Traveling is one of the greatest experiences that you are ever likely to have and I would encourage anyone who is even considering taking a trip, to act upon your thoughts and go get booked up. When I talk about traveling, I am not talking about the 2-week Florida vacation, I’m talking about true travel, the exploration of new places, new people and new cultures, the kind that you can best do on your gap year.
Many people say that they want to take a gap year trip around the World, for some it will be a rite of passage, others may fancy a career break, whatever the reasons, taking a trip around the World will be the adventure of a lifetime and here is how you should get prepared.
Flight Tickets
Naturally the first thing that you need to do is work out which route you will take, which countries you plan to visit and how you will go about buying your tickets. There are many companies out there who offer 5,6,7,8 and 9 stop round the World tickets, these tickets are great because you pay one price and get all of the flights sorted before you leave. If you want to do it a little more on the fly then I would still urge to put a loose plan together in terms of where you want to go, even if you don’t know the when.
Money
Save as much money as is humanly possible before you head off on your trip, it might be tough having to work extra jobs and banking hard cash but it will totally pay off once you’re on the road. The experiences that money can buy you when you are traveling far outweighs anything that you could think of spending it on back home and it is important to remember that whilst you’re saving.
Possessions
You’re going to need tho do something with your possessions back home whilst you are on the road and if you don’t have a friend or family member who you can give your stuff to then look into storage options. Try to do this sooner rather than later as you don’t want to be running around last minute trying to store your stuff somewhere.
Packing
Resist the temptation to pack all of your worldly possessions for your journey and aim to keep your bag as light as possible. You are likely to be dragging your bag with you around quite a lot of places and the last thing that you want is an oversized or overweight bag. Remember that you can always buy clothes on the road.
Your Home
If you own your own home or you are in a long term rental agreement then don’t let that hold you back form your dream trip. Websites like Airbnb allow you to rent out your space back home which means that you can actually make some money as you travel and it saves you the hassle of running an empty home from abroad.