Go to high school, graduate, go to college, graduate, get a job. It’s a pattern that most of the population is familiar with, but it’s not necessarily right for everyone. While some people, especially those who have a clear picture of where they want to go in life, may be able to jump right from high school, to college, and then into the career of their dreams, others may need time off to do some searching. The “gap year,” as it’s called, can help people define the rest of their lives.

“I’d like to say it was because I was super-motivated, but I was really drifting aimlessly,” recalls Dan Clements, author of Escape 101 (The Brain Ranch, 2007), about his first gap year spent working as a scuba instructor in Mexico. A recent university graduate with a degree in business, Clements shucked the post-grad career search and answered a newspaper ad that instead sent him to Mexico for six months. “It happened so fast. I think I didn’t have time to hesitate.”

Returning home from his sojourn to the south, Clements was surprised to find that things hadn’t changed much in his absence. “It was like the whole world had stood still,” he explains. “Everyone was exactly like I left them sitting on the couch with the remote in their hand.” Clements, meanwhile, had undergone a change for the better.