Setting a departure date can depend on several things. The major factors are money and commitments at home. With money, you may have a target figure you want to reach before you feel you have enough for when you are out there. With commitments, you may have to finish school, university or sort out other commitments you have – career gappers for example may need to negotiate time off work and take care of other matters such what to do with their home while they are away.

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Air Fares Vary Over The Year

There are other factors to consider too. Air fares vary throughout the year, round the world ticket fares vary greatly so its worth taking a look and seeing if you can save money by being more flexible with your departure date – more money available to spend while away! Take a look at the flights section in getting there and around for more information on the different tickets available and how to get the best deal for you.

Weather/Climate

Weather and climate is an important factor to consider, for example if you want to visit New Zealand and feel like catching the ski season while you are there – arriving in december would be a waste of time (remember seasons in the southern hemisphere are opposite to the northern hemisphere). So its important to check annual weather/climate information for the countries you are visiting, especially if something you want to do while visiting is weather dependent (or you just want to follow the sun!)

Arrive In Time For Festivals/Events

If you really want to get the most out of your trip when on your gap year or backpacking trip, why not plan to arrive at a certain destination for a festival or event that interests you. I’m sure you have heard of many famous festivals and events that take place around the world, now is your chance to be there with the help of a little clever planning. Check out our recommended links below for a great site telling you all about festivals and events being held worldwide throughout the year.

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Welcome to our hostels section, here we will give you advice and information on hostels and why its a great option for you while you are travelling.

Why Hostels?

Hostels are great places to stay when travelling on your gap year, accommodation costs can account for a fair amount of your budget so with hostels being cheap places to stay, they are ideal to keep those costs down as much as possible.

Sleeping In A Dorm

Hostel dorms – your bedroom for the length of your trip. Its not ideal to be sharing with a lot of strangers but its cheaper and can be interesting! Great places to start chatting to people and make friends, although sometimes sleep will be difficult! There will be occasions when you can’t sleep because of a snorer, or perhaps a group of drunk people come into the dorm late at night, but these situations don’t occur that often. Generally most travellers will keep the noise down if they come in late as they know that they wouldn’t want to be woken up if they were asleep in bed! The size of dorms can vary depending on the hostel – 4, 6, 8, 10 bed dorms are available with the bigger dorms generally being the cheapest per night.

Facilities

Hostel facilities obviously vary, some hostels will have a kitchen, a TV room, and laundry facilities. Shower and toilet facitilies can vary, some dorms will have an ensuite toilet and shower, others will have male and female toilet and shower rooms. It all depends on the hostel. Bigger hostels may have a travel/tour desk where you can book activities and tours during your stay, even the smaller hostels will help you out when looking to book activities – just ask at reception. Other hostels will even have a bar or a swimming pool! Hostels aren’t just dorm rooms you know, standards are increasing all the time – budget accommodation with good facilities, its worth the small amount you pay for that nights stay!

Other Information

Getting a discount card like a ISIC, VIP, or YHA card will give you a discount on your nights stay in many hostels (look out for our feature on discount cards coming soon), it may be a minor discount but if you are travelling for a length of time, the money saved is clear. Some hostels will not let you use sleeping bags so either linen will be included in the price or you will have to pay a little extra for your bedding. With security, some hostels do have lockers in the rooms so its worth taking a padlock with you for this purpose. You can ask the hostels to store important items in the hostel safe if you are worried about things going missing. Most travellers will not be interested in rooting around your bags if left in the dorms, but there is a chance that a minority will spoil this so be aware of this – don’t be leaving your ipod and other expensive items on show! For more on safety and security when travelling, check out our safety section.

Flying will be your fastest and easiest method of transport when travelling, but it will also swallow up a lot of your budget, especially for round the world trips. Its important to look around for the best air fares, you can save money. Here we will look at how to get the best deals for flights, a few tips on how to save money by being flexible and how to construct a round the world route (and complement it will overland sections).

Get Quotes!

Firstly with any type of flights, don’t just go to your local travel agent and book – look around at different travel agents, and also look online (See recommended links below). Putting a little effort in here will be worth it as you will get the best deal, saving money here means there is more to spend while you are away!

Student? Under 26? – Discounts!

Its also important to be aware of the discounts that airlines offer for students and anyone under 26. STA Travel normally alert you to this more than other travel agents. You would normally have to pay a small fee (£7) for an International Student Identity Card (ISIC), or a International Youth Travel Card (IYTC) to prove the fact you are a student or under 26 – this then allows the travel agent to offer you certain air fares at discounted prices.

Round The World Tickets

When round the world tickets are involved, there are several different tickets available – the major airlines get together to form alliances to help offer such tickets. We will be covering round the world tickets in detail soon here on independentjourney.com so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime check out recommended links below for the different types of round the world tickets. Again, get plenty of quotes when it comes to round the world tickets, you may find that some travel agents are willing to undercut a quote from another company, especially when you are willing to spend such a big amount of money (£800+) on a ticket. You don’t get if you don’t ask!

Can You Be Flexible?

If you are flexible about when to leave, you could again save money. With every form of transport there are peak and off peak periods to travel, if you are willing to set off a few months earlier or later in what would be low season, then you will certainly get it cheaper than travelling during high season. Its certainly something to consider, but don’t let saving a bit of extra cash here affect your trip – especially if you were planning to get to places for events, festivals or to catch the best weather.

Use Stopovers Wisely

When planning your round the world route, try to use your limited stopovers wisely. To do this you may wish to include overland sections in your trip meaning you can fly into one city – then travel overland to the airport you will fly out of. This way you have only used one stopover instead of two(flying into one airport and out of another counts as one stopover, not two). For example, you may want to visit Sydney and Cairns in Australia – if you fly into Cairns for a week, then fly to Sydney for a week, then Fly out – that counts as two stopovers. If you decide to travel overland between Cairns and Sydney so you fly into Cairns, then use a bus as overland transport (visiting other places between) to get to Sydney and then fly out – thats one stopover in total. Doing things like this will make your round the world ticket stretch that little further and adding a few overland sectors will enable you to see more of the country you are visiting (see the next section for more information on overland travel).

Yet another important and serious topic to cover – travel health. We don’t want to scare and stop you from travelling, but there will be dangers out there in other countries which may affect your health – if you don’t take precautions. Please don’t skip this section, read it and take it on board – we don’t want you in a region known for malaria, when you haven’t taken the medication required to protect you!

Time To Visit Your Doctor

Once you know the countries you are going to visit on your travels, go and visit your doctor – the sooner the better. Your doctor will be able to tell you which vaccinations and other medication you will need. Its important to arrange this as early as possible you may have to have a course of vaccinations over several weeks and also allow time for the vaccinations (and other medication) to take effect before you set off on your travels.

Costs & Visa Conditions

Some vaccinations can be quite expensive so its worth making an allowance for this when working out your target figure when saving for your trip. Some countries are strict regarding health as part of their visa conditions – For example, if you are arriving into a country from a country that has a Yellow Fever epidemic, you will only be granted entry if you hold a yellow fever certificate (which you get after having the yellow fever vaccine). Make sure you check the visa conditions for things like this.

First Aid Kits & Travel Insurance

Its wise to pack a first aid kit in your backpack, it doesn’t have to be high tech, but it will come in useful in some way if you injury yourself. First aid kits will sort out minor injuries, but your travel insurance will sort out anything else if something happens. Make sure you have comprehensive travel insurance, otherwise you will be paying out huge fees (that you can’t afford) in hospital because you didn’t bother to buy travel insurance.

Do you think you know where to go on your travels yet? If you do, wait a minute as that list of countries you have noted down may change. Its important to think ahead and consider things you would like to do while you are away. Each country has different things that attract different people, and you’ll want to maximise your time when travelling by choosing to visit the countries that have the most to offer for you.

Adventure Activities?

You may want to sky dive, but where – prices vary from country to country, place to place. How about the view, if you are going to be screaming for your life when you jump out of a plane, why not have some stunning scenery to gaze at on the way down? How about other adventure activities such as Bungy jumping, do you want to travel to South Africa to do the highest bungy jump in the world at 216metres? Perhaps you want to visit what is known as the adventure capital of the world, Queenstown in New Zealand to try everything!

Overlanding Ideas

How about a different experience by including the journey as an idea, overlanding independently or by using a tour is a great way to see places you wouldn’t normally visit due to being restricted to stay by where the airports are. One of the famous overland trips is travelling across russia and asia by the trans siberian railway. If you aren’t interested in asia, why not travel overland by truck across africa. Check out the overland section in getting there and around and also the recommended links below.

Ok we can’t stress this enough – Don’t go travelling without travel insurance! Obviously you hope nothing goes wrong while you are travelling, but sometimes they will and you have to be prepared in case. What should you look for when making sure you choose the right travel insurance for your trip, there are so many things to consider when choosing.

Make sure you are covered

There are lots of different types of travel insurance out there, the first thing you just look for is that the insurance will cover you for the countries you are visiting. There will be Europe specific ones, Worldwide(excluding North America), and Worldwide (including North America). Make sure you are covered for every country you visit when on your trip!

Comparing Policies

Get quotes from several insurance companies, don’t just automatically get the cheapest one though, the chances are that its cheapest for a reason – the policy isn’t as strong as others. You need to find a policy that will suit you, but obviously be reasonably priced. If you plan to be doing plenty of adventure activities such as sky diving and bungy jumping, then you will need to check the small print to see which adventure activities you would be covered for. If you plan to catch a ski season during your trip, you will need to make sure you are fully covered for winter sports. Please read the small print and make sure you are covered for the things you plan to do.

Medical Section

The medical part of the policy will tell you how much you are covered for if you need treatment for any injuries, illnesses over the course of your trip. Obviously here, the more cover you can get the better, sometimes in can be £1 million, £2 million, even unlimited. Look at all the different policies when you are looking around for quotes and make sure you check the medical section of the policy.

Other Things To Consider

You may also wish to use your travel insurance to protect expensive items you take away with you such as your camera, and music player. They won’t always automatically be covered so check the policy, you may have to pay a little extra to add it onto your policy. When you decide on a policy and get your documents, make photocopies and put them in your backpack, and maybe also in a money belt, so you will have the details as a back up somewhere else.

Get saving! Yes, money is the major factor of any trip, the more you have the more you can do, travel further and treat yourself more! In this section we will talk about saving money, getting a rough budget together and also why you should try to bring extra for unexpected things. We will also talk about the best ways to carry your money – cash, card, or travellers cheques.

Saving And Setting A Target

Saving for your travels might take a while but once you are out there, it will be worth it. Its important to try and set yourself a target while saving – try to work out when you can reach the target by, then you can start planning a departure date. Now to set yourself a target means you just have an idea about how much it should all cost – you need to work out a rough budget. Remember your budget figure will be an estimate so do try to save a little more money to allow for underestimating.

Estimating Your Budget

There is no easy way to calculate a rough budget – each traveller is different, go to different countries and for different lengths of time. Some countries could be regarded as expensive such as USA and Japan, and others like Thailand could see your money stretch a lot further. Its best to try and work out transport costs – flights and overland transport first, then with things like accommodation, food and other costs – set a daily budget, or even a weekly budget. You may find a weekly budget more flexible as some days you may spend more than others – so over the week it will balance out. You make also like to keep aside money for things like adventure activities.

Cash, Cards, Travellers Cheques?

What form should you take your currency in? Cash, card, travellers cheques? Well, it depends where you are going really. If you are going to places off the beaten track or less developed countries, you are better taking cash as you won’t find ATM’s everywhere like you would in a developed city. If you do take cash, do try to split it up on your person for safety reasons. If you are looking for your money to be safe even if the worst happens, travellers cheques are a good option. A popular form of paying for things while travelling is by credit or debit card. Its a lot easier and less hassle as you don’t have to to go currency exchange all the time. Just remember though that sometimes you will travel somewhere that doesn’t have ATM’s or card paying facilities so always plan for this. You may also find it useful to set up internet banking to use while you are travelling to move money around and keep an eye on your balance!

Its important when travelling not to just rely on flights to get around, don’t let your trip be restricted to where the major airports are – get away from the major cities, travel between them using overland transport. Use trains, buses, boats, whatever you can to get between places – you will see more of the country and get away from the tourist trail to see the real country. It also helps stretch out your air ticket stopovers, see the flights sections for more details on this.

Make It Work With Your Air Ticket

The two major methods to travel overland independently are by train and bus/coach. When planning your trip, it might be wise to investigate the overland options available along the route you wish to take and try to work out how to get the sectors to fit in with your airline ticket. You will want to find out how easy it is to travel overland between points, especially if you are flying into one city and out of another further down the route after time spent travelling overland. Its a lot easier to look into this now online so you have a good idea when you turn up.

Overnight Travel and Discounts

A good tip (if its safe to do so) is to travel on an overnight train or bus, ok it might be a little uncomfortable but it saves accommodation costs. Discount cards can be useful when buying train/bus tickets – some companies offer backpacker/student discounts. Over the next weeks and months transport reviews will be added to help you when choosing which companies to use, so remember to keep checking. Check out our next section on overland tours for further overland options.

Packing the right things can be a problem for any kind of trip away, but for when travelling for months and months – how do you decide what to pack into that limited space you have in your backpack? Here we will talk about things to pack, things to leave behind, and also how to choose the right backpack.

What To Pack

You will want to take a lot of things, if you try to cram it all in your backpack you will fill it before you have even started putting your clothes in there! Start with key essentials such as sleeping bag, first aid kit etc (see recommended list below), then move onto clothes, try not to take too many clothes, you can always wash them – no one will care you have worn the same t shirt for 4 days running anyway! Then if you still have some room left (well done), you can pack a few extras!

Recommended Pack List

Essential List:

• Sleeping bag
• Sleeping liner
• First aid kit (and medication)
• Torch
• Suncream and sunglasses
• Small wash bag
• Travel towel
• Thin waterproof jacket
• 4 t shirts
• 2 pairs of trousers
• Sweater/fleece
• Travel documents

Extras:

• Camera
• Guidebooks
• Music player
• and anything else you can fit in!

Store your valuables and some identification in your daypack, and store photocopies of documents in your main backpack.

Backpacks Types & Sizes

Your backpack will be your ‘house’ while you are travelling! Its important to invest in a good quality, strong, comfortable backpack. You might be pleased with buying a bargain backpack for £30, but you won’t feel the same when it falls apart 2 weeks into your trip. You might be shocked when you see the prices of backpacks, reaching upto around £100 and higher – its worth the expense though as not only will it last for your trip, but it can be used again and again when travelling in the future. There are two main types of backpack – the traditional ones which are know as top loaders, and side/panel loaders which are also known as ‘travelpacks’. Top loaders are the kind you can only access from the top, the disadvantage to this is you need to take everything out if you need something that is at the bottom of your pack! Side/panel loaders open when a section/flap on the front of the backpack is unzipped – this type of opening gives your better access to the contents of your backpack. Backpack sizes are measured in litres, with the common backpack size being around 60-70 litres (for the main pack), there will sometimes be an additional pack that comes with the main pack called a daypack – these are generally around 10-20 litres in size and look very like normal backpacks you would have used at school, or going to the gym etc.