The origination of the "gap year" concept came in the decade following the Second World War when youth travel and cultural exchange was discussed among governments as a useful tool to create more of a global understanding to prevent future global wars. However, the first gap years actually started in the UK in the 1960s when the Baby-Boomer generation in the midst of the Swinging Sixties headed off to India on the infamous Hippie Trails  ,inventing the independent travel market. Australian Graham "Screw" Turner, based in London in 1973, loaded a double-decker  bus with the first paying customers and drove them to Kathmandu. They arrived three weeks late. Top Deck Travel, the company he founded, still exists today. In 1979 another Australian, Dick Porter, founded STA Travel to bring in the final piece of the puzzle. It was a high street travel agent for students and youth (those under 26) with which he was able to develop global youth travel as he opened student travel agencies around the world. In the UK in the 1980s the Baby-Boomers were accustomed to family life with their young children and so traveling less, and the next generation were influenced by the addiction to money, careers and wealth. The housing market crash meant fewer funds available for parents to fund youth travel. But steady UK and global growth continued as STA Travel opened up branches around the world. A combination of the Baby-Boomer's children reaching 18 (whose parents encouraged world travel as they did in their youth), the UK coming out of decline and new, exciting, color1ful media channels to bring gap year products to market resulted in an explosion of activity in the UK in the 1990s as gap year travel and gap year volunteering took off pre-, during, and post-university. Demand grew, prices for air travel fell, and the roots of it becoming a tradition of growth were set. The modern gap year pioneers came in the form of Tom Griffiths and Peter Pedrick who brought the gap year market onto the web in 1988 with the launch of www.gapyear.com. The two pioneers have invented products, offerings, phrases, and concepts that form the frame of the global gap year industry seen today. Known as the gap year guru. Tom Griffiths is recognized as a global authority on gap years and acts as a media spokesperson around the world. Why was the "gap year" concept was originated in the decade after the World War II ?
Because people created a better understanding of the world travel. Because the governments wanted to guard the world against future global wars. Because youth travel and cultural exchange was a useful tool to promote economy. Because the Baby-Boomer generation invented an independent travel market.