We’re now five months into our latest family gap year and have visited a bunch of countries in Asia, Oceania and Europe.
Many things remain the same as our previous family gap year travels in 2016 and 2019, however there are some things which are markedly different.
Here are our observations on five key changes that we’ve noticed, with the hope that these hints/tips and first-hand experience may help some fellow family travellers out!
You no longer need to book way in advance to get good deals on flights
In the past we’ve diligently kept our eye out for flight sales, or booked months in advance to get the best possible price on flights.
Increasingly we’re thinking that’s no longer a necessity. Due to visa dramas and on-the-road illness, we’ve had to purchase a couple of long-haul flights at the last minute within a few days of departure, and the price has actually been reasonable – certainly no more than if we had booked it months in advance. One of them was even in the lead up to Christmas.
This seems to be a continuing trend in 2025 – we’re planning a trip in a few weeks and so far flights are around the same price as when I checked six months ago.
I’ve kept an eye on all the new year’s flight sales coming into my inbox, and there’s nothing that’s really jumped at me as being a fantastic deal so far.
This is actually great news for family gap year travellers. It means you have way more flexibility in your itinerary and travel route than was the case even a couple of years ago.
You also get to keep your hard-earned cash in your pocket for longer, rather than giving it to the airlines to put into their coffers!
You increasingly need to book some attractions way in advance to get your spot
In contrast to not rushing to book your flights, one thing you will need to consider is the need to book certain attractions far in advance.
More and more “must-see” tourist attractions are putting limits on how many people can visit on a given day and to be frank if you snooze you lose – which makes being more flexible on visiting locations from point one above tricky!
It’s generally a good thing to help prevent over-tourism and the long-term sustainability of these popular sites, but it can be sad and frustrating if you miss out.
Some recent real-life examples we’ve encountered are:
- Teamlab Borderless immersive digital art experience in Tokyo (which we booked two months in advance)
- Alhambra palace in Spain (also booked two months in advance and we got the last entrance tickets for 8.30am)
- Acropolis in Athens (booked a couple of weeks in advance for low season)
- European football tickets (which we couldn’t buy for love nor money but managed to purchase through a reseller for a reasonable price and it was legit not a scam!)
- Entry to the newly re-opened Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris (just no luck at all but we managed to miraculously time the queue just right on day 3 of opening and didn’t wait too long)
In extreme cases some people are outsourcing securing tickets to people on Fiverr and Airtasker who do this as a full-time job! (The Ghibli Museum in Tokyo is one example I know of).
This will only increase in the summer months, so if you have your eye on a bucket-list experience you need to research and get ready to book! Take care also to book through the official attraction sites rather than one of the ‘lookalike official’ sites which are often tour agencies putting a mark-up on ticket prices.
You can of course use a service such as Get Your Guide to book tickets or include it as part of a larger tour, but be prepared to sometimes pay a premium.
AirBnB is different (spoiler: not as good)
We used AirBnB quite a lot in our earlier family gap year travels – a home away from home suited us so well especially for long-term travel with younger kids, but it’s just not as good as it used to be unfortunately.
About 18 months ago they began adding big “service fees” onto bookings, in addition to a cleaning fee and it just makes everything a lot more expensive. It’s frustrating, because they’re clearly now adding an additional fee on top of the existing fee they were charging hosts to list their property on the platform #greedflation.
It’s getting harder to find decent AirBnB’s also, and I spend a stupid amount of time sifting through the rubbish to find the gems. I wish they’d improve their search functionality and filter/sort options to save everyone time and effort!
A hack I’ve been using to get around the service fee issue is often property owners will have listings on multiple booking platforms or a way to directly book with them, so it’s worth doing a quick online search using the property name or first few sentences from the listing to see if you can spot them on Booking.com, Agoda, Expedia etc which don’t have this service fee, or if they have their own website to book direct (2005 style!)
Definitely carry a multi-currency card rather than a credit card
Using a credit card is an expensive way to pay for things while overseas, but these days with a selection of multi-currency debit cards like Wise or Revolut, it’s not the way to go.
If you use a credit card to pay for goods and services while travelling, you’re essentially stung twice – firstly a “foreign transaction fee” which is around 3% of the value, then secondly by giving you a “network exchange rate” for the currency conversion.
This tends to be a rate that is lower than the mid-market exchange rate that multi-currency debit cards use, and when you’re spending tens of thousands during a family gap year that can really add up.
Even if you have a no foreign transaction fee card (like lucky US citizens with Capital One, Charles Schwab and Citi Priority) you’ll still get the dud exchange rate.
We are big fans of the Wise debit card, and use it for all our spending where possible.
You can sign-up for a Wise card here – use this link and you’ll receive a fee-free transfer of up to $600.
The only downside we can see to these cards is you do still need to carry a credit card for bond deposits on car rentals and certain hotels – which is super frustrating as they often take several weeks to release the hold or return the deposit to your card.
Travel insurance is getting more difficult
This is a touchy subject for us right now as we’re mid-way through a battle with our travel insurer to claim and recover lost money from cancellations we had to make when one of the kids was seriously unwell and couldn’t travel. The exact example of when travel insurance should kick in and pay out!
As with a lot of insurance these days, it seems the sole objective is for them to avoid paying out any claim as much as possible!
Some of the issues we’ve heard of from fellow travellers include if you have stuff stolen in a genuine incident they will say you left it unaccompanied (even when you have a police report) so we’re not paying out.
With car rentals there’s no such thing anymore as ‘insurance’ – you need to ensure you’re covered with collision damage waiver, roadside assistance, excess reduction, tyre and glass damage protection…
If you have a flight issue, or missed connection, they will tell you to sort it out with the airline/train company. When you talk to them, they will say “not our problem, go claim on your travel insurance”. The poor consumer is stuck in the middle with neither party wanting to accept liability.
Some thoughts…
- as boring as it is, put a LOT of time and effort into doing your due diligence and read the fine print. Don’t believe the marketing hype that these companies “have your back”. They don’t. This includes knowing all the ‘adventure sport’ activities you are and aren’t covered, the licences you need for vehicle rental – right down to ensuring the cc rating of a scooter sits within the range of their policy.
- if the worst happens and you need to claim, you must provide to the exact letter the documentation they require that’s outlined in the policy. They do not exercise common sense, everything is extremely black and white in their world if you haven’t provided a piece of paper they want.
- be prepared for it to take many weeks if not months to get your claim agreed upon and any refunds issued. Despite being five years on from the pandemic, many companies are still using this as an ‘excuse’ as to why they’re taking forever to process claims.
- another ‘gotcha’ is where you have medical expenses as a component of a larger ‘cancellation of travel’ claim. We’re currently disputing a ‘cancellation of travel’ aspect of our claim, but it means we can’t access a straight-forward reimbursement of $1,000 owed for medical expenses until the whole claim is settled. More stalling tactics.
I could go on. To clarify, I still think it’s essential to have travel insurance especially in a life-threatening accident or illness situation, but it’s not as reliable and straightforward as it has been in the past.
It’s just so frustrating when we have spent multiple thousands of dollars purchasing travel insurance from a reputable well-known brand, only to have to battle like this.
Interested in taking a family gap year?
If you’re planning a family gap year, we’d love to chat and share some of our expertise gained over the years travelling the world with our kids through all ages and stages.
Check out our family gap year travel coaching sessions here and book in now!
