Cum Laude in Evading Bandits

Many of these tips are familiar to many international travellers--but I did like the tip of using one's backpack as an airbag--will consider this on my next trip to Kenya--in two days!
uvealblues

One of the great failures of American universities is that they are far too parochial, rarely exposing students to worlds beyond our borders.

If colleges provide credit for dozing through an introductory Spanish class, why not give credit for a “gap year” in a Bolivian village? If students can learn about microfinance while sitting comatose in 9 a.m. lectures, couldn’t they learn more by volunteering with a lender in a Bangladesh slum?

In response, here are 15 tips for traveling to even the roughest of countries — and back:

There is alot more useful information in the letters to Kristof's blog here