Detour on Purpose: My Gap Year Between High School and College

Persona

Name: Elena Park (she/her), 18. Clarity about the future: 6/10 — I'm torn between environmental policy and urban planning, and I want to test what daily life in each might feel like.

Background: I grew up near the tide flats in Tacoma, Washington, in a busy household where dinner conversations jumped from car repairs to migratory birds. I'm the first in my family planning to study outside my home state.

Interests: Urban sketching, trail running, home baking, learning Spanish, and anything to do with water, maps, and cities.

Personal learning goals this year

— Reach strong conversational Spanish and hold a 15‑minute chat without switching to English.

— Keep a daily sketchbook and fill at least three notebooks with street scenes and quick portraits.

— Learn basic data skills through a free online curriculum and apply them to a small mapping project.

— Cook five cheap, balanced meals from scratch without a recipe.

— Volunteer on two community projects related to water or city life.

My Gap Year Story

I'm Elena, and I use she/her pronouns. I didn't expect to take a gap year, but a quiet feeling kept tapping my shoulder: if I want to work on cities and coasts, I should spend time in a few, listening before deciding. So I pressed pause on the straight‑to‑campus conveyor belt and bought a one‑way ticket with a budget spreadsheet that looked more ambitious than my legs on a hill run.

Back home, my weekends were a mix of sketching alleyways, checking the tide chart, and jogging on damp trails that smell like cedar. I liked the map side of my brain and the people side too, but I couldn't picture an actual workday. I figured a year of small, useful jobs in real places might help.

Cádiz, Spain: Sand, Sweep, Repeat

I started in Cádiz, a breezy city at the edge of the Atlantic. Mornings, I cleaned rooms at a small guesthouse near Playa de la Victoria in exchange for a bunk and breakfast. It was unglamorous in a nice way: I learned to fold sheets fast and say buenos días before coffee. Two afternoons a week I joined beach cleanups with a neighborhood group, sorting bottle caps from seaweed while older neighbors told me which wind meant rough waves.

My Spanish improved because I had to use it for actual things: asking about schedules, joking about sandy floors, and explaining why I always carried a sketchbook. I drew laundry lines fluttering between yellow buildings and tried to capture that bright ocean light with a finicky pen that kept leaking, like it was also adjusting to the humidity.

Valencia: Gardens and Street Corners

A train took me to Valencia next. I volunteered part‑time at a community garden in Ruzafa, learning how to set up drip lines and how quiet a busy neighborhood feels inside a patch of tomatoes. Mornings in the garden, afternoons mapping shaded benches and public fountains for a tiny side project, evenings at a plaza where a rotating group traded languages. My rule was to say yes to conversations and no to buying another notebook until I finished one.

I tested a simple budget: aim for under 900 euros a month by exchanging work for lodging when possible, cooking most meals, and walking more than I thought reasonable. Valencia helped because the city is flat and my feet are stubborn. My best dinner was a skillet of garlicky chickpeas I made three nights in a row while texting my parents a photo that looked like beige circles but tasted like victory.

Olot: Clay Hands, Basalt Paths

In Olot, north of Girona, I swapped city corners for hills. A local studio let me help wedge clay and sweep floors in exchange for a short workshop. I spent off‑hours jogging along old lava paths and sketching stone walls that seemed to be stitched into the fields. I didn't expect ceramics to connect with city planning, but shaping a cup taught me about patience and edges—how a small curve changes how something feels in a hand. Streets work like that too.

Zahara de la Sierra: The Olive Harvest

My final stop before winter was Zahara de la Sierra, a hill town with views that pause your thoughts. I joined an olive harvest for a few weeks: raking fruit onto nets, hauling crates, and learning to keep my wrists loose. Pay was a modest stipend plus a room and a table where lunch appeared like magic—lentils, bread, oranges that tasted like sunshine in a bowl. I fell asleep each night with shoulders pleasantly sore and boots dusty with crushed leaves.

When rain kept us indoors, I organized receipts and updated my little map of drinking fountains from Valencia, adding notes about shade at different hours. It was a tiny project, but labeling things clearly made me feel like a real helper.

What I Learned (Besides How to Fold a Fitted Sheet)

I learned that I like places where everyday life is visible: laundry, markets, bus stops with people who know each other. I learned I can live on a budget without turning fun into a spreadsheet, though I still tracked enough to see patterns. I learned to ask better questions, like “Where do people rest in the heat?” instead of “What's the coolest landmark?” My Spanish is comfortably chatty now, especially when I'm talking about weather, plugs, or bread.

Most important, I can picture a workday I might love: mornings on site visits, afternoons turning notes into simple maps or brief reports, and a couple of evenings a week open for neighborhood meetings. That picture isn't final, but it's more than a hunch.

Practical Notes That Kept Me Steady

— Budget guardrails: I aimed for under 900 euros per month. Work‑for‑lodging kept housing low, groceries averaged about 250, and I capped paid activities at one per month.

— Routines: A short run or long walk most mornings, three pages in my sketchbook most evenings. Two simple habits made unfamiliar days feel familiar.

— Picking places: I chose towns where I could walk across the center in 30 minutes, which made it easier to find rhythms and people.

— Saying yes, then filtering: I said yes to the first invitations, then learned to protect sleep and laundry day. Energy is a resource too.

If you're thinking about a gap year, mine wasn't perfect. I got lost, under‑salted a pot of soup, and mailed a sketchbook home without writing my return address clearly. But the year turned the fog in my head into something like morning light—the kind that makes a street look both ordinary and new, and makes you want to walk it anyway.