Lonely Planet’s top 20 big trips – The guidebook publishers’ authors select their favourite experiences as new book The Big Trip is launched.

It started with the Grand Tour. Way back in the 17th century, upper-class British kids would complete their education by heading over to parts of Europe to experience museums, paintings and, more importantly, wines that they’d only studied or read about in school.

For a few months they’d tour the continent, though most only went as far as Italy (probably something to do with the wine). All of them returned with enough stories, souvenirs and sores to last a lifetime.

Fast-forward a couple of hundred years. Cheap flights have meant that even more people are taking a year off and seeing a world outside of school books and dull history lessons.

Whether it’s a gap year, an overseas experience (OE), and exchange program, a working holiday, a sabbatical, a year out or a year off, people want to head off to India, Italy, Israel or a thousand places in between to see what the world is really like.

So why go? Isn’t it pretty easy nowadays just to see all that on TV or find out everything you’d ever need to know on wikipedia? But, hey where’s the fun in that?

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