I've taken 4 gap years, where I would travel the world for a year, in the last 14 years of my career since leaving High School. It is the best thing I have ever done. I would thoroughly recommend it to everybody - after high school, between jobs, etc.
Go travel for a year, discover the world, discover yourself, discover interesting people
My only tip would be to not cross too much of the globe at the same time. Let one part of the world sink in for a good few months.
I don't like the type of tourism where you rush to one tourist destination, take a photo of said landmark, and then rush to the next. All the while you are surrounded by people who are the same as you. I prefer sinking into cities. It doesn't even have to be off the beaten track, most times the local sites are mere meters from the tourist sites (this is true in Sydney and London).
For eg. I spent 12 months in Eastern Europe and ended up getting citizenship in Bosnia (via ancestry) and got to really, really know the place - to the point of having long-term friends, paying for things as a local, voting in elections, telling people to keep quiet when the news comes on, playing cards, smoking (still got it), drinking (stopped that one) etc. There are a lot of things you don't pick up when you spend 2-3 days, or a week there.
I used that experience to travel out to the rest of East Europe, and I knew my way around much better because of it (I got out of being arrested in Hungary on visa violations by bribing my way out to a guard who could speak Serbian).
I have now done Asia, although only parts of it and lived in London for years - part of that was a 6-month gap where I travelled Western Europe. I lived in South Africa and have been through a lot of Africa. Same with North America. I would next like to go and stay in either Argentina or in China.
As for planning, I try not to plan anything. My first 'gap year' started as a one month summer holiday to visit family. I didn't return to Australia until 10 years later. The only thing you gotta get good at is opening multiple bank accounts and backups and moving money between banks and knowing how hard/easy it is between different countries. Usually you can't beat cash.
My current plan is to live in the great cities of the world, 3 months at a time. Since 3 months is what you can usually get for a visa. So far I stayed in London which was fantastic, for 5 months, and have been in Paris for 4 months, which has been great for learning french and getting lots of work done.
Last year I was just working in my home city, doing the same sort of stuff. This year has been a lot more exciting, met great people, and worked with some exciting startups in London. Fantastic.
I should have added something about the Visa situation. If you have a parent or grandparent born in a European country, take your birth certificate with you and try and get local citizenship along with a passport. Almost everybody I had met while travelling had done this.
Check the websites for the various consulates, embassies and travel advice from your home country to find out what you can and can't do. Also remember that in many second and third world countries the written rules and the real rules are two different things - this is how I came to get a third passport in Serbia for $10 which I used to get into Hungary (legally, this time) in the summer season.
There are also special type of visa, for eg. with an Australian passport you can easily (meaning, just an application) get a 2 year working holiday visa in the UK
For everywhere else where you have Visa waivers, what I would do is use it as an excuse to get away to another country and come back in. I did this in order to stay in South Africa for 2+ years. Never had any problems getting the visa renewed each time.
It all depends on which passport you carry. I am fortunate enough to have an Australian passport, but there are other western passports that are good with Visa issues.
Flights in Europe and Asia are very cheap, lots of established low cost carriers.
The other tip is that even in the most expensive cities in the world you can find shared accommodation with enough space for a bed, desk and internet connection for a few hundred dollars a week. Just ask around. That type of accommodation is usually clustered around suburbs, for eg. Acton and Shepherds Bush in London.
I really should do what Alex has done here and write some blog posts with tips and experiences.
>It all depends on which passport you carry. I am fortunate enough to have an Australian passport, but there are other western passports that are good with Visa issues.
I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of special advantages to having a Commonwealth passport in a Commonwealth country but I can't remember any off the top of my head.
How would the finances for travels like this work? I'd love to travel after college and take a year off at a time between jobs etc, but just wondering how financially feasible this is. Do you work while travelling? And if so what type of work?
For my first trip I had a money saved up from part-time consulting and took out a credit card. I also sold my car. I really didn't care about the debt or how much money I would spend, I just wanted to stay out and away.
Of those first 12 months, I spent around 2 of them total working - spread out across that time. Most of it contract work.
I found some interesting work in Bosnia installing POS software and accounting software. There was a new consumption tax coming in and the government required electronic logging and submission, and nobody there in the IT industry had any experience with how to handle this.
The entire country was migrating from old physical paper based systems to electronic systems with internet based tax collecting overnight. I met a number of people in local IT and software businesses and helped them out. Despite the local average salary being $300 per month, I was paid well for the time I spent explaining open source and other commercial accounting packages to them and helping them out on the larger rollouts.
There is always an opportunity like that wherever you go - there is a gap in knowledge between the western world and the skills available in the second and third worlds, and you can exploit that.
Otherwise you can work for US or western based clients while living wherever you are. Most of the work I did in South Africa was for London based clients.
Register a business and open a bank account in a low regulation neutral nation, such as the Channel Islands, so you can do business from anywhere to anybody and not have to be tied up in a ton of regulation. Just don't forget to pay taxes on any income your bring into any country where you are a resident for tax purposes (usually 180+ days in a single year).
I work/travel 50% of the time. In 6 months I earn around $30-40k, and in that time can save around $15-25k. I am spendthrift and buy whatever want. I also return lots of merchandise (just "rented" an Xbox for my last month of work). I usually don't buy anything that:
-Can't fit in a backpack
-Isn't returnable
-Isn't either the cheapest option or the best option
This doesn't have much to do with travel finances, but I usually either buy the best/smallest/lightest or the cheapest/most disposable.
For example, I have $200 earbuds, a $40 safety razor (that takes 5¢ blades), a few pairs for $70 merino wool tshirts, a store bought $700 unlocked iPhone, but for shoes I have a pair of flip flops and an $8 pair of shoes that are getting thrown away on my flight out of the country. I buy $1000, 20 year old cars and sell them at a loss when I leave the country.
The totality of what I own and keep is around $5000 worth of stuff that all fits into a 40L backpack and a largish box that I mail to and from my family's house when I'm going to be working. The box has winter clothes, work equipment and outdoor gear, as I like to go backcountry camping here in the US. The $5000 includes my laptop ('11 MBA) and about $2000 of top shelf camping gear.
My gf and I have been together for a few years. She works full time min wage jobs to keep busy while I work. I support her while working and traveling. In 6 months of balls out travel in 3rd world countries we spend around $10-15k including everything.
I love this lifestyle and at this point get anxiety at the thought of staying on one place longer than 5 months.
When traveling I usually stay in each destination from 1-4 weeks. So in 6 months we'll usually see around 15-20 different places and get to know them reasonably well.
We generally make zero plans besides those broad and vague: ie "lets go to Mexico and then Cuba, and then maybe South America or Central America" or "let's go to the beach.
how about Southeast Asia?"
At least at first, that will get you off the ground. I did a modified version where I spent the first five years after school working mostly full time, then started doing 3 month contracts once a year and travelling the rest of the time.
That works better, since you need to put in some time to bring your contract rate up to something where you can take most of the year off and still manage to put away some good savings even after travel expenses.
We're finally getting to the point where it's possible to work at full capacity from the road. I do that these days since I need to stay connected to run my business anyway, but I'd still recommend just saving a pile of cash and going out on the road with no distractions.
Go travel for a year, discover the world, discover yourself, discover interesting people
My only tip would be to not cross too much of the globe at the same time. Let one part of the world sink in for a good few months.
I don't like the type of tourism where you rush to one tourist destination, take a photo of said landmark, and then rush to the next. All the while you are surrounded by people who are the same as you. I prefer sinking into cities. It doesn't even have to be off the beaten track, most times the local sites are mere meters from the tourist sites (this is true in Sydney and London).
For eg. I spent 12 months in Eastern Europe and ended up getting citizenship in Bosnia (via ancestry) and got to really, really know the place - to the point of having long-term friends, paying for things as a local, voting in elections, telling people to keep quiet when the news comes on, playing cards, smoking (still got it), drinking (stopped that one) etc. There are a lot of things you don't pick up when you spend 2-3 days, or a week there.
I used that experience to travel out to the rest of East Europe, and I knew my way around much better because of it (I got out of being arrested in Hungary on visa violations by bribing my way out to a guard who could speak Serbian).
I have now done Asia, although only parts of it and lived in London for years - part of that was a 6-month gap where I travelled Western Europe. I lived in South Africa and have been through a lot of Africa. Same with North America. I would next like to go and stay in either Argentina or in China.
As for planning, I try not to plan anything. My first 'gap year' started as a one month summer holiday to visit family. I didn't return to Australia until 10 years later. The only thing you gotta get good at is opening multiple bank accounts and backups and moving money between banks and knowing how hard/easy it is between different countries. Usually you can't beat cash.