Over on our main site we recently put up a spiffing little article about the pros and cons of taking a gap year, which also included some broad suggestions of things you could do were you to take one.

Since it went live we’ve had a steady stream of emails asking us for more information about the different gap-year endeavours that we alluded to in the article. It seems that you clever lot have twigged that before you go charging overseas to live the gap-year dream it’s best to get a full picture of what your options are.

So we thought that over the coming weeks we could make use of this here blog to give you just such a lowdown, specifically on some of our favourite gap year schemes. And since the idea of working abroad seemed to be a particularly popular idea, what better place for us to start than with the opportunities offered by BUNAC, an organisation that has been making working holiday dreams come true since 1962?

Although those five capital letters stand for British Universities North America Club, in recent decades BUNAC has expanded its reach across the globe, giving thousands upon thousands of young people opportunities to experience life in other countries, whether through arranging work visas for them or parachuting them into voluntary or internship placements.

BUNAC are probably best known for their year-long working visa schemes, which currently are available for Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These visas offer a very simple way of embarking on a working holiday. Simply by filling in a couple of forms and paying the relevant fee, BUNAC will take care of the bureaucratic and consular mazes that people usually have to navigate their way through when applying for an overseas work visa.

But BUNAC’s working-visa service doesn’t end there. They also have an excellent network of offices around the world that are on hand to steer you through the trickier aspects of finding work and a place to live in a new country. When you arrive in your chosen country–and you even have the option to book a seat on a flight with fellow BUNACeers if you want to make some new friends before you even get there–you’ll attend an orientation session, at which you’ll be given advice on creating a CV that’s suitable for the local labour market, where to look for jobs and how to find a room in an apartment. And after that they’re more than happy for you to drop into their office and make use of their resources and contacts as you go about your job hunt.

In many destinations the BUNAC office also organises a lively social scene that can include regular pub nights and trips to nearby attractions. So even if you’re planning to go it alone on your gap year you can be safe in the knowledge you’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet like-minded people.

In more recent years BUNAC has added volunteering and internship opportunities to its portfolio, meaning that if you want to combine your travels with some sort of specialist experience they’re the people to talk to. For example, people who have in the past entertained notions of one day becoming a teacher will likely be very interested in the opportunities they provide to spend a year teaching English in China or Chile, or coaching sports in South Africa. There are plenty of opportunities for the more environmentally minded as well, such as working on wildlife research projects or helping to maintain the USA’s breathtaking national parks.

But regardless of whether you would prefer work or volunteering, you can be sure that with BUNAC’s schemes you’ll be getting that perspective-shifting, horizon-expanding, once-in-a-lifetime cocktail of fun and enhancing your future career prospects that gap years are all about.