With long summer holidays and gap years, travelling can be an essential experience of student life. This student travel guide offers links covering all types of cheap student travel, information on gap years, some of the best student travel deals, plus student travel advice.

Student travel advice

(for Gap Years, working abroad, volunteering, teaching english abroad or language courses including TEFL please visit our 'Career or Gap Year?' page).

Association of British Travel Agents - here you can check ABTA's 2300 member companies and the destinations they cover.
Brochure Rack provide a brochure request service for travel and holiday tour operators.
BUNAC offer worldwide work and travel programmes for young people.
Camp America is for the adventurous type who fancy a cheap summer in the states taking care of American kids.
Council on International Educational Exchange - details on how to travel in USA, Canada and Australia.
eDreams - most of the holidays featured here are beyond a student's budget, but it provides a good insight into many activities and destinations.
Fit for Travel - provides excellent travel health information.
The Foreign Office website features specific information and advice about each country.
Global Volunteer Network - place volunteers in community projects in China, Ecuador, Ghana, Nepal, Romania, Russia, Thailand, and Uganda.
Global Wanderers run football holidays overseas.
International Student Travel Confederation - ISTC is a confederation of student travel organisations from around the world. Their members provide student flights, student cards, travel insurance, work exchange programmes and more. Find your local International Student Identity Card (ISIC) issuer here.
Lonely Planet - provides worldwide destination guides.
Lost Luggage Tales - A unique international travel guide with resources and advice for the discerning independent budget traveler.
Planet Reunited - find lost travelling mates and keep in touch on a budget.
Pure Australia is an invaluable resource providing gap year travel advice for backpackers visiting Australia.
Rough Guide Travel - includes online travel guides.
Socrates-Erasmus is a scheme which provides grants for students following a course of higher education in one participating European country who wish to study part of their course in another participating European country.
Study Options is a unique independent education agency that helps students from the UK choose and apply to their dream undergraduate degree, postgraduate degree, gap year course or internship in New Zealand and Australia.
Trip Advisor provides free, unbiased reviews on where to go, where to stay and what to do, in thousands of cities worldwide.
Virtual Tourist - a comprehensive member driven online travel guide book for the world.
World Challenge Expeditions is the leading provider of leadership, teamwork and personal development training for young people.
Youth International is an experiential education programme which focuses upon international travel and inter-cultural exchange, adventure and community service.

Student travel insurance

Whether its for a weekend trip to Paris or a year's world travel backpacking policy there are many flexible and economical travel insurance policies available. Travel insurance covers not only the loss of important travel documents like tickets and your passport, but also your luggage, belongings, travel delays, cancellations and more seriously injury and even kidnapping. Insurance is not just for emergencies, but also to help you enjoy your trip, secure in the knowledge that you are covered against the unexpected. It may not be as exciting as planning your trip, but travel insurance is probably the most important purchase you'll make for your trip. Insurance providers which provide good coverage at a reasonable price are the student friendly STA Travel and Endsleigh, but policies are often cheaper with online providers like Insure and Go , Insurefor.com and .

Accommodation

For a wide range of hostel or budget hotel beds in towns all over the world use Hostelworld or Hostelbookers to book online, making sure you have a place to stay for at least the first few nights of your trip. Hostelbookers also have a free group booking service if there's a bunch of you on the trip. For slightly more upmarket, but still heavily discounted accommodation try Expedia, Hotels.com or Hotel Club.


Student cheap flights/Airport car parking

For low cost flights across Europe we like the comparison site Sky Scanner. For long hall Expedia is hard to beat, but it's also worth keeping an eye on both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic as they have frequent sales on and it's often cheaper to book direct. If you need to park at the airport then book online in advance with Purple parking for big savings.

Car hire

Booking your car hire online in advance of your trip can also yield great savings. Car rentals.co.uk are a great value car hire operator, Holiday Autos is one of the biggest, there's On Airport Car Hire and also AutoReservation.com on the price comparison theme. If you're bundling with flights and hotels then Expedia do good packages.

Rail/Ferries

Check UK rail times and fares with The Train Line and book online:

If you're looking to inter-rail round Europe this summer then Rail Europe have flexible rail passes you can buy online. They also run sleeper ski trains direct to the Alps in the winter. If you're looking to travel by rail further abroad then International Rail specialises in the sale and distribution of Rail Tickets and Passes for travel in Europe, Australia, Asia and The Americas.

For ferries there's P&O Ferries for cruises and ferry crossings to the continent or for cheap ferry tickets to France and Spain - Ferrycheap.com offers competitive online bookings for all the leading ferry operators.

Coach

National Express's scheduled coach network offers easily the best value way to travel to 1200 destinations throughout the UK, to airports and into Europe. Their website offers easy access to a journey planner as well as printable e-tickets. Upon purchasing a discount card, they offer discounts for students and under 25s.

Package holidays

Now where to go to celebrate the end of exams or to get a cheap bit of late September sun in before the new term? Thomson is part of the largest tourism group in the world with access to over 65,000 hotels, apartments and villas to choose from in over 100 destinations.

Jet2Holidays is the North's fastest growing tour operator providing great value holidays from 6 Northern airports flying from Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Blackpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Belfast. Destinations include the Balearics, Canaries, Mainland Spain, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, Egypt and Greece. Ski destinations include Italy, Austria and France. Or there's always Lastminute.com.

Maps

Expedia Maps - includes maps of places around the world.
How Far Is It - measure the distances between worldwide destinations.
Mapblast - a good reference point for worldwide maps.
Streetmap - displays excellent local UK maps online.