The Gap Year Site

At the end of high school, I was feeling burnt out from schoolwork.  I thought that if I took some time off I would feel excited to go to college and make the most of it.  And so I found a job working retail fulltime - a good experiece yet also one that made me want to get a college education - and started saving.  After about four months of working my friend and I had enough money, and we left for europe in January.  The only plans we made ahead of time were buying plane tickets and a Eurail train pass (highly recommended).  For the first half of the trip we just showed up at hostels - located using internet cafes - but as it got to be March and there were more travelers we had to call ahead to book beds.  Below are some web sites we found helpful.  There were certainly challenges along the way, including living on a small budget and the emotional challenge of constantly meeting new people and then saying goodbye.  But these things were EASILY outweighed but all the amazing experiences we had!!  The places we saw, the people we met, the stories we have now all make me so glad that I took this time in my life to grow and learn before going back to school.  If you have any questions about specifics or anything to do with our trip, don't hesitate to email me.  Good luck to all future gap yearers!
Ali Chase

some good hostel websites:
hostelworld.com
hostelbookers.com
hostels.com
hostelz.com