Mini gaps

Mexico
Mexico is brilliant for short-term travelling. Flights are relatively cheap, you'll meet other travellers and it's a good first time trip to Latin America. Fly into cheap holiday hotspot Cancún, then get the hell out, travelling south through the Yucatán peninsula (amazing ruins!), west into Campeche (untouristy!) and Chiapas (amazing colonial towns!), even as far as Oaxaca (for amazing food!). Or start at Mexico City and head to the colonial and mining towns in the north and the Pacific coast. Flights from Manchester to Cancún on Wednesday 24 August, returning 30 September, cost £768 with British Airways through netflights.com; or around £600 in January with United through lastminute.com.

India
With flights well under £500, India makes perfect sense for a shorter trip. After a few days soaking up the atmosphere and eating three curries a day in Mumbai, take a train south to Goa where you can pick a party beach, or a quieter hippy one, such as Arambol in the north. After totally chilling out, you could take a boat to the Lakshadweep islands, a train east to Tamil Nadhu, or carry on south to Kerala for a houseboat trip. There are plenty of bargain ones, or upgrade and book Village Ways' (01223 750049, villageways.com) new South of Cochin trip. As well as travelling around on a boat, you visit villagers' homes, meet prawn farmers and fishermen and eat meals brought on board by local women. It costs £632pp for two to share a houseboat for five nights plus two nights' B&B in Cochin. Flights to Mumbai in November currently cost £374 from London with SriLankan Airlines through kayak.co.uk.

Albania
You don't have to travel to the other side of the world for a taste of adventure: a month backpacking around Albania will give you the thrill of discovering uncharted territory, and it's one of the few places in Europe where you can exist on a backpackers' budget. If you're short of time you can fly there in just three hours from the UK with British Airways (ba.com, from £206 return for next summer) but it's more fun to go by train: buy an InterRail pass (interrail.net, from £155 for a month) and head to Montenegro, then take a bus or taxi across the border into Albania.

Spend a few days in Tirana enjoying the sights and edgy nightlife in the Blloku area, then head north for mountains where boar, lynx and wolves roam, or south for golden beaches which have largely escaped mass tourism. The seaside towns of Dhermi and Drymades are popular with backpackers, offering budget hotels and kayaking in clear Ionian waters. Thrill-seekers can go rafting in the Osumi Canyon (outdooralbania.com, from €40). Tourist infrastructure is creaky and in parts non-existent, but that's all part of the adventure.

Work as a ski or snowboard rep
Why not go skiing or snowboarding for free? Even if you only have a few weeks, you may be able to secure a trip through Off the Piste (offthepiste.com), which runs group ski trips for students. They recruit dozens of reps a year who join trips for a week at a time, travelling by coach to and from the UK with the group, organising things in the resort, joining them on the mountain and for a hell of a lot of partying – in return for accommodation, transport and lift pass. There are still places left for this winter – apply to reps@offthepiste.com. Natives (natives.co.uk), has advice on securing jobs through other tour operators.

Year out itineraries

Central America
In many ways this is the perfect backpacker destination. It's small enough that you can travel overland from one country to the next without having to blow your budget on expensive flights, and large enough to get lost in if you feel the need to escape your fellow travellers. A popular route is to start in Mexico City and weave your way by bus down through Oaxaca, the Mayan ruins of the Cancún peninsula, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, finishing in Costa Rica.

Popular backpacker stop-offs include Antigua in Guatemala, a preserved colonial city with budget accommodation, internet cafes and Spanish schools; San Pedro La Laguna on Lake Atitlán, which has been colonised by hippies and backpackers who never left; and the laid-back island of Roatán in Honduras, a cheap and popular place to learn to scuba dive.

But if you want to get off the gringo trail there are plenty of unexplored corners, such as the Corn Islands of Nicaragua with their pristine beaches and Carib culture. With a smattering of Spanish it's easy enough to travel independently, but if you want a little local back-up, sign up for the Bamba Experience (bambaexperience.com), a hop-on hop-off bus service that offers dozens of itineraries in the region using public transport and private vans, with optional side trips. The Ahuevos Ways itinerary, starting in Mexico City and ending in San José, Costa Rica, costs €999, with a recommended minimum trip time of 38 days.

South-east Asia
A fabulous choice of flights and a favourable exchange rate make South-east Asia an excellent destination for first-time travellers but the well-trodden route through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam can feel like a gap year conveyor belt. Avoid this with an alternative Asian route that takes in the less obvious, but equally rewarding highlights of the Phillipines, Indonesia, Malaysia and even Burma.

"We're seeing a lot more demand for Malaysia and Borneo, and Burma, really seems to be opening up," says Samantha Harrison of Round the World Experts. One itinerary could be to start in Bangkok and travel south by bus or train into Malaysia. From there you can either take a trip up into the highlands to the mountain villages or take a boat to the Perhentian islands.

From Kuala Lumpur, you can get a flight to Borneo for as little as £30. You could spend up to four weeks there exploring the rainforest, helping out at the orang-utan sanctuary, climbing Mount Kinabalu or diving the clear waters off the isle of Sipadan. Adventurous travellers may wish to press on into remote Sarawak, famed for its indigenous culture. Round the World Experts has four-centre itineraries here with flights from £622.

South America
It's on everyone's wish list, but flights costs nearly twice as much as to south-east Asia. The cheapest place to fly to, according to Journey Latin America (journeylatinamerica.co.uk), is Caracas, in Venezuela. But this can be a false economy because most travellers are interested in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador, and Venezuela can be very expensive. Pay an extra £100-£200 and you can fly to Rio, (Air France, Alitalia, TAM, BA and Iberia all offer hugely competitive fares). August and January are peak times, so aim to travel in low-season September or October. It's also worth purchasing an "open-jaw" ticket, so you fly home from, say, Lima, Peru, usually with the same airline.