[argonaut]

Right, right. That's really what I meant. When I said "know what you want", I meant "know what your goals are," even if your goals are vague, like "explore [X] career field", or "learn about [Y]."

For example, a good gap year would be a full-time (or perhaps paid internship - unpaid internships are usually crappy and pay-your-dues type affairs) job at an interesting company in a field you're interested in. So an example would be working at a startup as a software developer or even a business role.

[mercer]

Ah, yeah. I do agree with that. A gap year with some kind of plan is (usually) preferable over just a gap year, but just a gap year is still better than staying on automatic pilot.