I took a year out before going to university. I talk about it constantly but I had a really amazing time. My favourite moment was spontaneously climbing Mount Tunupa (over the Salar de Uyuni) with a lovely Frenchman I’d met a couple of days before called Benoît. We had no food, nowhere to stay and no way of getting back to civilisation (the nearest town was three hours by car away) but we were unbelievably lucky, and met some of the most lovely people who kept us alive at 4000m on the Bolivian altiplano. I saw many beautiful places over that year, but the mixture of beauty, human kindness and remoteness made it the most impressionable experience of my life so far.

Hopefully a good sense of humour; either that or I'm mistaking smiles for grimaces.