<p>I will be finishing my term of duty in the Singapore Armed Forces in early November, and will be looking forward to enrolling in college in late August 2009–so, in other words, 9 months of absolute freedom. :)</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m looking for an activity (or activities) which will fully utilize the 9 months (and if necessary, the savings from my service: USD 6100). I want to go new places, meet new people, learn new things. And I can’t bear the thought of being stuck in an office all day. I want an activity that will knock my socks off. </p>
<p>I’m currently pondering bicycle touring to college through SE Asia and China then finally, the West Coast to the East Coast. (If there’s anyone who is flying down to Singapore and is willing to piggyback a bicycle over, that’ll be very very swell.) </p>
<p>Comments and suggestions from the parents? What can I do with my 9 months?</p>
<p>There’s an organization called Willing Workers on Organic Farms that might be worth looking into. My nephew graduated a semester early from high school and had planned to work on a farm, unfortunately after a ski accident he had knee surgery instead.</p>
<p>But your plan sounds fun too.</p>
<p>I spent a wonderful year traveling around the US with a camera photographing fire stations.</p>
<p>If you are a bit of a free spirit, how about spending a few weeks taking a Green Tortoise bus tour? It is like staying in hostels (yes, we do have hostels in the U.S.) but you are with the same people for days on end and you move from city to city in a bus. There is a a bit of a communal hippie aspect to it but if I had a lot of free time and were younger, I’d do it in a minute. It won’t burn through too much of your money and there are cheap places to stay at the beginning and at the end of the one-way trips, so you could extend the tours with your own sightseeing.
Here’s a link:
[Budget</a> Adventure Travel - Green Tortoise Adventure Tours](<a href=“http://www.greentortoise.com/budget.adventure.travel.html#crosscountry]Budget”>http://www.greentortoise.com/budget.adventure.travel.html#crosscountry)</p>
<p>The price is right:
USA Explorer 2008
Round Trip from New York/Boston in one big loop (Sun, Jul 20 - Fri, Aug 22)
34 Days: $1358 plus $352 for food/parks.
Includes Mt. Rushmore, Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, White Sands, Big Bend, New Orleans…</p>
<p>Or they have Eastbound trips that start out on the West Coast (San Francisco), do a lot of sightseeing, and end up on the East Coast (get off the bus in New York or go on to Boston). Here’s the day-by-day of the two week southern tour.
0. San Francisco<br>
<p>Thanks for the input! It does sound very interesting. But is there anything that could really use up the 9 months? I wouldn’t get this amount of time till, at the soonest, after college.</p>
<p>Hmmmm.
Mid November 2008 to mid August 2009… Nine months…
You could look at some of the web sites that have ideas for things to do during a “gap year” and see if any of them include ideas (like the “Willing Workers on Organic Farms” idea which my friends daughter has done and loved) that are not tied to an academic year. If you search this forum for gap year ideas, you will find links to helpful “gap year” web sites.</p>