Alastair Catto tells about his gap year, in which he made a documentary and learned some life lessons.

When the words “gap year” are mentioned they seem to conjure visions of hacking through the Amazon or white-water rafting in the Himalayas. But taking a year off is actually a huge responsibility, while the need to make it comes at a life-crossroads. After 18 years or so of being influenced by parents and teachers and TV, we are faced with our first real conundrum. There is no obvious right answer—but remember, a year is a long time to be away.

MY GAP YEAR
In 2004 I had the idea of making a documentary on my gap year. The main subject was the links between traditional medicine and religion in Asia (relating to my application to read medicine at Edinburgh University) but it also aimed to demonstrate travelling from an 18-year old perspective.

The project remained a pipe dream until I submitted the idea to a travel grant fund and was awarded a significant scholarship.

This is when I set up a team and the idea sprang into life. It was a huge challenge. As far as we could see nobody had tried to do this before so everything had to be learnt from scratch. We researched cameras, learnt the skills of editing and tried to steer our way through endless bureaucracy to get filming access. In my endeavours I spoke to Michael Palin's production team about microphone equipment and was invited on a government organised tour around North Korea (which I politely declined).

When we arrived in Asia, all the previous months of planning were swept away by the tsunami of 26th December 2004.

Shocked but emboldened by the experience of the clear-up, we still travelled across the continent interviewing everyone, from the Dalai Llama's doctor to hippie gap travellers in Goa and filmed from the Sri Lankan coastline to the base camp of Mount Everest.

On only two occasions did I feel truly scared. Once, when filming a Chinese soldier on a Tibetan mountain pass turned into an off-road car chase and again, when, in “Delhi Belly” desperation, I had to pass through three rows of razor wire, two entrenched machine gun posts and an anti-car bomb device, white loo roll held high, as I entered a blown-out government building in Kashmir to use their half-standing services.

In retrospect, we were foolhardy at times but overall we found travelling far less dangerous than expected. Also, the need to forge relationships everywhere in order to film was rewarding.

The documentary ended up as a strange synthesis of reflection on travelling and traditional medicine. Since it took a year and a half to finish, positive reviews have been gratifying. But the project had already been worthwhile because we learnt so much from our individual experiences and the process of the year as a whole.

In my mind that process is universal to gap years and has four main components: having ideas, rationalising and structuring them, earning the means to apply them, and finally living them.

Ideas
This is the catalyst for your whole year. My criteria were that whatever I did had to be something that could be learned from, that would be fulfilling and, of course, that I would enjoy.

Planning
Planning is mainly exciting, but it can be perplexing and sometimes really boring.

Start with an idea, an atlas, and some pins. Now shove them into countries - the exciting part. You follow that with the reality check: time, money, weather and flights. It can happen at least once that all the pins come back out - which is perplexing. Finally, once your destination countries are set, now comes the logistics: visas, vaccinations and remembering when you last had a tetanus booster, which are so boring that they can take you to the edge of sanity.

One aspect that requires much thought is who, if anyone, you travel with. A small group of very good friends is ideal. However, having travelled on my own for a month, I believe that going alone can work well for some people since you end up meeting so many others along the way. Another alternative is to take part in an organised project, though too often this decision is made solely on the basis of safety. Travelling is rarely dangerous as long as it is done responsibly. You cannot plan much beyond this because everything will change once you get out there and find the wealth of opportunites in the country itself.

Earning the means to put plans into action
I think that earning for your travels makes them truly your own. It is true that my project was only made possible with help from parents and that generous grant. But I still did my fair share, being bossed around by party-goers and packing CDs in a factory. I even entered into what has to be one of the least successful modelling careers ever. In the end, it wasn't so much what I did as the fact that I did it and had a great time. Everyone was in the same position; we all had a goal, were all young and (let's face it) a bit hopeless with absolutely no applicable skills (or so said Tesco). Some friends were even tempted by medical testing … until they realised that big money only comes with great sacrifice. I think the going rate was £2000 a toe! The working part of the year took four months, five jobs and zero modelling call- backs before leaving, with a slight dread of the unknown, for Sri Lanka.

Gap Living
Arriving in a foreign country can be overwhelming. In a place like Sri Lanka your senses are besieged. My very first unforgettable experience came when I groggily craned my neck to see what my incensed rickshaw driver was hooting at and was met by the sight of an elephant, casually strolling down the road, traffic swarming around its feet like bees at a nest. I think this must have been what psychologists call a “flashbulb memory”, a kind of mental picture imprinted on the brain at a time of high emotion, because I can remember everything about that scene exactly, as my senses were assailed by new sights, sounds and smells.

Undoubtedly the best part of any gap year is the surprising events of everyday
life. It is not always sun and paradise, but through adversity you soon discover untapped resources within yourself. Above all, you realise that there is nothing mystical that might tell you how to live, that there will be no“finding yourself” but that through the exercise of responsibility you do become responsible. This is the skill that employers and universities are looking for.

After a while, the cultural quirks start to lose their delight, all the temples begin to look the same and you realise, during a pang of nostalgia for Sunday roasts, that the year is almost up. I was ready to come back, but just before I stepped out at Heathrow I felt that same dread of the unknown that had hit me when leaving for Sri Lanka. This time though it took minutes, not days, to return to normal life. Everyone comes out having learnt a lot about themselves their friends and other cultures. And that is the point of a gap year, to learn.