Career Gappers grow in leaps and bounds

The average perception of backpackers as grungy hippies looking for cheap travel options and the best deal is no longer true according to findings by the Mintel 2005 Gap Year Report. According to the information and statistics collected in the report, today’s backpackers fall into three distinct categories.

Tom Griffiths, founder of Gapyear.com, said that today’s backpackers can be easily divided by age. Most backpackers are either 18 to 24 years old, 25 to 35 years old or 55 to 65 years old.

By far the largest group of backpackers are those known as the Silver Surfers. Griffiths estimates that each year about 200,000 more senior travelers shoulder up packs and hit the road. In comparison he estimates that there are just 230,000 backpackers each year in the 18 to 24 age group and only 90,000 aged 25 to 35.

Though they may be the smallest in terms of sheer numbers, the group Griffiths calls the “career gappers” are the fastest growing group of backpackers. Griffith hypothesizes that more and more people aged 25 to 35 are experiencing a “quarter life crisis” and hitting the road.

"They are part of a generation that took the first gap year in the late nineties when the growth was high and those travelling now are the ones that didn't actually take the gap year," he concluded.


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Yasmin Purnell Editorial


13/02/2008