3 Skills to Get You through Your Gap Year - By: Mark Bottell

A gap year is all about getting out there and learning the skills of life by living it. However, there are a few things you can learn before you go that will be of great benefit during your time away.

Know How to Haggle

The chances are that by the time you’re old enough to go away on a gap year, you will have come across pushy shop keepers and market stall owners on holidays and trips abroad before. However, when you’re away for a slightly longer period of time, knowing how to haggle is essential to maintaining a healthy budget and bank balance. Wherever you end up going, you will undoubtedly visit a market, your eyes the size of saucers at the sight of all the wonderful souvenirs you could take home to remind you of your trip years down the line. Unfortunately, you can also be sure that shopkeepers will spot the fact that you’re on your gap year from a mile away and will be hoping to make plenty of money out of you. Knowing how to haggle will not only save you money, but as you may not win every bargaining battle you enter, it will also save you adding too much weight to your backpack.

Know How to Play Cards

We’ve all played games of Snap or Top Trumps as children, but going on a gap year requires you to have an entirely new repertoire of games up your sleeve. Whether you are part of a project, staying in a hostel, or sleeping in a camper van there will be evenings when you need something to entertain yourself and others and a pack of cards is the perfect thing. Solitaire will keep you amused if you have no one else to play with, whilst a few games of Gin, Go Fish, Rummy or Cheat will keep you busy for hours, before you move onto more serious things such as Poker. And if you really think ahead, as well as packing an ordinary set of cards, you could also add in a few games of the Monopoly Card Game or Uno. The company may change, but the traveller’s card games stay the same wherever in the world you go.

Know How to Make Small Talk

While you’re away on a gap year, you will find yourself meeting new people over and over again. Some of them, you will only spend a very limited amount of time with – for example on the bus ride to the top of the platform you’re planning to bungee jump off, or the one day they happen to be on the same hike or excursion as you. For these people, small talk is the key. To be sure, they might well turn out to be great friends or travelling companions but you won’t know that until you’ve had a few conversations with them. So, be prepared to fill those awkward silences with plenty of chat about where you’re from, what you do, how many siblings you have, where you’ve been and where you’re going. Whether you end up seeing more of them down the line or not, small talk is much more sociable than silence.

A gap year will change you and help you to grow up in ways that you can’t imagine. However, making sure you’ve got a few of those life skills under your belt before you set off can only help to enhance your trip.

About the Author

Mark Bottell is the General Manager for Worldwide Experience, an online tour operator offering extended breaks on gap year and other http://www.worldwideexperience.com/wildlife_conservation_placements.htm" wildlife conservation holidays for adults.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Mark-Bottell/95891

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