Gap year & Travel News

leapers in Venezuela can get a real taste of Carnival season!

Traditional music festival in Borneo

Montanita Ecuaodr- home to the Full Moon Party!

Music festivals are two a penny these days, so adventurous types are starting to cast the net a little wider and get off the beaten track (if you can call the M4 to Reading festival a track!) for their next festival fix. Whether your tastes are for rapid BPM on S.E. Asia’s beaches, chilled world music round the campfire in Africa or samba on the streets of South America there’s a Music festival overseas to float your boat. And what better way to experience exotic cultures than to get down and dirty to their rhythms, dancing the night away with the locals?  With weekends free to travel and explore, Leapers have long been getting their groove on at music festivals overseas and every country offers something unique to music lovers.

My Unbeaten Path is a website that can give you Music festival dates, locations, event descriptions and helpful hints from experienced travelers who have actually been to the festivals and want to share the secrets.  If you want to know what to expect from any event, select a festival and read a short synopsis from a first hand account.  Visit their website where they’ve  designed an itinerary broken down by festival dates and geographic location.  You could even plan your gap travels around the festival season in a specific region or check out the calendar to see the events during a placement you’re going on with The Leap.

The South Africa Summer team soak up the atmosphere at BushFire Festival

Swazi legends take to the stage

Getting into the spirit of things!

the South Africa Summer Team have just spent one of their free weekends at the Bushfire festival in nearby Swaziland. According to project leader Louise (possibly a little inebriated at the time!) it was “awesome, awesome awesome!…The whole weekend was a fabulous expose on Southern African talent. A brilliant Himba band from Namibia, a large ensemble of marimba players from Mozambique, a Swazi icon and her band and of course THE Johnny Clegg who still performs with the vigour of a 25 year old, where some of the highlights, oh yes, included a 300 drum session where everyone got involved….actually awesome!”.

If mesmerizing traditional dances and indigenous instruments are your thing then make a bee line for Cambodia, where traditional Khmer music and dance is making an amazing comeback after nearly being wiped out by the brutal Khmer Rouge Communist Regime. Borneo and Ecuador too offer  volunteers the chance to live with remote tribes, learn traditional dances and don beautiful costumes whilst partaking in anicent rituals, festivals and celebrations.