Gap Adventures Travel Oasis

Change your thoughts and you change your world: update from the Coolest Travel Interns

Posted on 18. Jan, 2010 by Culture Club in @ Gap Adventures, From the Field

Kerri

Taylor

One of our new core values here at Gap Adventures is all about our passion for changing people’s lives. In fact, We Love Changing People’s Lives. We love hearing stories about how your experiences on our trips have given new perspectives, led to new adventures or encouraged you to take a leap.
Before we were the World’s Coolest Travel Interns, we were in different parts of the world, in different parts of life, and inspired by the opportunities and experiences provided by Gap Adventures. We’ve each had our own life changing story with Gap Adventures and wanted to share them with you. Read on to learn about our journeys!

If you have a story to share of your own, please visit http://www.gapadventures.com/love-changing-lives/ to submit yours. We’d love to hear from you.

Kerri’s story

A sweaty October day in Agra walking around in awe of the Taj Mahal

In 2008 I decided that I needed to venture far out of my typical travel zone. After an unsuccessful campaign to wrestle friends and family into coming, I decided to venture out on my own. I settled on India – definitely not the usual choice for someone who’s venturing far, far overseas alone for the first time. I decided that the freedom within a small group that Gap Adventures offered would be the perfect way for me to explore such a fascinating country.
I booked the trip and was in anxious anticipation for the next few months, sharing my upcoming journey with anyone who would listen. Two months later I got on the plane and still couldn’t contain my excitement until I was warned ‘don’t trust anybody’ by several people just before landing in Delhi. My nerves started to sink in.

Moving from tuktuks to taxis in Mumbai

Arriving at the hotel in darkness, I slept away some hours and got ready to head to the front desk to find out when the group was meeting, which was a few hours later than I originally thought.

I panicked.

I couldn’t spend the entire day inside the hotel when all of Delhi was outside the front door. But I hadn’t been outside in daylight and I didn’t know what people would think of a foreign female traveling by herself. I didn’t know where to go and who to trust. I spent a few minutes figuring out my options in my hotel room. I decided to grab a book and head downstairs to the lobby and ask every person coming and going if they were on my trip.

Luck! I asked a woman in the lobby and she said yes and asked what I was doing that day. ‘Nothing!’ I said. ‘Do you want to come with us?’ she asked, and pointed to her husband at the front counter booking a car tour. I happily joined them and spent the day taking in the sounds, smells, colours and a few Kingfishers, and felt confident enough that if I was on my own the next day, I would have no problem by myself. Later that evening, we met up with the rest of our incredible group for the beginning of our adventure.

Typical street scene in Jaipur. I was blown away everyday by the colours in India!

It wasn’t only India and the new experiences there that changed my life, but also the people I met within my group. Staying in touch with everyone has kept me connected to the people who were closest to me when I visited such an overwhelming, eye-widening, yet beautiful place that has since changed my outlook on life. I was absolutely in awe of the history, values, and extreme contrasts in a country that loves bright, loud, and bold. I began to look at my personal journey in a new light, and decided to stop focusing on the things that were not truly benefiting my personal growth and passions.

That simple car tour in Delhi with a friendly Australian couple wound up leading me down a road that strayed far from the streets of India.  It turns out that the couple who had saved the day for me in Delhi were connected to Gap Adventures. I began to dive deep into the stories and history of Gap Adventures and loved everything it stood for. It inspired me as the ideal workplace to be passionate, work hard and share the type of experience I had had with others, and I knew I wanted to be a part of it.

Well, one intern contest and a giant leap later, I’m extremely happy and proud to be a part of the Gap Adventures family, and to help in changing people’s lives like they did mine.

Nakki Lake in Mount Abu - India's Switzerland

-Kerri

Taylor’s story

My "No Shoes" policy any time I'm on the island of Caye Caulker, Belize. I'm actually surprised I didn't have a rum-punch in my hand in this picture. Go Slow, mon!

Two years ago I was sitting in a classroom at Texas State University, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. If I went back to that younger me and told him what was going to happen to me over the next couple of years, I would never have believed it.

In the fall of 2008 I was offered a job to work as a tour leader in Central America. I was so charmed by the opportunity that I obtained special permission from my University to graduate early so that I could travel to Costa Rica in time for the very last training session of the year. I can still vividly remember pacing back and forth frenetically at the airport minutes before takeoff, knowing that as soon as I got on that plane my life would never be the same.

Volcano Baru is an extinct volcano and the highest point in Panama. We could see both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans from the summit!

I boarded that flight and never looked back. Since then I have worked for Gap Adventures in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico and Canada. I have gone places and seen things that I never thought before were possible.

I have always had a life full of ambition, but constantly searched for my direction. Within the first year of working at Gap Adventures, I have been given opportunities that I never thought would come to me.  It has given me the chance to lead adventure trips, organize events for our non-profit, produce videos, help develop new trips, blog, write, and who knows what I will be doing next month!

Stopping to stretch our legs (and backs) on our way from Nicaragua to Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Working as a tour leader is possibly the most rewarding and exciting job I could ever imagine. I was a little nervous about coming to the office, that I would just get stir-crazy or bored. Just the opposite has happened.  Being around these truly innovative and forward thinking people, Gap Adventures truly has been my University of Inspiration.

- Taylor Hess

Gap Adventures CEO and World’s Coolest Travel Intern

First Red-Eyed Tree Frog in Tortuguero, Costa Rica! He even let me gently pick him up and put him on a banana leaf so everybody in the group could get a good picture. Pura Vida!

Despite a valiant effort, our soccer team lost 5-6 to the Rara Avis Rainforest lodge staff in and instant classic "Tico-bowl 2009"