When I was 17 my parents shipped me off to Paraguay with AFS, an exchange program, to live with a Paraguayan family, to go to a Paraguayan school, and to generally soak up the culture.
Despite having some initial doubts when leaving, I came home sick with the travel bug. Not to be mistaken with the travellers bug which finds you bent over toilets in third world countries, the travel bug is a lot harder to define, and a lot harder to cure.
Work'n'travels 