gap_year_travellersIt’s been reported that 2009 is a record year for students choosing to take a gap year before going to University or attempting to find a job. Perhaps motivated by the current recession and rising unemployment, many are planning to travel the globe before taking up their places at college.

Every academic year I meet fresh students who’ve just returned from their travels mainly to the various traditional traveller favourites like Thailand, India and Nepal. There has been a developing trend for out-of-the-way or inhospitable destinations and, increasingly, I’m hearing many tales of travel disasters.

The most common problem that many innocent young students run into is theft. From pickpockets in busy airports and train stations to day-time muggings by lady-boys in Bangkok, this is a problem that’s clearly on the increase.

And another really common issue that, for some, can be very serious indeed, is illness. Many students don’t follow recommended hygiene precautions and they can often become ill with stomach upsets. Last year I met two new students who’d both had dysentery, a couple who had both picked up stomach parasites and one young man who’d contracted Typhoid in Mexico.

Students and young people in general love to party and partying means getting off their heads. This has led to many problems. A couple of years ago I met a young man who’d been drinking a locally brewed hooch with friendly locals at a coastal town in Guatemala. He passed-out and when he came to he realised that he was on board a Norwegian merchant ship bound for New Orleans. He had to ask the captain to radio for a boat to come and take him back to port.

A pair of students I had in my class a few years back ran into problems in the Dominican Republic. They’d spent an afternoon drinking in a hotel bar, making friends with a few locals. One of their new buddies said that he could score some marijuana and asked if they wanted some. They thought, we’re in the Caribbean so why not, and handed over just $20. The young man disappeared for no more than 10 minutes and returned with a large parcel of weed wrapped in newspaper. As soon as he handed it over to the students their table was surrounded by about six plain-clothes policemen, all with their guns drawn, yelling instructions in Spanish.

The two students were taken to the local police station where they were both strip searched in a room full of strangers. They suspected that their weed supplier was working with the police and their suspicions were confirmed when the head policeman told them that they could either pay an immediate fine or go to prison. They opted to pay the extortionate bribe, with help from their folks back home, and got straight on a plane back to the UK.

Gap year travelling is a great experience for most students but there are always dangers. Learning to recognise and avoid these is all part of the experience.

Bookmark This
SubscribeBloglinesDiggdel.icio.usFacebookFurlMa.gnoliaRedditStumbleUponTechnorati