WHEN you are young the world is your oyster. Money might be a little tight, but you've got the energy and the time to travel the world.

More and more students are taking a gap year and taking off to far-flung places, but few journeys into foreign climes will be entirely without incident.

Reports of thieves, muggers, strange customs and worse, are worrying, but many still can't resist the lure of the open road.

Darlington student Janine Maddison was groped and flashed at as she travelled alone in search of adventure on a train through India. But despite this, and despite the number of high profile cases where young women have gone missing, been kidnapped and even murdered, the 23-year-old from Yarm Road in Darlington, maintains that travelling the world alone is the best thing she will ever do.

Janine started off nannying in America and Australia to save enough money to go to New Zealand, Thailand, Malasia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and India. She's met the Dalai Lama, been camel trekking, sky diving, hang-gliding, bungee jumping, acted as an extra in a Bollywood film, climbed volcanoes, gone snorkelling, caving and seen some of the world's most impressive temples.

"You experience things and get to learn more. Your confidence grows and you grow within yourself. It's freedom. There are no confinements you just have to answer to yourself," she says. "There's more to life than Darlington."

Janine knows her sense of adventure and determination to see the world probably worry her parents, but they try not to let her know it. They have an arrangement that if they do not get an email from her for two weeks they can start to worry, otherwise they have to assume she's either having too much fun or is miles away from the nearest internet caf.

Janine does admit, though, that at times travelling can be a bit daunting.

The incident in India was upsetting, but she stresses that she was in the country for several weeks and the incident on the train was just a small part of her experience in a country she describes as stunning. "I loved India. The incident on the train just really annoyed me, that they think they have the right to do that."

Her strength of character meant she could cope with being quite ill for eight days in Indonesia after drinking the local water. "It's common sense not to drink the water, but there was no other water available. I was travelling with this guy at that point and he looked after me. If he hadn't been there I would have been a bit stuck. After I had been sick, I stayed in a place that cost £4 a night. It was a real extravagance but I just wanted a room with a toilet in it."

Roughing it is all part of the travelling experience, though Janine admits that sharing a room with rats isn't much fun.

"It is easier travelling with someone, because you always have someone to talk to and you can halve the price of the rooms, but when you're on your own you meet more people," she says. "I'm still shy, but when I'm away I can make the first move to get to know people, because I have to if I don't want to spend all day on my own."

Janine is so hooked on travelling she plans to go to college to become a travel agent, but before she settles down there are more places she wants to see.

Her next stop round the world will be Zurich, where she has found work nannying, but she would also like to go to Italy and Canada.

For information about travelling Janine swears by the Lonely Planet website at www.lonelyplanet.com and uses the Almondbury nanny website at www.aupair-agency.com to find nannying work around the world.

Alison Lewi