With unemployment at record highs and recent graduates struggling to find suitable jobs there has never been a better time to go travelling and escape the gloom

The recession, the record high unemployment, the gloom, the encroaching cold, the ever circling bouts of flu, none of it’s looking terribly inviting, particularly, one imagines, if you’re a fresh graduate. Still, not to worry, you can just pop out and get a nice job… Oh no, hang on, there’s grads fighting in pits for a chance to stack shelves. Truly, there’s never been a better time to go traveling. Adventure, warmer climates and the exotic aromas of night markets and those hammocks that swing lazily over turquoise seas. Ride out this recession far away and then ease back in when it’s all blown over: wiser, bolder and more attractive.

That’s that decision made then. Just a few things to get sorted and then you’re off.
Cash money, we can’t really help you with that, sorry, but you’re resourceful, you’ve come this far. Just grit your teeth and remember that the worst job you can get here will sustain you on the road for a lot longer than it takes to earn.

Inoculations. Afraid you’re going to have to bite the bullet on this one. There are quite a few moody diseases out there and you don’t want to find yourself on a hot starry night at the abandoned fort and see the lust and the moon shining from the eyes of the most beautiful girl/boy/thing you ever saw and for them to whisper that if you want them you can come and get them before jumping over the waterfall into the deep pool below, and for you to be stood there worrying about hepatitis or whatever else might be lurking in that suddenly suspicious pool. Or worse, to jump in and have the night of your life only to look back and rue it. No, we pray it doesn’t go down like that, so get your jabs.

Backpacker travel Insurance is another one, same thing really. You just have to get it done.  Go for a respectable, recognised organisation like Columbus Direct, who specialise in that all important multi trip travel insurance. You do not want to stumble out of that rickshaw laughing with excitement and anticipation to find that the smiling boy, who quite honestly you thought was a monk or something, lifted your precious day bag,  or to find your lovingly crafted media selection vanished and gone with no recourse.

Talking of technology. Imagine our forebears plodding along without data storage capabilities, no way of knowing which way to turn or to talk to anyone back home. Pity them. Or maybe you want it that way but that’s not to say you don’t need a camera, phone, mp3, digital recorder, portable hard drive, DAT machine or any of that other kit with which we gird our loins. “I’ll just get it off the internet,” you say “didn’t you ever hear of the cloud, bro.” We heard of it all right, bro, but where you’re going there are no roads, no clouds and no access. If you do find a stable connection, one, you’re not trying hard enough and two, it’ll be so staggeringly slow and buggy that you’ll like as not give up and get back to your frozen daiquiri.