Gap years are becoming more and more popular. So whether you are taking a gap year before or after university - or perhaps a 'career break' - the key is to plan and to travel with a trusted company.

According to Year Out Group, the not-for-profit association of 37 gap year providers, almost 39,000 people took a structured gap year placement in 2006 and the number is continuing to increase. And with the wide choice of options - ranging from expeditions to volunteering, and courses to cultural exchanges overseas - making the most of your time is vital.

While hovering over a basic latrine, wishing the cockroach at your feet would bugger off, having spent the afternoon digging a well and the morning teaching the alphabet to highly enthusiastic but undereducated six-year-olds, it’s hard to imagine that your efforts can in fact be detrimental.

Yet this rather disheartening opinion seems to be becoming widespread. As more than 100,000 molly-coddled teenagers embark on a year out between school and university, the traditional gap experience is disappearing – while the voluntary work that is taking its place is under attack...

High school was on the fast track for Ally Marzulla, who routinely packed her schedule with full course loads and graduated one year early in 2006.

As the Nederland teenager prepared to take a blind plunge into college life, her parents signaled her to slow down. So Marzulla took a "gap year" — spending eight months in Alaska researching plate-tectonic movements and using her off months to work for her father's stonemasonry business...

Finishing school presented me with that heady sense of liberation that comes to all prospective gappers. The stress of A-levels, teachers and rules was suddenly gone. As I contemplated my future, I realised that I wasn't considering just my new-found freedom beyond the confines of college, but also the world beyond Britain. I wanted a gap-year project, but what to do? How to do it? Where to do it? It was an overwhelming as well as enthralling choice.

While some of my friends were volunteering with the gap travel companies, others were learning languages or furthering their academic interests at foreign institutions. I wanted to travel...

Backpackers are flocking back to Australia, according to the publication of a new set of figures...
 

Dogtag's unique, personalised ID and rescue system means it is the travel insurance of choice for globe trotting, adventure sports, watersports, skiing and snowboarding, mountain sports, backpacking and beach fun...