Clueless - for the first time ever

Hi,
I am a final year undergrad from a small European country at a target in the UK, with an upcoming internship at a top IBD group at GS/MS/JPM this summer. However, I’m not planning on doing a master’s afterwards, which leaves me with a free 6-to-12 months of free time between the internship’s end and the FT start date (supposing I get a return offer). I have never before in my life had such a long break from school or work and I’m not sure what I should do. I don’t yet know if I want to be a career investment banker, for exits I’d probably be looking at PE – but would prefer to see what it’s like in IB first. I would appreciate any advice from people further down the road of life on how they would approach this situation if they had the opportunity to.

Here are two scenarios/plans I have come up with so far: 

-Look for a long-term PE off-cycle in London/home country, see what it’s like and probably start IB FT in July. Hopefully get some colour on whether I want to look for a PE exit in a few years and spend some time leaving in London as a 20-something on a liveable salary with WLB a bit better than that of an IB junior. Travel and spend time with friends/family in-between work/internships. 

-Go back to the home country for September-December, focus on some side projects (languages/fitness/skills – each already in progress) and chill, come back to London for a FT job in January. Also travel during that time. 

In particular, I’d love to know more on these topics:

-PE off-cycles in London. What’s the best place to look for them (have used the Bristol tracker so far, but understandably it doesn’t seem to be so regularly updated for OCs)? How many companies offer them? How many are actually primaries? What would you say about exploring other asset classes in the alternatives space? Any recruitment tips?

-How to spend such an amount of free time? Was wondering if anyone could share a story of such time well spent. Has anyone got themselves a temp job completely unrelated to IB? Accomplished a significant personal goal? Had the journey of their life?

Honestly, I’m just looking for inspiration, so feel free to share any relatable experience.

Thank you!