Gap-year stories with practical footing.
Gap Year Radio treats gap time as a practical life-design project, not just a break from school. Julia Rogers talks with travelers, gap-year alumni, and gap-year professionals about money, safety, family decisions, certifications, community, and what changes when plans meet real places.
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Gap Year Radio looks at gap time through the people who have actually tried it, planned it, funded it, taught it, or changed course because of it. The show’s center is practical experience. One episode follows Suzanne Roski’s adult sabbatical in Oaxaca after years in corporate consulting; another follows Luke Morton from a short Warriors Academy stay in South Africa into a second year of multi-activity instructor training. Sammy Westfall’s wilderness medicine semester brings in Montana, rescue training, wildland fire training, the Himalaya, and the difference between classroom knowledge and field judgment. Adam Salzman’s conversation turns personal finance into a gap-year skill, with budget buffers, foreign transaction fees, parent communication, work, and independence treated as part of the learning. Arjun’s solo travel story brings in safety choices, risk management, global citizenship, and the uneven mix of hard moments and human generosity. Nancy’s au pair experience in Palermo adds the texture of language gaps, family life, routine, place, and learning to appreciate a new setting. Dylan Sheeky’s creative gap year brings art, landscape, COVID-era connection, the American Southwest, and Cowhouse in Ireland into the same frame. The show also uses its Frequently Wondered Questions format to gather past alumni reflections around why someone might take a gap year at all. It is not only about destinations. Much of the value comes from the mechanics: choosing a program, entering a community, handling money, managing uncertainty, communicating clearly, and building confidence through repetition. Julia Rogers gives the conversations a planning-minded shape, but the guests supply the particulars. The tone is warm and orderly. It makes room for transformation without treating transformation as magic. A gap year here can be a semester, a travel year, a work experience, a creative reset, or an adult sabbatical. What connects the examples is experiential learning under real constraints. The show is most useful when it lets a story carry both the dream and the spreadsheet.
Made for: Suits a listener who is considering gap time, advising someone through it, or comparing programs and pathways before making a plan. It also suits families who want the emotional case and the logistical details in the same place.
What sets it apart: Gap Year Radio separates itself by staying close to named experiences, from Oaxaca community networks to wilderness medicine training and Palermo au pair life. The show treats growth, budgeting, safety, work, and program choice as connected parts of the same decision.
Gap Year Radio is a podcast that brings you information and inspiration to plan a life-changing gap year adventure. We focus on bringing you interviews from people from across the gap year spectrum - people who run or lead gap year programs, gap year alumni who can tell you about adventures and travel experts who can give you advice on how to turn your dream of a year out into a reality.Intro music credits:Quasi Motion Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
A foreign transaction fee meets a Zen monastery: your gap-year daydream has questions to answer.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Suzanne Roski makes an adult gap year feel like a serious family choice, not just a travel fantasy.
Suzanne Roski frames an adult gap year as more than an escape hatch. After a 25-year corporate consulting career, the founder of Vamanos Coaching and author of I'm Supposed to Be Doing This describes moving with her family to Oaxaca, Mexico, for a sabbatical that changed how she…
A nine-week South Africa plan becomes two years of training, friendship, and new direction.
Luke Morton's planned nine-week stay at Warriors Academy in South Africa turns into a two-year account of self-mastery, friendship, and learning to work through discomfort.
A grounded look at how wilderness medicine training sharpens assessment, communication, and judgment under pressure.
A wilderness medicine semester turns into a clear study of how training changes when the classroom gives way to an intensive WEMT block in Montana, rescue and wildland fire practice, and a month of trekking in the Himalaya.
A grounded look at money management as part of a gap year.
Gap Year Radio frames personal finance as a practical part of a gap year, not a separate lecture. Julia Rogers speaks with Adam Salzman about destination work experiences, earning money while traveling, and the independent living skills that come with managing real choices away…
Arjun's travel stories become a thoughtful lesson in risk, connection, and global citizenship.
Arjun's travel stories give Gap Year Radio a lively path into what travel can teach beyond classrooms and itineraries. The conversation sits with risk, safety, and luck without turning them into tidy lessons, then broadens into a clear idea of global citizenship: being able to…
A Palermo-area au pair routine turns childcare, mountain views, and Google Translate into a grounded case for gap-year adventure.
Gap Year Radio's season nine finale follows Nanny from a paused engineering degree in Canada into an au pair year in Italy, with Palermo giving the episode its shape.
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
Small habit changes meet hands-on AI experiments.
Suzanne Roski says a 25-year corporate consulting career, a July 2020 school email, and a move to Oaxaca, Mexico turned an adult gap year into a family sabbatical.
Julia Rogers, founder of Enroute Consulting and host of Gap Year Radio, speaks with Luke Morton about a planned nine-week stay at Warriors Academy in South Africa that became two years.
Julia Rogers interviews Sammy Westfall about Aerie Backcountry Medicine's fall semester, which moved from Montana EMT training to a month in India and the Himalaya.
On Gap Year Radio, Julia Rogers and Adam Salzman discuss how a gap year can become a practical apprenticeship in personal finance, budgeting, and independent living.
Gap Year Radio's season 10 opener follows Julia Rogers talking with Arjun Malaviya about solo travel to 100 countries before age 18.
Nancy pauses her engineering degree in Canada to become an au pair for two children in Palermo, Italy, through the Canadian agency Scotia Personnel.
Gap Year Radio host Julia Rogers interviews Dylan Sheeky about using a COVID-era gap year for ARC in Utah and Arizona, Cowhouse Studios in Wexford, Ireland, and a summer bike-shop job on Nantucket.
Connor describes taking a year-and-a-half break from university in Maryland before joining the College for Social Innovation’s Semester in the City program in Boston.
Katerina Sparling describes using Duke University’s Gap Year program and up to $15,000 in funding to build an independent year after being accepted into Duke’s class of 2027.
Julia Rogers, founder of On Route Consulting and host of Gap Year Radio, explains how students can use open weeks or months between gap-year programs.
Julia Rogers interviews Ben Henderson about a gap year built around Zen Buddhism, meditation, Japan, Costa Rica, and audio engineering.
Julia Rogers, founder of en route consulting and host of Gap Year Radio, profiles students who use gap years before college, vocational training, community college, credentialing, or military service.
Julia Rogers and Margo Brookfield introduce an episode about managing personal safety on a gap year, featuring risk management expert Dave Dennis.
Aliza Saunders discusses her social justice gap year with Tivnu in Portland, Oregon, focusing on direct service, macro issues, communal living, and exploring the Pacific Northwest.
Program director and alum discuss the Rising Earth Immersion program, a holistic environmental leadership gap year program at the Eco Institute in North Carolina.
Julia Rogers and Margo Brookfield discuss silver linings from COVID for gap year students and preview the 2021 program with researcher Kempie Blythe.
Jane and Jason of J2 Guides discuss their van life road trip and share tips for gap year students considering road trips during the pandemic.