Polly's pointers

Polly Cozens, a good friend and a well-travelled woman has kindly shared her pointers for memorable gap-year travel.

1. Arrive, feel clueless and a bit of a fraud and intimidated by your fellow, seemingly more experienced travellers. Hide in your hotel, hire a tuk tuk to cross the road.

2. Panic that you don't know where to go or what to see and that you might miss something but at the same time not wanting to be a sheep on the traveller trail. Obsessively read the Lonely Planet and have it on your person at all times like a comfort blanket. Don't go into any hotels or restaurants that haven't been recommended by LP.

3. Think that you are being really daring and adventurous with your travel plans and then gradually realise that every 18 year old from Surrey is doing the same route.

4. Start to realise that the "experienced" travellers and the ones that seem to know everything are actually idiots/blaggers/socially inadequate, that the Lonely Planet is of limited use and that you are better off making it up as you go along. Feel confident and experienced. Smirk at clueless travellers who have obviously just got off the plane. Feel like you could travel forever.

5. Get ill/ripped off/lost/homesick - start to wonder what the hell you are doing living in squalor in a developing country spending all your savings while your friends at home are busy paying off their mortgages and building their careers.

6. Get bored with tropical beaches and temples. Start to think that working in an office in Slough wouldn't be so bad after all.

7. Meet inspiring and worldly people who make being a world citizen and travelling forever seem really easy. Vow never to go home.

8. Go home, expect everyone to be excited to see you but find that the world didn't stop while you were away and that some people didn't even notice that you had gone (added by Louise).