If you find that you’re always spotting big cats on your gap year projects it could be due to the aftershave you’re wearing. Zookeepers in the Bronx have found that Calvin Klein Obsession stimulates curiosity in big cats. The aftershave was tested against 11 other scents and to their surprise, researchers found that big cats spent more than 11 minutes sniffing and nuzzling up to a tree sprayed with Calvin Klein Obsession.

The results were so compelling that there are plans to introduce Calvin Klein Obsession into zoos all over the world. Upon hearing the news, one team tracking jaguars in Guatemala sprayed the perfume on a stake in the ground and found that three times as many jaguars walked past that spot – making it much easier to track the animals and capture footage of their mating rituals – which until this point remained rarely seen.

Staff at Calvin Klein believe that the feline effect is down to the mixture of vanilla heart married to the fresh green top note. It looks to us like we’ve found the purr-fect scent to wear on gap year projects, although we certainly wouldn’t recommend wearing it when walking alone through a game reserve!

Whether you’re on your way to South Africa on your gap year or to watch the World Cup that everyone’s talking about, it seems that the sharks are eagerly awaiting your arrival so they can put on a show of their own. During the months of April to September, we see about 64,000 cape fur seals arrive on Seal Island near False Bay.  This gives the great white sharks in the area the ideal opportunity to flex their fins and perfect their hunting skills. Anyone visiting Cape Town during their gap year, or perhaps heading to the Green Point Stadium …

A gap year is a wonderful way to get yourself out into the big wide world while, at the same time, doing something a little more worthwhile than spending a summer lying on the beach in Spain or getting drunk with your mates (or both!). But before you set off on your adventure of a lifetime there are a few rules of behaviour you should take into account. Pic by Christopher Isherwood Do’s Do – get adequate insurance before you go; both travel and medical. Consider any ‘out of the ordinary’ things you may be doing (like a bungee jump) …

Hi all! Remember that we still have our fantastic ‘Voice of Conservation’ competition still going on, but hurry as all entrees must be in before the 6th August! In order to be considered for this position we need to see that you’re as passionate about Wildlife Conservation and Animal Rehabilitation as we at Worldwide Experience are. You will also need to prove to us that you’re a natural when it comes to social media, blogging, video creation, mashups etc… After all if you’re going to tell the animal’s stories, you need to know how to talk to the world. So …

I recently went to visit a number of the Worldwide Experience projects to see for myself why the gap year volunteers can’t get enough of our conservation experiences. While I was there I got chatting to some of the students, and thought wouldn’t it be great if we created a checklist of all the stuff that we wish that we had known before jetting off on our gap year. It looks like between us we got a great mixture of the sort of stuff that you’d read in tourist information guides and the slightly more pressing issues of what to …