The Guardian

London

So, was it your parents who made you come on the course?” asks Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton. Most of the people in the room at a cafe on the Old Brompton Road in west London nod. Lowther-Pinkerton spent a decade in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army and another in the UK’s elite force the SAS, but since its creation two years ago, he has been co-director of Objective, a team of ex-soldiers and travel experts who teach intensive one-day safety courses for student travellers. Today, he is aided by former servicemen Adam Dobbie and Bob Par.

I’m here to get some top tips to help me survive three months in Gambia, where I will be teaching English. Maybe I’ll even start planning what, at the moment, is a vague idea to go to Latin America this year.

The main principle Objective emphasises is Reade (unsurprisingly, a military acronym): Recognise: what’s happening; Evaluate: the situation; Avoid: getting involved; Diffuse: don’t escalate; Extract: walk away from it.

So you’re cycling through Mexican cornfields when your way ahead is blocked by two irate, pitchfork-heaving farmers. You recognise they are having a raging argument about something. Possibly potatoes. You evaluate the situation: the potatoes probably don’t matter; the pitchforks might. You avoid getting involved by doing a neat U-turn and finding a different route. If you stupidly fancy yourself as a diplomat, don’t escalate the situation by joining the discussion, defuse it. Change the subject. Tell them how lovely the fields smell. Then, at your second chance, extract yourself from their company. Cycle on, gringo.

Lowther-Pinkerton doesn’t shy away from religious or cultural issues. Steal a peach in Saudi Arabia and you could lose a hand, he warns; a whiff of marijuana in Singapore and it might be your shead. So travellers would be well advised to find out about local laws and customs, and adhere to them.

Before you go on any jaunt overseas, we learn, it is important to have some sort of plan — just so the folks back home know what hemisphere you’re in. Try to make contact with them when you reach a new destination. But parents shouldn’t ask little Johnny to call every first Friday of the month. It’s only they who will suffer when he can’t reach a phone.

There’s a lot to remember about hotels, buses, trains, taxis and cars. Start well — don’t go to a hotel near a bus or railway station. These tend to be the more seedy and dangerous areas. Dobbie emphasises the importance of wearing kit that will not make you look vulnerable. A huge rucksack on your back and a day-sack around your chest will be sure targets for thieves. So what do you take? Out of a large rucksack Dobbie produces every essential travel item and ingenious gadget imaginable — from a first-aid bag to a personal attack alarm.

Once the rucksack is empty, my hand goes up. Does he think it’s likely that a student taking a year our of their studies will buy all this equipment? No, it’s not. Good, because I can’t afford it. We get

an intense dietary briefing. A basic rule seems to be, if you can’t peel or cook

it, leave it, and you should be okay. And Dobbie tells me in no uncertain terms

to forget the idea of riding a motorbike in Africa.

Generally, most of the boys are sent on the course by their parents. The girls usually have greater self-motivation. Lowther-Pinkerton suggests they are more aware of their own vulnerability.

By the afternoon sessions, we’re getting on to the sexy stuff. It is a good idea to do a first-aid course before you go. Failing that, Lowther-Pinkerton condenses the four-day course into three minutes. We are treated to a description of how to recognise and treat life-threatening hazards such as snakebites, hypothermia.

In the most exciting lecture, Jaime tells what to do in scenarios ranging from being mugged to being caught in a forest fire (basically run towards the wind). “Before the course, I confessed I didn’t know the sensible time to kick, bite and punch someone while screaming hysterically. It’s when you are convinced they are out to do you harm, apparently. A distinction is drawn between people out to do you harm and the ones just after your money. For the thief, mugging is a ‘business transaction’. So you keep it from becoming personal and comply with demands. Better to lose all your money than get a knife in the chest.”

As the list goes on — kidnappings, fires, earthquakes, riptides, hurricanes, lightning, avalanches — it’s hardly surprising that a few of us look alarmed. “But don’t worry,” we are finally told, “these situations will probably never happen to you.”