Looking Beyond the Cheap Flights
Low Cost Flights Can Mean High Cost Holidays says Student jetPacks
Student Travel jetPacks help cut costs after the bargain flights on budget airlines have been paid. Buy local SIM cards, London Oyster cards, local coins before you go
Combine cheap flights with a student gap year and you can fit in lots of traveling. Fly to Spain on Ryanair for 1p and away you go. For a few pence more, easyJet will also help make the world your oyster. That's what student Tarkan Ahmet thought, on his gap year. Cheap flights and bargain air tickets galore! How many European countries could he fit in?
The answer for Tarkan was in fact 15 countries, but he found that the cheap flights weren't matched by cheap living while touring around. Thanks to a family who insisted he keep in touch, he returned to a phone bill that ate up his first term's student loan, leaving him to eat up beans on toast. The result of his Gap Year experience, which left a gap between his income and his expenses, was the launch of the Student jetPacks website.
Student jetPacks are aimed at helping students travel more cheaply and more safely, though you don't have to be a student to buy one. So what is a Student jetPack? They vary slightly from country to country, but typically they include a pre-paid local SIM card, a plug adapter, a safety money belt, emergency information and contact card, a sturdy padlock for your luggage and a travel map and/or travel information. There are also cheaper LITE versions, mainly aimed at people who don't need the SIM card.
Countries and cities covered by the Student jetPacks include London, the UK generally, Madrid, Barcelona, Australia, Austria, Poland, New Zealand and the USA. New destinations are being added all the time, and the website is also promoting the idea of Travelgroups. These encourage student and other young travelers to share information and communicate with each other before setting off. There are already groups in China, France, Turkey, Spain, Germany, the USA and the UK – including one at Oxford University.
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The Prince's Trust
The Prince's Trust, the organisation founded by Britain's Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, to help young people aged 14-30 in all kinds of ways, gave Tarkan Ahmet £2500 in February 2007 to help turn his business idea into reality.
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London Oyster Travelcards
The cheapest tube fares in London are always available if you use one of the fairly new Oystercards. But how do you get one in advance, so you can benefit from the moment you arrive? In March 2007 the enterprising Tarkan Ahmet obtained the rights from Visit Britain to include London Oyster Travelcards in his London jetPacks.
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Turkish SIM Cards
There were changes in Turkish law recently which required all visitors to register their mobile phones (cellphones) for use on a local network. Student jetpacks is the first and currently the only UK travel shop to stock Turkish SIM cards for travelers to Turkey.
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To find out more about Student jetPacks visit the website by clicking here.
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