IT’S easy to spot a student who has just returned from a gap year by the woven friendship bracelet fraying on their left wrist.

References to distant locations shoehorned into conversation are also a good clue. For instance...

Eighteen-year-old student: “Have you been to the union bar? The pints are only a pound each.”

Recently gap yeared student of a more mature and experienced 19 years: “No, but when I was staying in Koh Pha-ngan I used to drink bottles of Chang for 4½p.”

Now though, it seems that you don’t need to spy for well-thumbed copies of the Lonely Planet or tell-tale batik wall-hangings to identify a gap year student – you just have to look out for their mum or dad.

According to a new poll, more than a quarter of 19 to 25-year-olds would like a parent to join them on their adventures.

I mean, really. Just who have they asked?

Which young adults would hold up their hands and say: “Forget the bottle of mixed spirits, I’m taking my mum along instead.”

And more’s the point, what parent would want to spend six months treating bed-bug bites and insisting that you’re not a tourist, you’re a traveller.

Sure, when your kids fly the nest it’s time to reclaim the recklessness of youth. But you wouldn’t want actual youths along to spoil the ride.

More evidence that the study polled 3,000 very unusual young people is that the men questioned said they were keener to take teddy bears on trips than their BlackBerrys.

As fewer teenagers can afford to study away from home, due to high tuition fees and the struggling economy, you would expect the gap year to an even more significant statement of independence.

Besides, it would be more difficult to exaggerate the life-affirming qualities of your 26 weeks in Australia when your mum or dad is there to correct the details...

Recently gap yeared student: “When I was living in the outback with a family of dingos, I was bitten by a poisonous spider. I suffered from three days of hallucinations and when I came round I was naked apart from a top hat.”

Mum: “And your Thomas the Tank Engine boxers shorts.”

Student (blushing): “Well nearly naked then – apart from boxers and a hat.”

Mum: “Which was more of a baseball cap.”

Student: “Well a baseball cap then.”

Mum: “And there were no dingos, just a friendly Pekinese that belonged to the owner of that lovely hotel we were staying in.

“And I don’t know where you got the idea it was a spider. You just had a funny reaction to the barbecued shrimp. You’ve always had a sensitive constitution.”

My favourite gap year-related trait is the use of the expression “used to”, as if you spent 10 years in Thailand rather than three weeks as part of a whistlestop tour of dodgy hostels of the East.

I have been guilty of this myself, when describing the six weeks I spent on a kibbutz in Israel at the age of 20, where we “used to” go to an open air disco near Bethlehem and drink vodka watered down with concentrated peach cordial.

Time doesn’t travel at the same pace as everywhere else when you’re on a gap year, just like when you’re on holiday and fully embedded in the local culture until you get home to discover you’ve only missed two episodes of Spooks.

During a gap year it’s possible to spend just 12 minutes in the airport before finding yourself speaking a different language – or at least your own three times as loudly.

READ more of Laura’s columns at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/lauradavis

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