My daughter has just returned from her gap-year travels, sunburned and unkempt, and bursting with tales of adventure. A mixture of volunteering and solo travel, plus six months of physically demanding paid work to fund the year, has led to staggering personal growth. I hardly recognise the independent, financially prudent, culturally aware and helpful adult who has come back to replace the schoolgirl who left.
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Then again, it has been a year and a lot can happen in 12 months. Who can say that they knew a year ago exactly what their life would look like today? And more to the point, what could you accomplish if you dedicated this next year to something completely different? Proficiency in a new language or musical instrument perhaps or something painstakingly assembled from a million tiny laser-cut pieces of balsa wood? Whatever you might choose, the cultural significance of the year, our go-to unit for “a long time”, adds weight and often a sense of completeness to projects, which makes it a useful framing device for many excellent limited-run serial podcasts. This week’s selections offer a glimpse into a Martian reality show and a year in the life of a likeable cricketer, as well as exploration down clearly marked rabbit-hole territory.
The one I will be listening to for a while yet, however, is the show inspiring me to plan my own gap year. While I have been quietly getting old, apparently a whole industry has sprung up to accommodate the growing number of those on “silver” gap years, with over-60 travellers sometimes referred to as “golden gappers”. Also gaining popularity is the family gap year, which is somehow enhanced rather than encumbered by the addition of small children. That sounds like a very long year.
1. My Year in Mensa
My year in Mensa hosted by Jamie Loftus on iHeartPodcasts. Photo: iHeartMedia
The four-part My Year in Mensa sees comedian and serial deep-dive podcaster Jamie Loftus joining the high IQ society after taking the test as a joke and scoring in the 98th percentile. There is definitely an element of walking into a bar intent on starting a fight and those with sensitive hearing should be warned that an airhorn features as punctuation. Often. But what ensues over the four-part series is a highly entertaining story beginning with the founding history and ethos of the group, and the discovery of and public engagement with an aggressively far-right contingent who operate in a Facebook group called Firehouse. Loftus does ask pertinent questions about intelligence, elitism and toxic masculinity.
2. Hitman for Hire
Hitman for Hire: A year in the life of a franchise cricketer hosted by Sam Keir and David Wiese on Apple Podcasts. Photo: Sam Keir & David Wiese
If you are a cricket fan, you might be well-disposed to the provocatively misleading title Hitman for Hire. It is not a true-crime pod but a chance to keep company with 39-year-old South African and Namibian pro cricketer David Wiese over 14 episodes as he jets about the world taking part in short-form competitions. In 2017, he signed a three-year contract with British county team Sussex as a local player but in the fallout of Brexit in 2020, rule changes meant he was forced into his current role, as a franchise cricketer. Sometimes glamorous, often challenging, especially with his wife and two young daughters in tow, Wiese documents the ups and downs of life on the road with detailed insight.
3. A year to change your mind
A Year To Change Your Mind on BBC Sounds by Dr Lucy Maddox. Photo: BBC
This is a 12-part abridged podcast version of Dr Lucy Maddox’s insightful and refreshingly unpatronising 2022 self-help book of the same name. Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, in A Year to Change your Mind, Maddox offers practical and evidence-based tips structured around a calendar year to help us lead a more thoughtful, positive life. January is about decision-making, March tackles spring cleaning, the heat of August inspires an episode on anger management. September deals with the dreaded Sunday night feeling of going back to work after a break and in the November episode, Maddox extols the Joy of Missing Out, something that I felt I knew but was glad to be reminded of. The host’s soothing manner might remind you of your wisest, calmest friend but the ideas could make this year feel very different.
4. The Habitat
The Habitat hosted by Lynn Levy on Spotify Podcasts. Photo: Gimlet
Nasa’s year-long mock Mars habitat experiment came to a close on July 6, which reminded me of this seven-episode show called The Habitat by Gimlet Media about another fake Mars experiment, conducted in Hawaii by HI-SEAS (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation) in 2016. What possesses people to volunteer for such an experiment, and is every Mars mission in our future destined to become a reality television drama? The main purpose of the experiment was to document social interactions and emotional states but the series is quite light on the science and more focused on the romantic relationships that bloomed and decayed over a fraught year spent trapped in the 1,200 sq ft habitat. Still fascinating.
5. Zero to Travel
Zero to Travel episode “How to Take an Adult Gap Year, with Brooke Thayer”, hosted by Jason Moore on Apple Podcasts. Photo: Zero to Travel International AS
Until recently, the idea of an adult gap year sounded to me like a precursor to some kind of breakdown. But I am hearing more and more about people bang in the middle of their career taking sabbaticals to wander around the world with a backpack – with the full support of their employer. In one episode of long-running wanderlust pod Zero to Travel, host Jason Moore interviews Brooke Thayer, who quit her six-figure job in San Francisco at the age of 34 to take in unique cultural experiences in more than 20 countries. Her initial hang-ups about “obstacles”, such as not wanting to travel alone or dealing with the need to pre-plan, are very relatable. Other episodes talk about the importance of gap years at any age.
