Meet the man who took a gap year at 55 and travelled to 32 countries

Age is but a number and for photographer Richard Silver, it certainly didn’t hamper his experience of having one of the most fascinating years of his life. In 2017, the Brooklynite travelled to 32 countries across four continents over 12 months and now he has showcased his entire experience through incredible photos of his adventures.

The initiative was part of a concept called Remote Year (RY) who host around 50 or more people travelling to 12 cities around the world. A one-year commitment, RY provides the participants with an apartment and take care of your travels with a set itinerary. They also provide a co-working space in each city so that participants can work – it is the participants’ responsibility to have a job but because of the nature of Richard’s job he was able to go beyond the designated ten countries and keep travelling.

According to Richard, he was the “oldest male” to take part in the journey, something that he feels is quite special. “I was blessed to travel with this group of people. The age group was from 24-55, me being the 55. Yes, they made fun of me a lot, but it was all in good fun and be it that I am from New York, if you goof on me it only means you care.

“I was older than many of their parents but they all knew I was not their father. We partied, drank, ate, hiked, went boating, rode motor bikes – we did it all together without any issues. If anything, I made fun of them because very few of them could even keep up with me.”

“It is difficult to explain to people what it is like to have a whole new kind of family experience that you never thought was possible” Richard adds. “To share a year of your life with such a large amount of individuals, along with so many personal highs and lows, it just isn’t something that many people will ever have an opportunity to experience”.

“Ballooning over the Pyramids in Mexico, hiking Machu Picchu, sunrise at Angkor Wat, scuba diving in Indonesia with ten-foot manta rays, seeing Komodo dragons or even going to the Nuclear Exclusion zone in Chernobyl; all of these were my favourite experiences, not one more than any other one”.

Richard already plans to revisit some of the locations and to continue travelling the world. You can find out more on his website here.