5 Things to Do Before Your 30th Birthday

This is a guest post from Gemma Deavin.

Travel is almost a rite of passage these days with gap year students, university graduates and those suffering from a quarter life crisis all heading to the airport for cheap international flights to get them out into the big, wide world. Whatever your reason for travel, here are some worldwide experiences to consider.

• Europe: It’s on the other side of the world, it’s got as many different cultures as it does languages and its history goes back centuries. The continent offers some of the world’s best festivals, such as Edinburgh’s Fringe, Munich’s Oktoberfest and Valencia’s La Tomatina. Of course, no Aussie has truly come of age until they’ve worked in a bar in the English capital, so have a look at available flights to London to tick that off your bucket list.

• Work with wildlife: Whether you want the chance to work with elephants in Thailand or see pandas in China before they completely disappear, volunteering abroad is a great way to pay respect to Mother Nature. If you’re not so keen to get your hands dirty, diving the Great Barrier Reef or going on safari in Africa are both eye-opening experiences.

• Man’s darker side: Sometimes it’s easy to forget how lucky we are and a trip to a place of great human loss can help put life back in perspective. Visiting Pripyat, the Ukrainian ghost town near the Chernobyl power plant, is a harrowing experience while the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland sends a chill down the spine of every visitor. To see a different spin on these despicable acts, visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem and Oskar Schindler’s grave to see how countless men and women stood tall in these dark times.

• See nature’s greatest achievements: Try as they might, no architect can compete with what the Earth has provided. Seeing Uluru or King’s Canyon in the Northern Territory is something surprisingly few Australians have got round to, while the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls or the Aurora Borealis all make for never-to-be-forgotten moments.

• Varying standards of accommodation:Travelling for many is about meeting new people and where you stay has a great influence on who you meet. Be sure to mix things up – hostels and camping grounds are fantastic places to mix with fellow travellers, couch surfing allows you to meet locals while staying in high-star hotels lets you rub shoulders with the well-to-do.

Travelling can be a life-affirming activity and many people find that once they’ve first left home with a backpack, it’s something they want to do again and again.

Life in a Sack – The Trials and Tribulations of a Backpacker

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