Why bother traveling? Well I live in the UK and want to experience:

-Swimming with sea turtles in the wild

-Seeing whales breach right in front of me

-The feel of the finest sand I have ever experienced at Whitehaven between my toes

-Swimming in the warm sea

-Learning to surf with the perfect waves

-Sleeping in a ger with a family in Mongolia and getting an insight into how they live, what is important to them, understanding the things which can make people happy (which is very different to what lots of people think makes you happy at first glance)

-Hearing the emotion in a guides voice as he talks about the personal loss his family had due to communism, feeling connected to someone and caring instead of reading a fact in a book and it meaning very little

-Looking up at buildings I have seen countless times in photos and yet speechless, as the photo had zero impact on me yet seeing it in real life is amazing. For example the Taj Mahal blew me away, looking at it from different angles, seeing the detail close up, getting a true feel of the scale and spectacle of it.

-Dancing on the sand in bare feet through the night at a full moon party surrounded by people who are there to have fun and be happy. Sharing moments with other people. Moments that you can recall in a heartbeat throughout your life and mean something to you.

-Going to iconic places from films, tv, books from your childhood and feeling that sense of excitement which seems to erode away as we get older, but as an adult you still get that buzz when it is seeing something that meant something to you as a kid.

-Tasting home cooked food from an Indian family which tastes nothing like any Indian food I have ever tasted in the UK.

-Being surrounded by wild deer and feeding them special deer cookies. Laughing as they shake their heads around and then having to run away as too many of them surround us.

-Experiencing the lack of things, the lack of drinkable water from a tap, the lack of hygienic washing facilities, the lack of western toilets and getting so much more appreciation for what we have.

-Hearing what local Tibetans thinks about Tibet and China and contrasting it to what is put across publicly

-Seeing a sky full of stars reaching out to us from the opposite direction and being in the middle of the ocean or on an island without any lights on and get amazing views devoid of light pollution.

-Seeing how unfair the world is and questioning so much about life and how we are currently living it. Perhaps making life-changing choices, moving to a different country, changing vocations, etc.

-Filling up your senses with things which aren't available in the UK

I mean I could go on and on and on. I am 34 and have taken a year off to travel the world, seeing 20 countries, getting some classic Instagram snaps, drinking with a bunch of British people in remote places, doing things which are cliché and doing something which I don't even like for no good reason. Finding the most British food I can and being happy to taste coke. But that is all just one small part of the experience. When you have been in Asia for 5 months and have basically had a stomach which has never quite been completely right, the most western classic food can be very much welcomed. I personally find it tiresome to hear people for ever complaining about what you should and shouldn't do. If you want a Starbucks in Vietnam then have one, you don't have to drink their (very different) coffee (I have given up coffee so not something for me personally). If you like McDonald's in Malaysia then go have it (McDonald's is great in terms of something safe, reliable, cheap, easy, although not much good for me as a vegetarian).

Taking a year off to travel is one of the best decisions I have made. I am confident it will change my life (it already has) and also confident it will create memories which will stay with me and something I will always look back on positively.