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After the amount of work and stress I had to go through for my A-Levels I couldn't face going straight to uni. I needed a break, so like all those people who take gap years, I took a gap year. I didn't have a lot of money and my parents said if I wanted to go to university I had to pay for it myself, so I decided to travel for the first six months and work the six months after that to pay for my tuition and rent.

I knew I wanted to spend most of my travelling time in America, but it was going to be expensive to get about. "It's a big country" someone once told me.

Most of my friends who went travelling booked themselves on bus tours or got 10-stop plane tickets, but I was poorer than them. Much poorer. The only thing I could think of was a hurricane. So I used all of my savings to get a plane to Texas and spent the next six months living inside a tornado, wreaking destruction on 23 states and soaking up the American culture. I even managed to pick up a bit of an accent amongst all the wreckage. "Hey, I'm flying here!" I'd shout. It was a clever play on the popular American catchphrase.

Alex, London.