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Recent Columns:
Pick up a rock and land in jail for two nights? Sounds outrageous, but that's what happened to 16-year-old Madelaine Gierc on her spring break trip to Greece.
New ZEALAND, where backpackers first strapped on bungees, rolled around in inflated Zorbs (which are like human-size hamster balls) and hopped on their own budget bus lines, has another idea: free city tours.
Ireland leads the way when it comes to high-tech backpacking. The Dublin-based service http://www.hostelworld.com made it possible to book budget beds throughout the world. Now, Sleepzone in the city of Galway has become the first Irish hostel with WiFi, giving travelers with laptops free Internet access in the building.
Working as a waitress in a club in London, a ski lift operator in the Canadian Rockies or a fruit picker in New Zealand may not add directly to your career skills, but such experience may prove invaluable as the world moves toward a global society. If you have the time and freedom to work in a foreign country, don't miss it.
More than 450,000 foreign backpackers made the trip Down Under last year — and although that's only 10% of visitors to Australia, they stayed longer and spent more than other types of travelers. Not surprisingly, services catering to this crowd continue to grow.
Forget those long, mind-numbing hours crammed into a seat with nothing but an airline magazine and a tedious movie to get you through a long-haul flight from Britain or Europe to Australia. By next year, backpackers may be able to make the trip on a plane that has personal media players, dozens of movies on DVD, a cafe-bar and a social director.
In London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, a bed in a dorm room at an internationally affiliated youth hostel usually costs at least $35 a night. So the idea of getting a clean, safe place to stay for as little as $10 a night sounds incredible. It may be a reality, thanks to British entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who created Britain's no-frills EasyJet budget airline.
Winter adventures don't have to be beyond a student's budget, thanks to fares offered by student travel services, backpacker budget transportation services and affordable hostels near many tony and popular winter resorts.