I can understand. Travel outside of the US is a blast, especially when you are young. I took a year off between high school and college and traveled europe, north africa, the middle east, and india. It was the BEST year of my life and set my course for the next 20. If you don't do it while you are young you will never be able to do it the same way again. At 48 I could never take off 9 months to travel and even if I could I wouldn't be willing to travel the way I did back then - on a threadbare shoe string! I spent a month in Turkey in the early 80s on $240! I saw the whole country front to back (except a few places the military wouldn't let me go to b/c they were busy burning kurd villages... but that's a different post).

What kind of advice are you looking for? I spent 15 years living over seas. I can probably help if you can be a bit more specific.