Taking a gap year to travel abroad is the ideal way to break out of the cycle of study and work for many students in Britain. Prince William's recent, much-publicised stint in Chile has even given globe-trotting for a year between school and university a royal seal of approval.
Prince William was one of among an estimated 23,000 students who deferred their entry this academic year to begin their course the coming September. What's more, an increasing number of students from all dis ciplines are spending a term or a year abroad at a foreign university as part of their course.
Officials at the Erasmus exchange programme, the British branch of which is based at Kent University, say that at least 10,000 UK students are abroad in Europe in any given year as part of their studies. And throughout Europe there are more than 100,000 students mobile over the course of any academic year from the 2,000 European universities that participate in the Erasmus programme.
But for a lot of students, whether backpacking or studying, a year abroad can be an uncertain and even nightmarish experience. A lack of familiarity with local customs and an ignorance of legal rights and working practices have caused many an upset for those who had set off with dreams of broadening their horizons.
Alan Lansdowne, a graduate from Sheffield University, was almost beaten to death in a small town in Russia. As part of a year abroad for his degree in Russian and German, he was living in the town of Voronezh, situated about a nine-hour drive south from Moscow. Although Lansdowne, now 24, and his British friends were told not to walk alone at night, they began to flout the rules as they became more familiar with the town.
One January night, Lansdowne was drinking with some friends and decided to walk home alone in the early hours of the morning. "I got to a crossroads, and these guys were standing there, asking me to come towards them," he says. The gang surrounded him within minutes and started punching and kicking him. He managed to stagger home, the 10-minute journey taking him more than an hour. When inside the flat, he collapsed, waking his Russian landlady. He was taken to the local hospital where doctors found that as well as having extensive internal bleeding, he had also ruptured his spleen.
Lansdowne later found out that his beating may have been part of a local ritual that none of the foreign students had been warned of. He was told by a Russian friend that the night he was beaten marked the beginning of the new year for Russian Orthodox Christians, a coincidence which may have been the reason for the events of that evening. "The experience has made me wiser. I say to myself, if I can go through that, then I can do anything," he says now.
As well as the thousands of students taking a gap year before starting their degree studies, there are many who do the same after graduation. Almost all of those who take a gap year before committing themselves to full-time employment say they need to see the world and experience different things before settling down.
Burhan Uddin Ahmed, 25, from east London, was one of those students who wanted to see more of life after his studies. Having completed his MA in journalism studies at London's Goldsmith's College, Ahmed bought a round-the-world air ticket. He flew to Thailand and then on to Australia, but it was while in Brazil that he was confronted by a gunman.
Ahmed, who recently returned to London, knew coach hijackings were frequent, but nevertheless decided to take a 14-hour coach journey from the north-eastern city of Puerto Seguro to Salvador at night. At three in the morning, passengers were awoken by a lone gunman who demanded money and valuables from everyone on board.
Ahmed says he felt extremely nervous, as he was sitting near the front, very close to where the gunman was standing. "I knew if the gunman started firing I would have been one of the first to get shot," he says. The gunman eventually fled after taking valuables and cash from all the passengers.
Although he reached Salvador, he flew back to England shortly afterwards. Like Lansdowne, he now puts this traumatic event down to experience.
Although violent cases like these are rare, other problems abound. Many British students abroad become victims "of low pay, sexual harassment and downright exploitation," according to a recent survey by the BBC Essentials website.
One in 20 of those surveyed said they had been victims of sexual harassment while abroad. "Almost double the amount of boys to girls had been sexually harassed," explains Zillah Myers, the producer of the website. She adds that women were more likely to be paid a poor salary than men.
The most popular jobs among gap-year students who earn as they travel were bar work and waiting on tables. But of the 509 people interviewed in the BBC survey, one-third complained of working very long hours, and a substantial number told how they were badly treated by their native work colleagues.
Leighanne Springate, 25, was one of the participants in the survey. After graduating from Leeds University with a degree in maths and management in 1998, she travelled for a year before settling down to a full-time job as a finance manager. Part of her year out was spent in the US working in a children's summer camp. She was paid $800 for two months' work.
"The camp job was a nightmare," she says. On average, she claims, she worked for 13-14 hours a day, getting up at 7.30 in the morning, and finishing at around 10 in the evening. She now wishes she had found out more about the working conditions at the camp before setting off.
Despite the potential pitfalls, experts believe that gap years are set to become even more popular in the future. Michael Snoughton, an official at the Gap Activity Project, believes that the reason behind this increased enthusiasm may be that students are more hard-up than ever before, and so want to improve their CVs - and maximise their earnings - by boasting of this sort of experience.
Gap years, he says, have become steadily more popular in the past four or five years, as a university education becomes steadily more expensive. UCAS figures support this view. In 1994, they show that 14,530 students took a gap year, compared with 22,522 in 1999. Figures for this year are expected to be higher still.
Snoughton, whose organisation offers a package travel deal combined with voluntary work, believes that gap years abroad are immensely beneficial to students, giving them different perspectives in the world of politics and culture as well as skills. "Every 18-year-old should consider it," he says. But - even if the idea is to escape study for a while - they would be well advised to do their homework first.
Survival guide
When planning a gap year or a study period abroad, research your chosen region before setting off. If on a study exchange programme, find out all you can about the host university and its location from your own department. If on a gap year, get advice from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office about the possible dangers of visiting some countries (see its website). When abroad, note the telephone number and address of the nearest British Embassy, which can provide invaluable help in a crisis situation. Get vaccinated against illnesses like TB and malaria before you go. Take out good medical and possession insurance. Find out about work permits and other documents if you want to work in some areas. Illegal workers can do nothing if employers refuse to pay them. Don't carry much cash with you. Traveller's cheques are safer and ATM machines are in almost all countries. Don't go out alone at night in areas you don't know. Stick with a group of people you trust. In some countries, especially South American, avoid long journeys by night on a coach or by road. Highway robbery is frequent.
Useful websites
