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issue one A travel magazine for those on a gap year Gap in the market

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Page 1: Second pract

issue one A travel magazine for those on a gap year

Gap in the market

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ISSUE ONE What is inside

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Page 8

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Gap in the Market

2 write what is going on this page here

5 write here what is here

ISSUE ONE What is inside

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In the know

We speak to people who have already taken the plunge and travelled abroad.

Jess Ross, 20, spent three months in Africa, volunteer-ing at a school and travelling for a month.Why did you decide to travel abroad?I decided to go as I had a year out from University and want-ed to do something worthwhile and different. I realised that I might never have the chance to do it again.

Why recommend to others? I’d recommend others to go abroad to get an understand-ing of the way other people live and that not everyone is as well off as you, to meet new people from different backgrounds and to have fun.

My top tips are: Speak to people and be friendly with everyone. Be laid back with plans and just have a general plan of what you’re going to do. Make food at the hostel instead of eating out all the time. And finally, think twice before you buy souvenirs (I spent a fortune on a load of stuff that just looks like tack in my room now!) Jess in Africa

by Emma Leech

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Becki Fairclough, 20 spent her summer in New Hampshire, USA, working at a theme park before travelling the United States.

Becki in her theme park uniformWhy did you decide to travel abroad?I chose to travel to America specifically to see new places/meet new people and experi-ence a new culture in a place where there wouldn’t be a language barrier. It was also a chance to spend a long amount of time there, longer than any holiday could offer, by working.

Why recommend to others? It’s a great way to meet new people and gain exposure to different places and cultures. It is also a great way to improve independence. If nothing else it’s an education!

My top tips are: Plan the essentials ahead of time - where you will go, where you will stay, how you will get

around. Take enough money. Pack light - there’s nothing worse than lugging around a backpack full of stuff you didn’t really need.

Emma Lawrence, 20 spent two months volunteering at an orphanage in Tanzania

Why did you decide to travel abroad? Last summer was my last of-ficial summer as a student so thought I’d take the opportu-nity whilst I still could to go on a student/university ran project to Tanzania to help out in an orphanage and travel for the last month. I thought the vol-unteering would be challenging and look great on my CV. The idea of some of Africa's best safari parks and amazing tropi-cal islands and beaches swung it for me.

Why recommend to others?It’s an experience you will never forget you will come back a different person having opened your eyes to a little more. While you're young in college or university you have the best opportunities to go travelling for a long time.

My top tips are: If you're a bit wary of being in a new place that’s completely different from home it’s good to be associated with a charity. They will be able to show you around while you're getting set-tled and they'll be checking up on you if you're late returning. At backpackers hostels you can easily make friends as everyone is like-minded and in the exact same situation as you.

Emma with one of the children at the orphanages

GAP IN THE MARKET: January 2011 3

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Joe Large, 22 is an accomplished traveller visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Aus-tralia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru during a gap year.

Why did you decide to travel abroad? To experience different cultures and places and meet new people. To do things I won’t be able to do when I have commit-ments like a house and job.

Why recommend to others?It’s an experience that you can make entirely your own. You’ll experience things you would never ordinarily experience.

My top tips are:Have ideas of stuff you may

want to see and do, but don’t make firm plans as there is bound to be stuff you wouldn’thave thought of doing, or you may really like a place and decide to stay longer.

Joe, in Cambodia

Talk to as many people as pos-sible, make friends and experi-ence as much as possible.Emma Hayes, 23 spent two months volunteering in RomaniaWhy did u decide to travel abroad? I have always wanted to travel and do something different but I didn’t really have the guts until I got to uni. I wanted to experience something new and totally different. I love learning about different cultures and the

best way to do that is to go and live in one for a while!

Why recommend to others? It’s a real confidence boost because you can be pushed out of your comfort zone. It is also

a great way to meet people-when I volunteered in Roma-nia, I made some friends for life. Volunteering is so much more than just a holiday- the people you’re helping gain from it but so do you.

My top tips are:Don’t overpack! When you’re in the middle of nowhere you’d be surprised how little you care about your appearence. Take a little reminder of home; if you get a little homesick a reminder can stop you feeling

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Megan Waring, 21 studied for six months in Melbourne before touring Australia for a month with a friend

GAP IN THE MARKET: January 2011

Why did you decide to travel abroad?I decided to go as I thought it would be a great opportu-nity to see Australia, but as a student living there, rather than a tourist. I also wanted the challenge of living away on my own.

Why recommend to others?I’d recommend others to go as travelling broadens your mind and really is the best way to experience people and places

outside your local area. This makes you realise that there is more to life, and that you can do anything.

My top tips are:Use local travel agents as they know the best deals and trips to go on.Try and arrange overnight travel to save money on hostels.And decide on the things that you most want to do to save money, however remember that it is a once in a lifetime trip so make the most of every opportunity.

a million miles away. Take all the boring things your mum will remind you about; bite cream, hand gel, sun cream- boring but you’ll use them. My last top tip would be to take photos whenever pos-sible, you will treasure them when you arrive home.

Emma in Romania Megan in Australia

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Step off the beaten trackSo, you want to travel

foreign lands far and wide but don’t want to merely follow the crowds and visit stereotypical landmarks? But you are unsure how to uncover the hidden gems with-out wandering aimlessly through streets of un-pronounceabletowns? Then fear not, as we have searched for all the ideal sites- so that you can find your ideal sights.

The best way to discover what is out there is to

explore acountry as a native. Branch away from the clichés, step off the beaten track and find something more meaning-ful and personal to really make your experience an unforget-table one.

Who better to turn to for ad-vice on how to live like a local, than a local?

Sofa Sleeping

The first port of call to checkin to is www.couchsurfing.com, the world’s largest hos-pitality exchange network. Set

up in 2004, the site has over 2.2 million members in 237 countries.The website is unique as it isa network for people offeringtheir sofas as a free place to sleep for individuals, groups

(picture caption will go here) and even families visiting their hometown.

The website, free to sign up, has a hubbub of homes worldwide offering a couch, and in return you have the option of offer-ing your couch to travellers. When joining, there are various options available as to what ‘status’ you wish to be; you can make your couch available to others, or simply make it clear you are looking for advice and

possibly a place to stay.

“The best way to discoverwhat is out there

is to ask the people whoknow best and exploring

the country as anative.”

Similarly to Facebook; Couch-surfing has profiles, so you cansearch for a location and thenlook for people in the area offering their sofa. With most

the couchsurfing website logo

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Step off the beaten trackmembers you can see photos and information to find a little more about the personyou may be staying with.

Many of the members also pride themselves on not only offering a place to stay but also provide an opportunity to show off the local sights, from a na-tive’s perspective. This is a unique chance to be pointed out the local hotspots and be given honest advice on where to go, what to do and what you may want to avoid.

The website is useful even if the thought of catching forty winks at somebody else’s home doesn’t appeal to you. Many members are more than happy to give you information via email on where to go and what to do during your stay, simply message them and you will be surprised at just how willing most will be to provide hints and tips for you to create your own unique experience.

Top Tip:On Google Advancedchange your ‘region’

to the country you arevisiting but keep the

language in English tofind the top search results

from that country

Talk to Travellers

Another website to uncoveris www.igougo.com. Thistime, fellow travellers who havealready explored the territoryprovide photographs, blogs andreviews. The search bar at thetop makes it simple to find ex-actly what you are looking for,whether it is a particular city,region or attraction.

When clicking on your chosendestination, the web page willbring up popular hotels in thearea according to feedback from members, a list of top 10 things to do in the area and a comprehensive guide from bloggers and reviewers for you

to help make your mind up.

The sidebar also has other options such as restaurants, nightlife, sports and shopping, with a list of who has previ-ously visited the location, so you can click on their profile to ask any more information you may want about it.

Feast at aforeigners

Finding authentic local cuisinecan be harder than you mayfirst think. For those who are not interested in overpriced restaurants or chain restau-rants, and are looking for a real taste of the native life -experi-ence a supper club.www.supperclubfangroup.com

A supper club in Paris

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Supper clubs are put on bylocals for people to visit theirhome and enjoy a meal. This isa great opportunity to socialisewith other travellers and localsas well as encounter a brandnew experience in a differentcountry. They tend to be off the maintstream radar so this site will be perfect to see whether there are any where you are planning to go.

Check out the reviews to make sure it is worth a visit and see what the terms are with regards to paying. Many suggest a ‘donation’ with a minimum amount to cover basic costs.

Be spontaneousFor those who love spontaneityand the excitement of theunknown then visitwww.skyscanner.net. Simply type in your current lo-

cation, the date you would like to go and hit search to discover where the cheapest place to fly to is.

If you research before you go, then you will be able to properly plan costs and find alternatives to the pricier side of travelling. There is no reason why you should revisit student squalor and live off Super-noodles and beans on toast to survive.

www.europebudgetguide.comhelps hunt out those bargainsabroad. Ranging from ‘budget sleeps’, ‘budget deals’ and even covering ‘budget Britain’, this site is ideal if you are beginning to feel the pinch as a globetrot-ter.

Europe budget guide suggestsand reviews cheap places to stay and visit with photographs for you to see for yourself.

www.letsgo.com has recentlycelebrated its 50th birthdayclaiming that ‘young and

Skyscanner searches from arange of sites, to find those fis-cal flyers the best offer. Wheth-er you are indecisive where totravel next or just looking forsomewhere to kick off youradventures, this website willshow you where in the worldis cheapest. You can also findthe best hotel offers, car hireand holiday deals as the sitescans through companies suchas Expedia, Holiday Inn andLateRooms.com.

Nomad- No Money

After finishing universitymany are hardly in the positionto travel the world with alimitless supply of money.

caption

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budget- savvy travelers turn to Let’s Go for the freshest coverage, insider tips, and an authentic perspective.’ The website, is easy to use with a list of countries and options to read other blogs, stories and reviews and look at stunning photographs from travellers holiday albums.

It is ideal to have a basic idea of what to do and where to go, but sometime you just have to leave it up to fate.

“Make notes and take pictures so that you can share your own experiences

with others on your return.”

Other websites to visit:

www.twitchhiker.comwww.travelwithamate.

comwww.realgap.co.uk

www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-flightswww.hostelbookers.com

www.statravel.co.ukwww.gapyear.com

3 0 s e c o n d s w i t h . . : Sean Dodson: University lecturer

and Journalist at the Guardian

Sean had a nine year ‘gap’, after leaving school at 16. He begun travelling on a tour of the West

Mediterranean, starting in Athens.

How could you afford to travel for so long?:“I worked in Televive on a working site during some of my time there.”

Where did your travels take you to?“I visited Athens, motorbiked all round Cyprus and then went on to Haifa in Israel, eventually finishing in Cairo.”

Was there anywhere you wouldn’t go back to?“Cairo. It was the most dangerous place I have ever been to. I was accosted twice in my short time there.”

Would you recommend others to take time out to travel?“Definitely. I think that the older you are to go to University the better. You have more idea what you want to do in life.”

What is your one top tip?“Go native. Live the life as a local to really appreciate every country.”

By Emma Leech

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Snap Happy

1.Nikon D3100

processing engine, high ISO limit of 12800, 11 focus points, 3” LCD 230k dot TFT screen, 3Fps etc.

As well as being relatively light on your finances, it also is lightto carry, weighing only 505g.

2. Olympus PEN E-PL1

This Olympus PEN E-PLI has both the advantages of a com-pact and a DSLR camera. It is compact like the P&S but has the benefits of a large image sensor like the DSLR.

It is straight forward to oper-ate like P&P, with an internal

The five best cameras of 2010 :for travellers keen to capture the moment.

flash built-in and is only 482g. This is the only non-SLR cam-era in the list but has proven itself to be able to pro-duce SLR-like image quality with low noise level and usable high ISO photos.

This camera has an easy guide mode for begin-ners as well as snappy features for those in the know such as 14.2MP CMOS sensor, HD 1080p video shooting, EXPEED 2 image

Information provided by www.travelfeeder.com

by Emma Leech

gap in the market: issue 1

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3. Canon

550D

One of the best in this budget range is definitely the new EOS 550D.

Canon EOS 550D will give you more than your moneys worth with features such as 18MP CMOS sensor, 14 bit A/D con-verting engine, full HD 1080p video shooting, 3.7fps continu-ous shooting, silent shooting mode, 9 focusing points, and high ISO range.

This is the latest mid-range DSL from Canon.It is slightly bigger and heavier than the budget model 550D above- however has a few better features including; the second-ary top plate screen, the higher continuous shooting rate of 5.3 frames per second, swivel LCD screen, higher top shut-ter speed of 1/8000s, wider range of Exposure and WB bracketing and brighter pen-taprism viewfinder.

4. Canon 60D

Nikon D7000 fea-tures similar specs as top mid-range model of D300s but weighs 140g less.

However, the im-provement from its budget sibling is huge

5. Nikon D7000

including its 16.2MP CMOS sensor, high ISO range up to 25600, HD Video recording, 2016-pixel exposure meter-ing sensor, 100% viewfinder coverage with bright glass pentaprism, 39 focusing points and flash-sync speed of 1/250s to name but a few.

gap in the market:

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Must Visit Places

AUSCHWITZBIRKENAU

“Arbeit Macht Frei” is the German phrase that greets our group as we enter the Aus-chwitz I concentration camp. As we pass under the wrought-iron gate, the local guide reveals the translation, “Work Makes You Free” a motto, which belies the true atroci-ties that took place in the Nazi concentration camp during World War II and which leaves my group and me in silence.

At first glance Auschwitz I doesn’t look like a bad place. Despite the barbed wire fence surrounding the perimeter, it’s

not a stretch of the imagination to picture the rows of bricked buildings as coveted, pricey apartments, inhabited by young professionals.

But then again, this wasn’t built as a death camp; it was origi-nally a Polish barracks. Situated in the small town of Oscwiem, (about thirty minutes drive from Krakau airport) pre-1939 it was a vibrant town with a population of 12,000, 80% of them were Jewish. It’s only

Clo

As part of our new Must Visit Places series we visited one of the most unusual yet most popular

tourist attractions in Europe, a Nazi-death camp in Poland.

by Matthew Dyas

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when we look around do we discover what lies beneath this peaceful façade.

Established in 1940, Auschwitz I was primarily a concentration camp used to house the Polish political prisoners. It wasn’t used purely as a prison for long, as the war progressed so did the idea of eradicating the Jews from the planet. The firing squad had become too inef-ficient; a new method of killing was needed. In the medical block our group get to visit the gas chamber, it was here that the cyanide rat-poison gas Zyklon B was first tested on people to see if it could be could be used for mass exter-

minations. The local guide, Lucas Szatko, then led us past rooms full of belongings that were seized by the Nazis. For me, this is when the realisation kicked in.

A room containing 40,000 pairs of shoes, the guide explained that those sent to straight to the gas chamber where asked

to undress under false pretence that they would be showered. They were instructed to tie the laces of their shoes together so they wouldn’t go missing, when actually it just made them easier to sell on.

Another room contained a massive array of false legs of all shapes and designs because, as Lucas points out, many of the Jews sent to the camp had lost limbs fighting for Germany in World War I yet got sent straight to the gas chamber up on arrival because they were of no use at the work camps.A large collection of suitcases was particularly chilling. Each battered leather case had the

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name, and dates-of-birth of its owner written upon them in white paint. Simple maths meant we could work out that some prisoners were only two yearsold when they arrived at the camp.

But perhaps most shocking is the vast piles of human hair. Just a small amount ofthe seven tonnes that was discovered when the Russians liberated the camp in May 1945.

Alex Graham, a 17-year-old student in my group, de-scribed how it felt at the camp: “It was sort of unbelievable, on the scale that it was done and it was so inhumane. The way it was so meticulously planned, that’s probably the most dis-turbing thing. “I thought the hair was going to be the worst, but it was the suitcases with thenames on. It gave them an identity.”

As our tour around Auschwitz I came to an end, our jour-ney was far from over. There are many misconceptions about Auschwitz; the main one is the scale. The term

Auschwitz actually refers to a network of concentration and extermination camps consist-ing of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II – Birkenau, Auschwitz III – Monowitz and 45 other satellite camps.

Although a visit to Auschwitz is revealing, the minute drive to Birkenau is a must because that’s the place one imagines when they conjure up images of a death camp. A dark, desolate place, silent, yet a place where unthinkable suffering took place.

Birkenau got its name from the abundance of birch trees in the area, but as we

Clockwise from top left: Empty cannis-ters of Zyklon B; A selection of artificial legs; A pile of abandoned spectacles; Thousands of shoes; Suitcases baring the names of their owners.

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arrive that fact is hard to believe. Now the only trees remaining are the ones at the back of the camp, shielding the view of the gas chambers and crematoria to the new arrivals.

Construction of Birkenau began in October in 1941 to ease congestion at Auschwitz I and to function as one of the main elements in Heinrich Himmler’s preparations for the ‘the final solution to the Jewish question’ of the extermina-tion of the Jews. At Birkenau, around 1.1milliion people were exterminated, 90 percent of them were Jews.

In the cold Polish weather, we walked along the railway tracks to the heart of the camp, pass-ing a replica train carriage. We then visited the different shel-ters were the prisoners stayed, a stable which was originally built to house 42 horses, con-verted to shelter over 400 men.

Our last destination was to the ruins of the gas chambers, evidence that the Nazis tried to destroy when defeat was in sight.

It’s hard to take everything in This page: A view from the main watchtower building.Opposite page clockwise from top left: Gallows used to hang Rudolf Hoss; Row of watchtowers at Birkenau; Brick bunks in one of the shelters; Tour guide Lucas Szatko talks to the group; Railway tracks leading into Birkenau; A hatch int ceiling of the last original gas chamber where Zyklon B was dropped in; A replica of the wall where victims faced death by firing squad; Photographs of some of the victims.

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on a day visit to Auschwitz. It takes a while for it all to sink in. Jennifer Lee, 17, from Maghull summed the visit up on her return to England. “The trip brought together all the information I already knew and brought home the realism and the humanity of it rather than it being facts and figures.“It didn’t affect me much emo-tionally when we were there because of the sheer amount of people and unimaginable cir-cumstances, but the day after is when it sets in because you’ve had time to reflect on it”

Jennifer is right, reflection is key. As the minute silence took place on RemembranceSunday and when I watch the abundant war documentaries on television, the memories of Auschwitz return to me. The images of the belongings, all the faces of the dead and the ominous watchtowers at twi-light were all clear in my mind and that’s when it dawned on me. It helps put everything into context and that is why those, like me, who weren’t even born during the war should visit Auschwitz, lest we forget the depths of human suffering that took place.

Getting there