boyfriend, Colin, are taking a gap year in Prague from their home base in Vancouver. Though gap years aren’t unusual, the timeline on which Riana and Colin took theirs is a bit later than typical.

Why Riana Passed on a Traditional Gap Year

All hindsight truly comes in 20-20 vision. From her current vantage point, Riana wishes she’d taken the traditional gap year between high school graduation and college matriculation.

However, she’d received acceptance into university and had a nagging feeling that stepping out of the educational flow for a year would take her off track.

“I felt like if I didn’t go to university, I’d never go,” she said. “But I was a focused student, so I don’t think that was correct thinking.”

Riana said she learned a lot in college, though she doesn’t feel that much of what she learned has relevance to her current career. If she’d taken a gap year, she wonders if she would have had more insight into her passions and would have studied something more relevant to her eventual professional path.

And after college, when she could have grabbed a gap year before starting a career, Riana had a job lined up.

“If I could go back and give my past self advice on either or both occasions,” Riana said, “I would tell myself to go. The university will still be there. The job won’t work out.”

Why Did Riana Want to Take a Gap Year?

Riana had studied abroad for a five-month semester in Amsterdam during her high school tenure. From Amsterdam, she stayed a month in Japan. While in college, Riana spent a three-month internship in Swaziland.

Riana loves to travel.

“I'm happiest when I'm exploring a new place, seeing a new view, eating at a new restaurant, meeting new people,” she said. “That's my motivation to travel. Seeing something new and not just reading about it. The world is so much bigger than my little bubble in Vancouver. When I’m traveling, I find it incredible to meet all these people and to think through all these other lives that have nothing to do with me. They make me realize how small I am in comparison with the world.”

So why not just travel—why take a gap year? And what’s the difference between traveling extensively and spending twelve months in a place?

Though a year goes quickly, relocating for twelve months allows for a little more depth in a life-abroad experience, in Riana’s thinking. “You have to find a place to live, set up a bank account, get phone and internet,” she said. “You have to find a grocery store and figure out what everything is in a different language. You get a chance to find a local coffee shop and a local restaurant and get to know the other regulars and the staff.”

A further litmus test for depth: “I now read travel blogs on Prague and realize that the writers don’t know as much as I do from my experience living here for several months,” Riana said. “I have more know-how about the city.”

How They Took a Gap Year

Riana and her boyfriend, Colin, have spent several years in career mode: Riana is a freelance writer and travel planner and her boyfriend is an x-ray technician at a hospital. They own an apartment in Vancouver. They have much deeper roots than most college-aged youth headed off for a gap year abroad.

However, Riana always knew that she wanted to spend a year abroad, and they realized that they’d hit a good point in their lives to make it happen. “Colin could take a year’s leave from work without losing his seniority, we don’t have kids, and I work remotely,” she said. “If we don’t do it now, we thought, we’d be even more tied down than we already are.”

Colin, Ellie, and Riana in front of Prague’s famed astronomical clock. According to Riana, the clock is a bit… underwhelming in actuality. Czech Republic, 2019.

Riana and her boyfriend spent a good amount of time researching before they chose Prague for their year abroad. They applied for and received one-year youth visas with work permits thanks to a program between Canada and the Czech Republic.

Their Gap-Year Experience

When Riana and I spoke, she and Colin had reached approximately the halfway point of their gap year.

As expected, a gap year felt a lot different from her study-abroad and student-travel experiences, and for several reasons: She had her dog and her partner along for the ride and, unlike with study abroad and internship programs, they had no prescribed agenda for their year in Europe.

However, Riana surmised that her gap year didn’t quite align with most traditional gap years in feel. “The traditional gap year is about putting life on pause, blowing off steam, doing crazy things, and then going back to real life,” she said. “I’m still working, doing the same job I was doing back home. This makes life here feel more like life. It’s not a break.”

That not every day wouldn’t turn out to be pure happiness was her biggest surprise, she said. “There are still crappy days. Even your dream won’t be dreamy all the time.”

Riana has even had a few a-ha moments with her highly location-flexible career. “It’s not easy to work and travel,” she said. “They don’t go together seamlessly. It’s harder to carve out the time you need to work when you’re staying in a hotel or you’re on trains.”

Also, Riana said that they haven’t had much real ability to make friends outside the expat community in Prague. “It’s a pretty crappy friendship proposition,” she said. “We're only here for six more months, we plan to travel for three of them, and we don't speak the language.”

Riana said she felt more acclimated to her place abroad when she stayed with a host family in Swaziland. Living with locals, cooking and eating with them, and sharing the rhythm of their lives brought about more cultural integration. She and Colin don’t have this connection in Prague.

However, Riana said that they don’t need a lot of constant interaction; they don’t tend to go out networking and mingling even in Vancouver. They haven’t felt particularly confined by not having a vibrant and busy engagement calendar with local friends in Prague.

“Overall,” Riana said, “it’s been pretty positive and happy.”

Don’t Have Regrets

Riana admitted that she and Colin had talked about their potential for experiencing the post-trip blues when they returned to Vancouver. However, she said she’d feel a bit of sadness at homecoming even if they’d gone away for a week.

“We’re talking about ways to make going back more exciting,” she said. “We’re thinking about keeping our apartment rented and moving back into the city, where things are more vibrant. That would make life at home vibrant and new.”

Riana said she’s read about people who save up and then travel for two or three years at a stretch, which she thinks sounds fun. She likes the idea of a life with multiple gap years, even if she continues working at some level while on the road. Fortunately, she can take her job with her—even if it takes more accommodation than she realized on this go-around.

Would Riana recommend a grown-up gap year to others?

“Though maybe you won’t do something exactly as you’d have done it before, opportunities still exist. If you’ve always wanted to do something and you think you no longer can, think again,” she said. “Is the door truly closed? Or can you achieve what you wanted to achieve—just a little differently than you’d envisioned?”

Riana added, “Don’t have regrets. Even if it’s not exactly as you might have envisioned, it’s still worth it.”

If you’d like to read more about Riana and Colin’s grown-up gap year—and follow along on their travel adventures, check out her blog, Teaspoon of Adventure.

Thank you, Riana!

Riana and Colin with a view over central Prague on a gorgeous sunny day. Czech Republic, 2019.