Should I take a year off from school and travel or wait until I finish my degree?

I think you should travel. Education isn't everything anymore these days without life experience. But life experience will make you understand college more when you get back. And your network and opportunities increase after you have traveled, even with your professors.

I'm on the fence on this one.  I gained a huge ammount of confidence and learnt a lot about myself during a years travelling. However it didn't stop me making a bad decision about my career direction when I got home.

You can do a study abroad for a semester or a year even and merge your goals. I'd check that out first, since art and business are both topics you can study anywhere.

Finish your degree now It is easier to continue than to restart UNLESS you don't know what you want to do On that case stop now even if you do not travel and figure out what you want to do

Your question has some contradictions. First you say you wanted to take a Gap Year to gain maturity, then claim you are already mature for you age. You say you want to do a dual major of art and business. Then you say you're not sure if what you're pursuing is what you want to do. To be blunt, that indicates a certain lack of maturity. At your age I was in the Marine Corps working as a firefighter. I didn't know what I wanted either, but at least by that point I knew what I didn't want. Frankly, unless you want to go into some sort of technical degree, a business degree will serve you as well as anything. Heck, even if you want to be an artist a business degree will help. At least you have to do basic accounting in a business degree. As an aside, I have a BFA. It's a useless degree, if you want to be an artist be an artist don't spend 50K to get a piece of paper that says you're one. There's lots of community colleges where you can take a drawing class to get access to live models, photography classes to get access to a dark room (boy, does that date me or what?).  Business degrees are also a dime a dozen, but at least it's a respected degree and teaches stuff you'll use. Now, to actually answer the question that you asked: Assuming that there's not a total collapse of the financial system leading a complete breakdown in international order and the end of civlization as we know it you're likely to live AT LEAST another 40 years, probably closer to 50. You've got time to send a year or 6 bouncing around the world and living. Understand that you will probably NOT be able to get back into an elite university (which is fine, they don't provide any better education than you can get at a state school if you try, they merely have better reputations and possibly a better *average* education). College isn't for everyone. Leave. Go experience the world, get your ashes hauled by folks who don't speak your language. Get drunk in a youth hostel with a bunch of a*e germans. Go dive the Great Barrier Reef and drink wine in France. But figure out how to do it on your dime, not your parents.

You should definitely travel if you have the opportunity. Once you get there, it's easier than it sounds -- you talk with people, sleep, find food to eat, etc. just like at home. If you have the travel bug it may never die and you'll never know unless you do it. Look at the blogs of travel writers and you'll feel the passion and deep bonds in this community. On your journeys, even if you're alone, stay in hostels and you'll never be alone -- there's always someone to talk to and hang out with for a while, and you'll soon realize just how amazing it is to be completely, utterly free and yet part of a vast and caring community of strangers like you. Do it.

I think you can try the summer schools that some Universities provide. You ll get a chance to explore a new place also, make new friends, get use to a new environment and enjoy the break too.