Do you dream of distant places? Of roaming to wherever you so choose? For some this isn’t a dream, but a reality. Laura Weyl is one such person.

Weyl decided to take a gap year, after her high school graduation, to voyage to places unknown and explore new cultures.

The “gap year” is traditionally a period when students take a year’s absence from school to experience new cultures, gain new skills and perspectives, and figure out more about possible careers through jobs, volunteering or travel.

For Weyl, this meant taking a year off before college and traveling the world.

Weyl says she chose to take this year because she went to a very small school and “wanted to go out and learn more about the world.”

She visited six countries: Scotland, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand and Greece.

She says her favorite place was Paros, the island she lived on in Greece, where she attended art school.

You could walk anywhere in the city,” said Weyl. “It was so small that you knew all the business owners.”

She said that taking a gap year was less expensive than paying tuition for that year. However, now that she is a year behind her friends and classmates, it can be a bit hard to relate, according to Weyl.

She is hoping to study psychology with a minor in studio art. She says that her experiences during her gap year helped her to realize new interests, leading her to ultimately choose psychology as a major.

“Traveling gave me a different perspective” said Weyl. “The more I saw of the world, the more I realized how little I know.”

Weyl brought back both wise insights and some funny anecdotes including working in an ankle-length-skirt and taste-testing fried scorpion. 

“I got locked in a chicken coop by a cow while I was working on an organic sheep farm in New Zealand,” said Weyl.

“Nobody knew why the cow did this, but it would stand in front of the door and essentially lock people in anytime they went into the chicken coop.”

Weyl recommends traveling and would enjoy visiting Greece again, as well as visiting Africa and South America for the first time.