From Australia, to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia. Kicking off in Australia. I worked as a road surveyor and used the money I saved to travel around Australia. Finishing in Cairns I then headed to southeast Asia.

My original plan was to get involved in windsurf coaching in Perth, aiming to share my skills with underprivileged children at the Royal Perth Yacht Club. However, when I got there in early September it didn’t prove possible to follow this through. My host family were 90 minutes away from the Swan River where the club was located, and the logistics of getting to and from the location on a regular basis proved complicated and expensive. The cost of living was also higher than I expected, and even with the generous Sidcot award of £480 I was only going to be able to get part-time opportunities in the windsurfing community and that wasn’t enough to keep me going. Instead, I got a job as a surveyor’s assistant (which in Australia they call an ‘offsider’) and I spent three and a half months in Perth on construction sites for roads and a commuter railway. It was a really good experience and involved me getting up at 4.30 am to spend long days in the hot sun getting covered in dust!

I then moved over to Melbourne where I bought an old car (a 2003 Subaru Forester) and over the last two months I’ve driven with a friend all the way up to Cairns, picking up work along the way at a vineyard in southern Queensland. We explored the whole coastline, various state parks and plenty of cities and towns along the way. I’ve now come to the end of the journey and I’m bound for Bangkok on Monday.

Inspired by the school's motto of living adventurously, I’m eager to contribute to a meaningful project in southeast Asia. While the initial plan focused on windsurfing, I’m open to exploring any opportunity that would benefit and support youth or children. So I’m considering potential projects in Thailand, Laos or Vietnam that align with the ethos of the award. This could involve activities ranging from educational initiatives to community development projects or maybe teaching English. I want to find something that positively impact people’s lives.

So while I don’t have an exact plan right now, I wanted to keep you updated. I’m attaching a few pictures of my journey so far. Sidcot has really made me think big! I hope to come back home ready for university with a much wider view of the world. I have a place at Oxford Brookes to study Real Estate starting in September.

Update October 2024:

I'm now firmly back in the UK and in my first year of university at Oxford Brookes, after an amazing 10 months away in Australia and Southeast Asia. After flying from Cairns to Bangkok in March, I spent the last three months of my travels with James Wroath (also ex-Sidcot) on many adventures and experiences across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia. The highlight was a week’s journey around the mountains of North Vietnam on the back of a motorbike, that they call an ‘easy rider’, through some amazing scenery and remote villages full of culture and lovely welcoming people. We finished up our trip in Malaysia, where Elyca (another ex-Sidcot student) kindly hosted us at her family home and showed us Kuala Lumpur from a local’s point of view.

The whole trip was quite different from what I expected. I must say earning money in Australia proved to be pretty hard. On a working holiday visa you are paid minimum wage and unless you’re lucky enough to have a free place to stay, then it’s not easy to make ends meet. I was lucky enough to have family friends in Perth, but once I moved to the east coast we were in hostels and campgrounds. Here it was difficult to make ends meet. In the end we hopped to SE Asia where everything was a lot cheaper 😊. I looked for volunteer work in Thailand and Cambodia (especially teaching English in local schools), but you needed to spend 2 or 3 months in one place, as people weren’t really interested in travellers offering help for a week or two.

My advice for other Sidcot pupils: If you go to Australia, look for rural jobs (like farm work) as you can then cut your costs on accommodation. If you go to Southeast Asia and want to volunteer, be prepared to stick in one place for quite a while, so you can really be useful and people will give you opportunities. Overall, get out there and be adventurous! I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and am so grateful to Sidcot for the support.

Yours sincerely,

Guy Owen

Class of 2023

The Sidcot Education Trust supports up the Travel Award annually. For details on supporting the Sidcot Education Trust follow this link. If you are a Year 13 student or recent leaver you can apply for the travel award please email alumni@sidcot.org.uk to request an application form.