Monday, 20 May 2013

Summer Travel Can Be a Great Learning Experience


There is a rather short window in most people's lives where their responsibilities have not quite started and they can taste freedom. Once this window closes, they move to the next phase of their lives where family, work and all the other responsibilities of adulthood take over.
This is the time of life when student travel programs can genuinely be enjoyed. Many students take the opportunity to travel before they set off on post graduate studies or take a much needed breather once they finish their studies, but whenever the opportunity arrives, it is a way of gaining valuable experiences far away from your cocoon of comfort. It is also a time when you can flesh out your resume; make it stand out so that when you put the suit and tie on, your CV will be noticed amongst all the others.
As you are a young adult by the time you want to take advantage of student travel programs, you will need to organize yourself, it is this experience which, perhaps not yet recognized, will add to your CV.
* You will need to determine when you want to go, where you want to go and raise enough money to pay for the year off. Long before you leave you should be involved in fund raising activities so that you can enjoy your time with a minimum of concern.
* Before you leave you will have to "attend to business", making sure that you have an up to date passport that is good for the duration of your travels, visas for the countries you plan on visiting and all the equipment that you will need as a back packer.
While you are away you will not only have a golden opportunity to see sights, smell smells and hear sounds that are completely foreign to you, you will have the opportunity of meeting locals. As a young person logic says you will meet young people, this is an ideal time to get involved on a local level.
If you are given an opportunity to spend time in a school, take advantage of it. Use this opportunity to teach English for example to the youngsters, the experience is invaluable and looks very good on your CV. You may also have a specific talent that you can bring to the party, perhaps a skill in sport that you can share. A year or so is a long time and you can take full advantage of it by travelling and becoming deeply immersed with local people and culture.
Many student travel programs are augmented by charities, all your asked to do is help building housing, spend time in an orphanage or help in preparing meals for people less fortunate than most. Student travel programs are as varied as are the students themselves.
A good travel agency can help you find meaningful and rewarding student travel programs, one of the best is Millennium Tours who have been doing this since 1973. Check out their web site at http://www.mltours.com

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