A Year to Explore

For most college graduates, this time of year is spent job hunting, diving into a new career or getting ready for the next phase of education.

Brad Imming and Leslie Flournoy decided to take a different path, one that has led them all over the country and to other corners of the world for the past year.

The 2015 Penn State graduates made the decision that their first year after college would be a gap year, one spent pursuing a passion while the time felt right. For them, that meant traveling. 

‘I’ve always enjoyed traveling, but stopped once I started at Penn State,’ said Flournoy, who graduated with a degree in graphic design. ‘My major  has a very strict schedule: from freshman year on, your classes are set in stone per semester. If you miss one class, you are basically held back a year. That class won’t be offered the following semester, nor can you take the next classes without it. So sadly studying abroad was out of the question for me. I knew that once I graduated, I wanted to do some serious traveling before settling into a career. And of course, Brad’s desire to travel had something to do with it as well.’

Imming, meanwhile, caught the travel bug thanks to his studies at Penn State. The advertising graduate spent four months studying abroad in Florence, Italy and later an embedded program took him to the Czech Republic.

‘It was really getting over that mental barrier of ‘Well are we going to apply for jobs or are we going to go full force with this?’ Imming explained.

Together Flournoy and Imming, who have been dating since they were high school freshmen in West Chester, Pa., decided to take the plunge and commit themselves to a year of travel. But it was hardly done on a whim. They saved money prior to graduating, put aside graduation gifts and earned money with temporary jobs and selling things online.

Flournoy has continued to do freelance design work. Imming, after meeting alumnus Nick Keesey at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology, secured work for Keesey’s secondary ticketing sites including HappyValleyTickets.com, doing Google Ad Words, search engine optimization and social media remotely.

They also began designing a website — twosidedtravels.com — that would not only chronicle their adventures, but also be a product to show potential future employers showcasing Flournoy’s graphic design skills and Imming’s online marketing work.

As they methodically worked to make their plan possible, they spent the summer taking smaller trips around the Mid-Atlantic. In September, to celebrate Flournoy’s birthday, they began to stretch out, spending five days in Vermont. In October, they spent a few days in Massachusetts before heading on to Acadia National Park in Maine for 12 days, with a stop in Portland, Maine on their way back.

From there, the travels became more ambitious. A 30-day road trip took them to Florida, New Orleans and points in between.

They didn’t have an unlimited budget, and they discovered an option that would not only save them money but add a profoundly positive experience to their travels: Couchsurfing. Utilizing the online community at couchsurfing.com, the couple found hosts who not only gave them a place to stay for free, but offered them local perspectives on their journeys.

The prospect of staying with a stranger met online might seem like a concern, but Imming said they were thorough in looking for couchsurfing hosts.

‘The benefit of couchsurfing is that while anyone can make a profile and list their house, it’s really easy to tell and read people,’ Imming said. ‘There’s a review system in place where you can verify your address and phone number. Not everyone does, but we chose to go with only people who had verified their profile, had posted pictures of themselves, who had 20 different references from past travelers. Just like with [private residence rental site] Airbnb and their review system we made sure to really read into it. We would read each reference, look for any negative aspects or red flags.’

Imming said they have only had positive experiences with their hosts, and both agreed it has made for one of the best parts of their travels.

‘We have met so many different people through it,’ Flournoy said. ‘It’s a great way to make friends and learn about a city you’ve never been to. For the most part, everyone on the site is likeminded, they just want to meet new people and have fun. On the road we learned that most hosts don’t like to be seen as a free place to stay. They’re looking for someone to hang out with and swap stories. We still keep in touch with a lot of couchsurfers.’

Imming cited one of their first couchsurfing experiences. On their travels in Florida, they were offered accommodations by two hosts in Orlando. They decided to stay with one who is also a Penn State alumnus. He cooked them meals, traded travel stories and took them on tours of the city. Though they didn’t stay with the other, he still spent a couple days with them, taking them to natural springs around Florida.

‘The part that sticks with us the most is meeting people and having that experience of sharing stories, sharing meals together,’ Imming said. ‘The locals show us the best parts of an area, rather than just sticking with the big tourist parts of a town.’

In New Orleans, a host welcomed them to his Bourbon Street home after a previous host fell through (a matter for which Imming partly blames himself after failing to confirm a few days in advance). The host was in his late 50s, and they were unsure about staying with someone much older than them.

‘He was probably our favorite person that we met,’ Imming said. ‘He was extremely genuine and took us on walking tours of New Orleans.’

After their road trip to the southeast, Flournoy and Imming branched out further, spending five weeks in Southeast Asia this winter traveling to Thailand and Vietnam, where they spent some of their time backpacking and staying in hostels. Along the way they ziplined through jungles and explored the hundreds of temples of Chiang Mai in Thailand’s northern mountains. Spending Tet in Hanoi, they found some of their favorite meals to be noodle bowls sold by street vendors. Back in Thailand, they researched and found an ethical elephant sanctuary where they got in the water and gave some young elephants a mud bath.

‘That was probably the highlight of that trip,’ Imming said. ‘It’s not something you can readily do here. The only time I saw an elephant was at a circus. So it’s nice to be able to see them closer to their natural habitat.’

‘Every city has its own charm so its hard to compare them, but traveling to Southeast Asia was on a different level,’ Flournoy said. ‘I’ve never been anywhere so different, in every single way. Honestly, the first few days there were exhausting just adjusting to the changes, and there were frustrating moments, but I’ve never had more fun in my entire life. We spent over a month in northern Thailand’s jungles and mountains, southern Thailand’s iconic island beaches, and Vietnam’s beautiful Halong Bay.’

In May, Flournoy and Imming embarked on a cross-country road trip to the West Coast and back, a trip that they expected to do over 10-12 weeks. When they finish, they will have visited about 30 states. 

After a summer trip with family to North Carolina, their gap year will be complete and they will begin to focus on the next steps.

‘When we get back from the road trip is when we figure out what is next,’ Flournoy said. ‘We might stay in our hometown until we pay off student loans, or we might find an opportunity in one of the cities that we visit along the way.’

While the couple decided they wanted to spend their year traveling — and had to overcome concerns from some family and friends — Imming said the greater goal for anyone taking a gap year is to pursue something about which they are passionate.

‘What I would tell people is if you’re passionate about something, it doesn’t have to be travel,’ he said. ‘If there’s a business you want to start, a language or skill you want to learn — it can be really anything. But do it for the right reasons. Don’t do it to go party for a year. You need to have a purpose and get something out of the experience. It’s not to take a year off.