experts

Travel experts at Adventure360 which runs gap years for 18-30 year olds have revealed the three destinations that are well worth having on your radar next year

Gone are the days when a gap year often meant travelling around on a tight budget, partying as much as possible and ticking off a couple of landmarks. Nowadays, younger travellers are looking for activity holidays full of memorable experiences, decent accommodation, and activities that aren’t centred around alcohol, according to travel insiders at Adventure360.

Jane McLellan-Green, one of the firm’s co-founders, and Amy Calthorpe, a Travel Advisor at the brand, spend their days looking for hidden gems, unique experiences and other adventures for intrepid explorers aged 18-30.

“Adventure tours is our big thing,” Jane told the Mirror exclusively. “Whereas back in the day it was working, volunteering – which we still offer – but the group tours is the biggie.” She explained that the firm increasingly receives requests from young professionals as well as students and graduates. She added that they do “have some customers that just want to party”, but noted “there has been a shift as well where a lot of young people are not drinking anymore, and they kind of want to do more sort of hiking, or yoga lessons, or surfing”.

So, where are the emerging destinations for an adventure in 2027? The travel pros shared some of their top picks with the Mirror…

The ‘Stans’

BBC’s Race Across the World has sparked a surge of interest in Central Asia’s “-stans” (aka Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), after they featured on one of the legs of the recent series. “[The contestants] went through it, and suddenly everyone was like, ‘I want to go there!’,” explained Jane. “So we are going to be adding new trips. We’re still educating ourselves but the landscapes are insane, and I think you don’t go to the Stans to party. It is for the customers who want to sort of get off the beaten track, go to the places that aren’t kind of visited as much.”

Social media has also played a key part to the emerging popularity, according to Amy. “The Stans are all over Tiktok, so many people are going there now,” the travel pro added. “I definitely think that’s on the rise. I think that will be really popular next year once there’s a little bit more knowledge about it and everything.”

She added: “We’ve got activities included like horseback riding, which you wouldn’t necessarily get on a normal tour. You stay in different accommodations like in the tents. I think it’s just really cool, and I think it’s probably a destination as well that people probably wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable doing solo, like completely independently, so that’s why the tours are a little bit more popular.”

China

China recently eased up its visa requirements for Brits, meaning that until December 31, 2026, UK passport holders can enter China visa free for stays of up to 30 days. “China’s become really, really popular,” Amy explained, adding that “everyone wants to do it”, with the firm’s China tours quickly selling out.

Amy explained: “China is so popular. Honestly before, like maybe a couple of months ago, China wouldn’t ever have been somewhere that was on my list to even consider.” Both Amy and Jane reckon that the country’s appearance on TV shows – including Race Across the World – have opened up audiences to the various destinations on offer in the country, other than classic hotspots such as the Great Wall. For example, Avatar fans have been flocking to the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in the Hunan Province, which are believed to have inspired filmmakers behind the world of Pandora.

Morocco

Morocco isn’t a hidden gem, but according to the travel pros, it’s been enjoying a surge of interest from adventure travellers, who want to make the most of the bustling souks, but also explore some of the country’s breathtaking deserts. When asked what might be causing its popularity, Jane said there were two big factors. The first, was price. “It’s cheap!” she said, pointing to the flight and accommodation options you can find on a budget. The second factor? The Middle East conflict which saw travel plans disrupted earlier this year, with the Foreign Office still issuing travel advice to countries close to the ‘unpredictable’ tensions.

With Morocco being a short flight but boasting year-round sunshine and hot weather, as well as a plethora of unique experiences including camping in the desert, it offers an exciting alternative to some classic European city breaks that might not entice Brits. (Not to mention it’s got a flight time of around four hours, so it’s easy to do for a week’s break). “It’s a little bit further than doing a European trip but you’re also not having to venture too far from home,” said Amy.

Jane added: “For someone who wants to have a cheeky week away or have an adventure, it’s a really great holiday and you don’t have to spend much money.”

UN experts have condemned police crackdowns, warning they deter demonstrators from exercising their rights.

United Nations experts have expressed alarm at the “excessive use of force” by French authorities in dispersing the recent nationwide student protests.

“The scale of the arrests and detention, affecting several thousand people, mainly minors, appears disproportionate and deters demonstrators from exercising their freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly,” the four experts, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, said in a statement on Wednesday.

They included Gina Romero, special rapporteur on the freedom of peaceful assembly, and Farida Shaheed, the UN expert on cultural rights.

“Although authorities launched several initiatives to facilitate dialogue and respond to students’ demands in October, the priority given to a primarily security-focused response to the protests has led to the root causes of the mobilisation being sidelined,” the statement said.

France has seen ongoing student protests since mid-September, sparked initially over conditions in high schools, where young people complained about the deteriorating buildings, overcrowded classrooms and teacher absences. Students have also joined nationwide demonstrations to express anger over the rising cost of living, which led to riots and looting on the sidelines.

The French government deployed 70,000 security forces and arrested 1,000 people during demonstrations on Saturday, which drew 410,000 protesters nationwide, France’s Interior Ministry said. A week earlier, public buildings were vandalised, hundreds of businesses were looted and 2,700 people were arrested, with Interior Minister Laurent Nunez vowing to be “extremely vigilant, extremely firm” to quell future unrest.

“What we are seeing right now is a general outburst of resentment against [French President Emmanuel] Macron and his policies that have destroyed our rights, destroyed our living conditions,” Alice Cohen-Morzadec, a spokesperson for the Union Etudiante, told Al Jazeera.

Analysts say the French government has struggled to address students’ demands due to a severe fiscal crisis and planned budget cuts, which have led to a drop in the country’s education budget.

Police response to protests

French authorities have been criticised for their approach to security during some of the protests, and in one case a teenager in the northern city of Lille lost a hand when a grenade exploded as school protesters clashed with police.

“The serious and, in some cases, irreversible injuries sustained by underage demonstrators during law enforcement operations are unacceptable and unjustifiable,” the UN rapporteurs said.

The statement added: “The experts recalled past discussions urging French authorities to undertake a comprehensive review of their policing strategies and practices in order to enable demonstrators to express their concerns and to facilitate a peaceful resolution of social conflicts.”

“The experts are in contact with French authorities on the issue,” the statement concluded.

UN experts have called on the Indian government to stop the use of “excessive force” in the wake of the crackdown on opposition and student protests in India.

In a statement on Tuesday, the two dozen independent experts pressed for an impartial investigation into Indian authorities’ conduct, saying that demonstrators had sustained injuries and some reported being subjected to ill-treatment.

“Protesters have sustained injuries, with some reporting being subjected to ill-treatment. The experts expressed particular concern about reports of sexual violence and other forms of gender-based abuse in the protests and related detentions,” according to the statement.

UN experts are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and document specific human rights crises but are independent of the organisation itself.

India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), along with other opposition parties and student organisations, has led protests this month demanding Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation, after 130 million names were removed from voter lists.

The protesting groups said the removal disproportionately affected poor and homeless people as well as ethnic minorities including Muslims, who are unlikely to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP and India’s Election Commission deny the accusations. The Election Commission said it was removing duplicate, deceased, shifted and otherwise ineligible voters and that anyone excluded in error can pursue appeals.

‘Deployed force’

“Despite the non-violent nature of the assemblies, law enforcement agencies have reportedly deployed force against unarmed students including by means of police so-called lathi charges, and have prevented thousands from joining the protests,” the UN experts said.

Lathi charges are coordinated movements by a policing force using sticks to disperse crowds.

“We call on the authorities to immediately cease the use of excessive force, rescind blanket assembly bans, and refrain from the misuse of digital surveillance, including through biometrics, and internet disruptions,” they added.

India has repeatedly dismissed such criticism and cast it as interference in the country’s internal affairs, including when the UN human rights office earlier this month expressed concerns over mass detentions in relation to the latest protests.

As China and North Korea cut the ribbon on New Yalu River Bridge this week, officials described the new border crossing in momentous terms.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang said the 3km (1.9-mile) bridge, which links China’s Dandong and North Korea’s Sinuiju, would “vigorously promote” trade and “strengthen emotional bonds”.

North Korean Premier Pak Thae-song expressed his belief that the crossing would “accelerate the advance for the prosperity of the two countries” and “add fresh vigour” to their economic cooperation.

Analysts on China-North Korea ties are much more circumspect.

While the bridge is a concrete symbol of China and North Korea’s efforts to revitalise relations that have waned from their Cold War-era peak, the prospects for trade are hindered by obstacles ranging from international sanctions to a North Korean leadership that prioritises security above all else, experts say.

“It reflects China’s renewed effort to strengthen its relationship with North Korea at a time of changing regional alignments,” Phillip Park, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, South Korea, told Al Jazeera.

“But whether this leads to substantially deeper economic integration, greater North Korean dependence, or a significant shift in Pyongyang’s strategic orientation remains an open question.

“The bridge could facilitate trade and logistics, but it does not remove international sanctions,” Park added.

China, whose troops fought alongside Pyongyang in the 1950-53 Korean War, has long been North Korea’s most crucial economic benefactor.

China accounts for as much as 95 percent of official trade with the secretive country, which is among the world’s most diplomatically and economically isolated states.

Before the four-lane New Yalu River Bridge officially opened on Thursday, road and rail freight between Dandong and Sinuiju, the main route for China-North Korea trade, travelled exclusively via the ageing Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge.

Opened in 1943, the bridge, which has a single-lane road and a rail track, can only carry vehicles weighing a maximum of 20 tonnes.

Jae-woo Joo, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, said the new bridge could “tremendously” boost trade between the sides, including the transfer of components banned under sanctions against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes.

“It is therefore really significant to open this bridge with China,” Joo told Al Jazeera.

After coming under strain from North Korea’s nuclear weapons tests in the mid-2000s, Beijing-Pyongyang ties have warmed under Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

At Xi and Kim’s most recent meeting in June, their seventh summit since 2018, the leaders pledged to enhance cooperation in areas spanning trade, defence, agriculture, law, science and technology.

Analysts have, in part, cast Beijing’s deepening engagement with Pyongyang as a response to the latter’s growing ties with Moscow, which have included the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Last month, North Korean and Russian officials opened the first road bridge linking their countries across the Tumen River.

North Korea and China’s two-way trade grew 25 percent in 2025 to reach $2.74bn, according to figures from China’s General Administration of Customs.

Bilateral trade has continued to grow in 2026, jumping nearly 20 percent to reach $1.5bn in the first half of the year, putting it on track to reach its highest volumes since the COVID-19 pandemic.

But while growing, trade remains relatively minuscule in the context of global commerce.

With China’s overall trade hitting $6.36 trillion in 2025, North Korea’s contribution to the total was a little more than 0.04 percent.

Official trade between the neighbours also remains substantially below its 2010s heyday.

Trade hovered around $5-6bn throughout much of the decade, peaking at $6.45bn in 2013.

Economists have offered explanations for the slowdown that range from tightened sanctions to China’s waning reliance on imports amid its efforts to boost economic self-reliance.

Christopher Green, a senior consultant for the Korean Peninsula at International Crisis Group, said the new border crossing’s significance should not be overstated, considering that China-North Korea trade “is fundamentally driven by politics”.

“Lack of cross-border transit routes is not the main obstacle,” Green told Al Jazeera.

“If the bridge opening signifies a political desire on both sides to give political cover to rising trade volumes, then a boost to trade should follow,” Green said, describing ties up until now as “steady-as-she-goes” economic engagement.

“Time will tell. But the key is the politics of national security, not economics.”

As much as officials have hailed the New Yalu River Bridge as a reflection of Chinese-North Korean cooperation, the project had a long and torturous road to completion.

Construction began in 2011 and was finished on the Chinese side in 2014.

But North Korean authorities only completed roads and customs facilities on their side of the river this year following repeated pauses in construction amid tensions with Beijing.

“The 12-year delay certainly suggests that economic cooperation is more conditional than the language of friendship might imply,” Marco Mari, a PhD researcher at Bocconi University in Italy who studies China-North Korea economic ties, told Al Jazeera.

“The bridge can facilitate supplies and economic activity, while Russian support gives North Korea alternatives that diminish Beijing’s leverage,” Mari added.

“This does not necessarily imply broader economic reform or a comparable improvement in ordinary people’s lives.”

Weiqi Zhang, an associate professor at Suffolk University who studies relations between North Korea and China, said the history of China-North Korea economic ties is littered with abortive projects, such as the Hwanggumpyong Special Economic Zone, a North Korean-Chinese development near Dandong.

“There were cases, like the Hwanggumpyong Special Economic Zone – established by China and North Korea – where China built infrastructure on its side, but North Korea didn’t even pave the road on their side,” Zhang told Al Jazeera.

“One reason is that, unlike its neighbours, North Korean government doesn’t really pay much attention to trade for economic development,” Zhang said.

“International trade is used by North Korea more like a foreign policy tool.”

With China wishing to demonstrate its “indispensability” as a trade partner and North Korea eager to strengthen their economic ties, trade is likely to grow, said Edward Howell, a lecturer in international Relations at the University of Oxford.

Even so, economic engagement will be subject to political considerations, Howell said.

“North Korea will obviously want to avoid facing any Chinese influence to change its economic model, but Pyongyang will want to reap the economic benefits of trade with its principal economic benefactor,” Howell told Al Jazeera.

We’ve all been there – booking a flight and hoping for a decent seat. But which spot on the plane should you avoid at all costs? I asked the experts, and they all agreed on one area to steer clear of.

Finding yourself in the wrong plane seat is a surefire way to start off a holiday with a whimper.

I recently found myself wedged next to an increasingly wound-up man on a Ryanair flight. He kept huffing, puffing and angrily texting his girlfriend until, five minutes after take-off, he erupted. “Get your elbow off me, my guy,” he shouted at the man sitting on the other side of him, who understandably looked surprised and confused.

Although shouting at strangers probably isn’t the solution, being in an uncomfortable budget airline seat, wedged between strangers on a hot summer day, is no fun. Which is why choosing the right plane seat can make a big difference to the start of your holiday. From cabin noise to limited storage, an uncomfortable spot can leave you wishing you had booked elsewhere.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

To help holidaymakers make that choice, we asked travel experts which seats they would avoid. Most pointed to the same area: the very back of the plane, and not because you’re more likely to sit next to angry passengers there. Nicholas Smith, Holidays Digital Director at Thomas Cook, said the rear of the aircraft can be particularly uncomfortable for passengers who are unsettled by turbulence.

He explained: “Seats at the very back are typically less desirable. They are close to the galley and restrooms, service can be slower, food choices may be limited, and it is also the area where movement during turbulence feels strongest.”

Nicholas recommended thinking about what matters most before choosing a seat. Although seat selection often costs extra, it may be worthwhile if comfort is a priority.

He said: “Thinking about your priorities in advance also makes a difference – nervous flyers will be more comfortable over the wings, those with a tight connection should choose an aisle near the front, while couples booking a row of three might secure the window and aisle, leaving the middle free for a chance at extra space.”

Izzy Nicholls, a travel expert and founder of road trip blog The Gap Decaders, also advised avoiding the rear of the cabin. She said: “Seats at the back are best avoided. They’re typically noisier because of engine proximity and galley activity, and you’ll be among the last to board and leave the plane.”

For a quieter journey with fewer interruptions, Izzy recommended sitting towards the front. She explained: “Travellers who want a calmer journey should book seats at the front of the plane. This area is away from restrooms and heavy foot traffic, so you’ll experience fewer interruptions.

“Choosing an aisle seat here also gives you the freedom to stretch your legs and get up easily without disturbing others. Select these placements to make long flights more comfortable and reduce the effects of motion.”

Storage is another consideration, particularly for passengers who board late. Jacob Wedderburn-Day, CEO and co-founder of luggage storage company Stasher, warned that overhead space near the back may be harder to find. He said: “Avoid sitting near galleys and toilets, where staff members often store their things in overhead bins, leaving less space for passenger baggage. The last few rows are a concern because if you board late, the bins above you may be filled, which means you may have to store your luggage several rows away. Also, stay away from seats that are located behind bulkheads, as these spaces often have limited storage.”

Andrea Platania from Transfeero highlighted further drawbacks of the last row, including restricted recline and noise. Andrea said: “The very last row is typically the least desirable: limited recline, proximity to bathrooms, and more cabin noise. Middle seats anywhere are usually least popular unless you’re traveling in a group.”

Passengers looking for extra legroom could consider an exit-row or bulkhead seat, although these options come with restrictions. Andrea added: “Exit-row and bulkhead seats offer more space, but they come with trade-offs: fixed armrests, limited recline, or restrictions for passengers traveling with children.”

For those concerned about turbulence or prone to motion sickness, Andrea recommended choosing a seat over the wings rather than at the back. The expert advised: “Sit over the wings. This area is closest to the aircraft’s centre of gravity, so you’ll feel less turbulence compared to the back, where bumps are magnified.”