Travel and bucket lists are very much in the news and there’s never been a better time to explore all the places you’re supposed to see before you die. If you’re getting a head start on your list by doing some travelling before university, then don’t forget about gap year travel insurance.

For most people, the hardest part of the procedure is compiling a bucket list in the first place, so here are some suggestions for some ‘must-see’ destinations.

Paris

Sometimes it’s best to start closer to home because those far-flung destinations can seem so inviting that you can almost lose sight of those that are within easy reach. Paris is a city you must visit at least once in your life before your inevitable demise.

Its famous sights are the key to its appeal and they include the Eifel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame and many more. In terms of iconic buildings, structures and places, only Rome really comes close. If you want to see numerous bucket-list sights in one destination, Paris is the place to be.

India

There was a time when no self-respecting student would have even contemplated completing their studies at some stage without ‘dropping out’ and seeing India. The hippy era may have gone but the country is still a major draw for any traveller.

There are some incredible sights, of course, including the Taj Mahal (obviously) but the main attraction for those that put India on their bucket list is the incredibly different culture that hits you as soon as you set foot on the country’s soil.

Japan

There was a time when New York was the main entry on a bucket list as far as modern cities are concerned but it has been usurped somewhat by Tokyo and other areas of Japan. As a country, Japan is now the futuristic vision that New York once was and therein lies its appeal.

When you’re there, make sure you do all the crazy activities expected of you: get crushed on a bullet train, stay in a tiny capsule hotel that will induce claustrophobia or dice with death with Fugu – sushi that could kill if it isn’t prepared properly.

Galapagos Islands

Any bucket list worthy of the name should contain some more inaccessible locations and that’s certainly the case with the Galapagos Islands. However, there is so much to see and do here that it isn’t just a case of coming here just because you can.

The Galapagos Islands provided the backdrop to Charles Darwin’s greatest work and the animal and plant life here is simply breath-taking. There’s a spectacular landscape too and this will be a trip that you will never forget.

Australia

For a real land of contrasts, Australia may be impossible to beat, with the stark expanse of the interior coupled with some of the liveliest cities on earth.

Once again, if you want to say that you’ve seen certain landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House or Ayers Rock then you can, but there is so much more to this incredible country besides.

Australia is the place to come if you have time to spare. If you are lucky enough to have a gap year, you might just about fit everything in that this incredible place has to offer.

Another huge benefit to coming to this country is that there really is something for everyone. While we may all have different bucket-list requirements, Australia has enough space and scope to cover them all.

One of the greatest things about backpacking around the world is that it grants one perspective. It is this perspective, that only a foreigner can posses, that enables those with entrepreneurial eyes to identify potentially lucrative niches.

In other words, backpackers are continually aware of things such as price disparities between neighboring countries, or how a product or service in one country is better or worse than that of another country. In the result, this knowledge, if well understood, can be utilized to create a temporary or even long-term business.

So, if you aren’t into working while abroad, hate having a boss like I do, enjoy embarking on business ventures, and need money to travel, you might want to consider going into business for yourself. In the following guide, you will find list of just a few of the business ventures I have encountered and undertaken while on the road.

1)    Sell Jewelry

Selling jewelry while backpacking the world is simple, profitable and something everyone can do to make a quick buck. Jewelry is light, you can sell it on the street or at a hostel, the start up cost is low, and if you sell to westerners, you can charge western prices.

First, you need to know how to weave hemp. If you don’t already know how, you can easily find a guide online. Second, always be on the look out for cool pendent’s or gems in cheap countries. Old antique shops are usually a good bet. I once met a Japanese/Austrian couple in Cairo, who funded their 5 years of backpacking solely through their jewelry briefcase business.

 2)    Export Clothing

I once met a British girl who produced her own unique skirt in India and then brought them back with her to the UK and sold them. She made enough to continually take trips to her favorite country, India. So, If you have an idea for a cool T-Shirt or pants line, and are in India or Bangladesh, this is your chance to steal some business from the big dogs and ensure that those you employ receive proper pay and treatment.

The way to begin is to contact a local wholesaler, which in India usually isn’t to hard to find. Start out with a decent quantity (the more you order the cheaper they will be), and haggle well. Then, throw your shirts or scarf’s or whatever into you backpack and head to an expensive country. Finally, go around to local retailers and see if they are interested in your product. If not, you can always sell them at fairs or street markets. Note that this venture requires a significant start up cost, so be sure not to blow your last travel funds on it.

3)    Sell Fruit

If you are in a fruit abundant country, there is no reason why you can’t pick fruit from trees and sell it on the street. A great country to do this in is Thailand. Thailand is full of coconuts that, if you are able to climb the trees to get them, can be yours for free. You can then sell them to tourists on the beaches and make enough for a delicious pad Thai dinner. Hawaii is also another great place to pick and sell fresh mangos and pineapples. And if you can’t sell them, you can always eat them for dinner. Most recently, I ended up selling sugar cane in Ethiopia. Check out this video post if your interested.

4)    Go Busking

If you are a decent musician and have your instrument on you, performing on the street is a great way to make a few bucks. I myself travel with a harmonica and have made quite a bit of change playing it throughout Europe. I have found that if you play those countries national anthem or other traditional songs, it definitely helps increase your coinage. Although the attention is a bit nerve-racking at first, once you get into it and let your ego down, the money will come and you might just start to like it.

5)    Transport Drugs

I once met a Norwegian in Nepal who would mail cheap painkillers he had bought at the pharmacy back home to his friend. His friend would then sell them and send him half the profits, which ranged in the thousands of dollars. Although this method is highly profitable and can be done in many developing countries, it is not recommended. It is particularly risky for the sender and receiver, and perpetuates drug use and addiction.

Fortunately, there are legal ways to make money through the transportation of drugs. The easiest, least risky, and most backpacker friendly way is to buy tobacco and alcohol at cheap duty free shops and then sell them in rich countries. Although there is usually a customs limit of two cartons of cigarettes and 1 liter of alcohol, you can usually stretch this a bit without too much risk.  However, as my crazy Irish friend once illustrated, if you try and smuggle 100 cartons from Tunisia to Ireland and are caught, you will be detained for quiet a few days and be relieved of all your cigarettes.

6)    Sell Anything You Can Find

It is always a good idea to check the dumpsters behind local supermarkets. I once did this is Scotland and found dozens of bouquets of unspoiled flowers. I then sold them on the street and made enough to buy a new pair of boxers at a second hand store, a liter of White Lightening Cider and a meal. The dumpsters of the world are full of unspoiled treasures just waiting to be sold.

Another good method is to ask local bakeries or even Starbucks for their baked goods at the end of the day. Then sell them at discounted prices to drunken pub-crawlers that night.

There are endless ways for the backpacker to make money around the world. As long as you keep your eyes open, each country you visit will inspire a new money making idea. You might want to import Japanese heated toilet seats to Scandinavia or import Thailand’s famous Change beer to the UK. You might have an idea for a backpack and try and have it produced cheap in China and sold in the US. The possibilites are truly endless and when you get broke enough, the ideas and motivation to follow them through will increase ten fold. Basically what I’m trying to say is that once you go backpacking, there are always ways to make money on the road.

Good luck and prosperous travels,

Leif

For those of you who know me, you know that I love sugar cane. I often refer to it as milk direct from God’s teet. It is sweet but not overly sweet. By some divine chemistry, the juice is both frothy and smooth at the same time. It has an earthy taste that you never knew you needed until you try it. And once you try it, it’s all over. You’re hooked and hooked for life.

Now that I have finished my sugar cane rant, it is time to tell you about the sugar cane business I got started in Ethiopia. If you are tired of reading you can just skip down to the video, but stay here for a little more background info of the business.

So, basically, as you now know, I love sugar cane, I can’t stress it enough. However, the problem in Ethiopia is that they only sell sugar cane raw. What this means is, unless you have a sharp knife on you, you are forced to gnaw at the cane until you’re bleeding from the gums.

And so, I ended up doing this more times than I can count.

“If only they would cut up the sugar cane in bit size pieces, put it in plastic bags and sell it like that. How hard could that be?” I thought, as I ran my tongue over my sugar cane wounds.

“Westerners love sugar cane, but no tourist is going to buy it here if it means they risk losing a tooth or bleeding from the gums,” I realized.

That’s when it hit me.

On the way to Lalibella, a village host to 13 holy churches carved from stone, our mini bus stopped to buy sugar cane. I had a feeling that since Lalibella is located at a high altitude that sugar cane would not be grown there, so I bought three bundles, around 24 foot long sticks, for 4 Birr, that’s under fifty cents. When I arrived in Lalibella, my presumption was confirmed by much higher sugar cane prices. If I had just sold the sugar cane raw right then and there I would have doubled my money. But that was not my plan.

My plan was to introduce cut and packaged sugar cane to the tourist filled village of Lalibella. And that was exactly what I did. I cut up the sugar cane, put it in clear air tight plastic bags, and hit the market. Needless to say, the locals thought I was completely nuts and so did the foreign tourists. However I stuck at it and managed to sell 5 bags for 10 Birr a bag.

However, the success of the day had little to do with the amount of money I made. The real success was measurable in the number of locals who approached me and appreciated my introducing the idea to the town. And through the 13 year old entrepreneur who recognized the potential of selling clean cut sugar cane to tourists, and became my intern.

It is my hope that that kid keeps it up and is profiting well, and that the next time I am in Lalibella, I can buy fresh, clean, bit size sugar cane from him.

This business venture was made possible by Lotus Honolulu.

We have all had those moments when we seem to know what will come. Those moments when that little voice or feeling warns you not to drink the water because it has already seen the diarrhea that will result.

The problem with such premonitions is that we hardly trust them enough. And when a strong premonition is accompanied by a seemingly irrational fear, it becomes difficult to differentiate one from the other.

The Sudanese government rounded up 40 Ethiopian girls and put them on a bus back to Ethiopia. Just before the border, their bus crashed and killed everyone on board. Since I had met many of these girls at tea shops around Khartoum, the news was personal and very saddening.

While the news invoked apprehension I decided to continue with my plans to travel from Khartoum, Sudan to Gondar, Ethiopia by bus. “It couldn’t possibly happen again” I said aloud, in an attempt to reassure myself.

However, the night before my journey, not only did memories of this story plague my conscience but also a startlingly intense premonition of my very own bus crash.

I even told my mother on Skype that the thing I was most worried about was not getting kidnapped by extremists or dehydrating in the desert but being in a bus crash.

On the morning of departure, I awoke in a cold sweat. Although I had a terrible feeling, I could not be sure how much of that feeling was due to the recent bus crash I had been obsessing over or a real premonition.

And so, I reluctantly boarded the bus that I knew in my gut was doomed to crash.

While I had bought two seats, one for my bag and one for me, there were no seats left and so I was forced to sit on the ground in the middle aisle. “Great,” I thought sarcastically, “Now if we really do crash, I’m going to go flying out the front windshield.”

The driver accelerated as though his bladder was about to burst and from this moment on the prospects of actually crashing seemed a very real possibility.

Although the bus was massive, and had dangerously loose suspension, causing the bus to sway unnervingly side to side like a hammock, he drove her like a Ferrari. He continually and dangerously overtook cars while barely maneuvering back into our lane in the face of oncoming traffic.

With each near miss, my anxiety grew. Finally, I yelled, “You’re going to f***ing kill us, you stupid son of a b****.” But my pleads could not be heard by this seemingly cracked out maniac.

Exhausted, I tried to quell my anxiety and rest. I shut my eyes for what felt like a few minutes and then it happened.

SMASH!

I immediately awoke to the nightmare that I had dreaded for weeks

I desperately tried to gain control of the situation but my senses were too slow. The events that were unfolding were too fast and I could not comprehend what was occurring.

I was in panic and was certain death would soon follow.

My sight focused  and I realized that we were careening off the road and headed directly for a large sand embankment. As we left the asphalt at around 40mph, the bus trembled, threatening to break apart.

I braced myself, my arms locked around the bases of the adjacent seats.

I closed my eyes.

My body lunged forward but my arms held strong.

I opened my eyes. We had come to a stop and I was still alive, a wonderful realization.

I quickly shook off the shock of the crash, gathered my things, and got the hell off that bus.

A few hundred meters away was the car we hit. Since I had a few medical supplies in my bag, I ran over as fast as I could to see if I could help them.

It was a horror scene. Inside the mangled car was a family of three, all unconscious, all covered in blood. I stood there in utter shock not knowing what to do.

Suddenly a group of Sudanese men arrived from a nearby village. They swiftly but carefully began removing the bodies from the car. Surprisingly, just a few minutes later an ambulance arrived. I watched in disbelief while quietly praying for the family.

When it was all over, my shock quickly turned to anger, anger at the driver, anger at the Sudanese government for their inadequate roads and safety standards and anger at myself for not trusting my instincts.

As I walked alone towards Ethiopia on that scorching desert road, I decided that from then on, I would never again distrust or dismiss  a premonition.

The island city state of Singapore is like none other in terms of cultural diversity. It is a unique blend of Chinese, Arabs, Indians, Malays, and Westerners. Although many of these peoples have integrated and formed a hybrid Singaporean culture, the distinct districts of the British colonial era remain in tact. This leaves the budget backpacker with quite a few options in terms of choosing accommodation locals. From the Arab district, to China town, to Little India, the price of a backpacker hostel is around the same price. Therefore, deciding on the district for you really depends on the cultural experience you wish to have.

Arab District

If you are in need of some authentic Hummus, Sharma, Kebab, and alleys full of Hookah bars, the Arab district is the place for you. Other attractions include the grandiose Sultan Mosque, Arabic book shops and language schools.

In terms hostels, one of the most popular and cheapest, located just adjacent to the Sultan Mosque is “Sleepy Sams.” For 22 Singaporean dollars a night, you get a bed bug free bed in a large air-conditioned dormitory. The real attraction of this hostel is its delicious complimentary breakfast. And since it is served nearly all day, you can sleep in as long as you want.

China Town

China town is like most China towns, full of delicious and cheap won ton soup, dim sum, and traditional herbal pharmacies. However, the China town of Singapore is unique in its relatively hip nightlife. Though they are mainly run by and catered for Chinese, they always welcome western tourists with open arms.

There are plenty of budget hotels and cheap hostels in China town, so the best thing to do to find the cheapest price is to simply walk around and compare rates.

Little India

You know you are in Little India when you smell the spices. Little India, as its name suggests, is just like a little slice of India. It is dotted with countless gold and jewelry shops, Indian restaurants and nightclubs, Hindu temples and also an array of cheap budget accommodation.

If you want to stay somewhere really unique, and backpacker friendly, be sure to check out “Inn Crowd Hostel.” For 20 Singaporean dollars a night, you get a clean bed in an air conditioned dorm. There is free wifi, complimentary breakfast, clean showers, and most importantly an Australian owned bar with live music just across the street. This place is backpacker central.

Although there are lots of cool places in Singapore, Little India, China town, and the Arab district are some of the coolest and relatively inexpensive places to set up camp. If you  base yourself out of any of these three unique cultural centers, you can either take a cheap cab or go by MRT (subway) to explore one of the countless other cultural districts of Singapore.

Florida has a reputation as one of the US’ greatest holiday destinations, and while thousands of people flock there every year seeking sun, sand and relaxation, it’s worth remembering that the state is home to some exotic – and deadly – creatures. Animal attacks are fortunately very rare, and certainly shouldn’t put you off booking a summer holiday in Florida through a provider like Florida4Less.

That said, this guide to some of the state’s most dangerous animals could just save your life:

Alligators

Florida is home to the world’s largest species of alligator, which lives in swamps and wetlands that often overlap with human-populated areas. Despite their fearsome reputation, gators are actually far less aggressive than their cousins, the crocodiles, and will usually stay well away from people unless they feel threatened.

Full-grown alligators can reach up to 13 feet long, with around 80 teeth that are more than capable of making a meal of tasty humans. There have been 275 alligator attacks on people since 1948, and if you want to avoid a similar fate, follow these simple rules:

• Don’t swim in areas with long grasses – these are typical alligator habitats

• Be particularly careful during mating season (May to June)

• Never approach or attempt to feed them

If you want to get closer to gators but don’t fancy losing an arm, pay a visit to Gatorland in Orlando, a 110-acre theme park where you can see wrestling and rare white alligators.

Snakes

Florida has some impressively venomous snakes, such as the diamondback rattlesnake – the biggest and deadliest snake in the country. These are usually found in the pine flatwoods and nest in gopher holes, so keep an eye out for these on your travels. Other rattlers found in Florida include the dusky pygmy and the canebrake, which are less dangerous but can still give you a nasty bite. Cottonmouths, which make their home near water, are much more aggressive and also have potentially fatal venom.

The best way to avoid snake attacks is to be familiar with their habitats and be particularly careful around these areas while you’re on a hike. Wear thick boots and baggy trousers while out and about, and always back away from a rearing snake – they will usually give you plenty of warning before they strike.

Jellyfish

As if snakes and alligators weren’t enough, the coast of Florida is periodically home to large populations of stinging jellyfish. They are most common in March and April, and although the vast majority of them aren’t a big concern, Florida does see the occasional influx of the Portuguese Man o’ War, which can give an extremely painful and occasionally fatal sting. The Lion’s Mane and box jellyfish are also found in the state’s waters.

Lifeguards will usually post a warning when dangerous marine life, including jellyfish, are nearby. Look out for the purple flag that indicates this and keep out of the water! Florida has many aquariums where you can observe these beautiful and colourful creatures in safety.

A few months ago, when I was back in Cairo, I met one of the funniest Russian backpackers I have ever met. Before any introductions, he went right into a ridiculous yet hilarious anecdote about how he peed on a taxi driver for trying to rip him off. The entire time I hung out with him, he went on and on about peeing on people. I know it doesn’t sound that funny, especially if you aren’t one for toilet humour, but I was in stitches and I even nearly peed myself. Since I never got a chance to record him, the video below is my feeble attempt to try and recreate this Russian backpacker’s comedic genius.

Located only a few degrees north of the equator, this island city state is warm and so are its people. A cultural melange of Indian, Chinese, Malay, and Western, everyone here is a foreigner here and so its hard to feel out of place. This blend of peoples, particularly Indian and Chinese work ethic and ingenuity, coupled with western capital investment has made Singapore SE Asia’s economic hub. It’s GDP per capita rivals all traditional western powers and this is evident through its skyscrapers, designer boutiques, impressive architectural feats, and unrivaled cleanliness and order.

After being in Africa for the last 6 months, I had forgotten that such places existed. So, for me, this past week in Singapore has been a week of complete culture shock of the best kind. Some of the highlights for me include eating McDonalds, Popeye’s chicken, Wendys, Starbucks, Subway, and Indian, Chinese and Malay dishes. Also, exploring little India, China town, Sentosa resort Island, Orchard avenue, and the famous boat hotel. Meeting up with new and old friends (Howie & Misa Misa san) And finally, quite drunkenly boarding a bus, crashing a random party, and exploring the nightlife of Circular road. Check out the video below for a 2 minute ride.

The kids of Ethiopia are some of the coolest most wonderful little balls of radiant energy I have ever encountered. However, when they form into a small mob they can become overwhelming and even somewhat frightening. As was the case when I meandered past a school at recess and was attacked by thousands of school children!! Check out the video below to see how I escaped.

This adventure was made possible by The Modern Honolulu.

Hitchhiking around Ethiopia this past month, I ran into a lot of kids. Every mountain I climbed and every lonely road I walked down, little kids would pop out of nowhere. They would run out from their homes, jump out of trees, or climb out of deep gorges just to greet me. Although they were some of the poorest kids I have ever seen, they were rich in laughter, smiles, and pure joy. And so, when I remember Ethiopia, I will remember the Injera, Teddy Afro, and all the those crazy kids who reminded me how to smile on those long and lonely roads.