Nine Go Travelling

I spent the first three months of 2025 in Kenya on a programme run by Africa & Asia Ventures. This was far from a certainty as up until as late as November 2024, all I knew was that I wanted to go to someplace different, exotic, and independent. Whilst I may have fallen into the programme like a happy accident, I am confident that I spent those months in the best way I could have, in the best place I could have, and with the best people I could have.

My earliest thoughts on how I wanted to spend my gap year were centred around Africa, before moving my attention towards Asia, and then settling on India as my first-choice location. Whilst searching for a company to do this with, I happened across AV, which I felt offered the closest experience to what I envisioned. However, when the India trip fell though, I was offered a place in Kenya at the last minute, leaving me with little more than a month to prepare for it. Regardless of a handful of weeks travelling Europe with friends in the Summer, I had never lived away from home for as long as this, and certainly not with strangers.

Without getting into song-and-verse, the programme’s structure kept us occupied and productive whilst also allowing us time to explore the remarkable corner of the world we found ourselves in. Inside and outside of our teaching jobs I felt we were as productive and organised as we could have been; as well at no point didI feel exhausted or burnt out at any point. The people I lived with were exceptional and after the first few weeks it felt like I had known these people for years. I spent my birthday out in Kenya with people who I’d never met until just a month before and the effort that they put into it was nothing-short of incredible.

Aside from a first-rate tan, I left Kenya with a sense of independence and maturity that I couldn’t have gained had the programme been organised in any other way. I never felt like I was being mothered or dictated to at any point, but I also felt like I had clear senses of responsibility, direction, and purpose that carried me through the twelve weeks. We were not, however, totally neglected to our own devices as the superb support team of Grace and Khalfan were at our beck-and-call to offer judgement and guidance if we ever needed it. I certainly left Kenya feeling more driven, grateful, and independent than when I arrived and for the character-building alone, I would recommend AV to anyone looking to take a gap year.