Now many young people are traveling around the world on their own，not because they have no one to travel with，but because they prefer to go alone.

Kristina Wegscheider from California first traveled alone when she was at college and believes that it is something everyone should do at least once in their life. “It opens up your mind to new things and pushes you out of your comfort zone.” Wegscheider has visited 46 countries covering all seven continents.

    In foreign countries，with no one to help you read a map，look after you if you get ill，or lend you money if your wallet is stolen，it is challenging. This is what drives young people to travel alone. It is seen as character building and a chance to prove that they can make it on their own.

    Chris Richardson decided to leave his sales job in Australia to go traveling last year. He set up a website，The Aussie Nomad，to document his adventures. He says he wished he had traveled alone earlier. “The people you meet，the places you visit，or the things you do，everything is up to you and it forces you to grow as a person，” said the 30-year-old man.

    Richardson describes traveling alone like "a shot in the arm"，which "makes you a more confident person that is ready to deal with anything". He said，"The feeling of having overcome something on my own is a major part of what drives me each day when I'm dealing with a difficult task. I walk around with my head up because I know deep down inside that nothing is impossible if you try.”

    The great 19th century explorer John Muir once said，"Only by going alone in silence can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness."

    Home stay provides English language students with the opportunity to speak English outside the classroom and the experience of being part of a British home.

    What to Expect

    The host will provide accommodation and meals. Rooms will be cleaned and bedcovers changed at least once a week. You will be given the house key and the host is there to offer help and advice as well as to take an interest in your physical and mental health.

    Accommodation Zones

    Home stays are located in London mainly in Zones 2, 3 and of the transport system. Most hosts do not live in the town centre as much of central London is commercial and not residential(居住的). Zones3 and 4often offer larger accommodation in a less crowned area. It is very convenient to travel in London by Underground.

    Meal Plans Available

    Continental Breakfast

    Breakfast and Dinner

    Breakfast, Packed Lunch and Dinner

    It's important to note that few English families still provide a traditional cooked breakfast. Your accommodation includes Continental Breakfast which normally consists of fruit juice, cereal（谷物类食品），bread and tea or coffee. Cheese, fruit and cold meat are not normally part of a Continental Breakfast in England. Dinners usually consist of meat or fish with vegetables followed by desert, fruit and coffee.

    Friends

    If you wish to invite a friend over to visit, you must first ask your host's permission. You have no right to entertain friends in a family home as some families feel it is an invasion of their privacy.

    Self-Catering Accommodation in Private Homes

    Accommodation on a room-only basis includes shared kitchen and bathroom facilities and often a main living room. This kind of accommodation offers an independent lifestyle and is more suitable for the long-stay student. However, it does not provide the same family atmosphere as an ordinary homestay and may not benefit those who need to practise English at home quite as much.

    Mr. Lang worked in a factory. As a driver, he was busy but he was paid much. His wife was an able woman and did all the housework. When he came back, she took good care of him and he never did anything at home. So he had enough time when he had a holiday. A few friends of his liked gambling(赌博) and he learned it soon. So he was interested in it and hardly forgot anything except gambling. He lost all his money and later he began to sell the television, watches and so on. His wife told him not to do it but he didn't listen to her. She had to tell the police. He and his friends were punished for it. And he was hardly sent away. After he came out of lockup(拘留所), he hated her very much and the woman had to leave him.

    It was New Year's Day. Mr. Lang didn't go to work. He felt lonely and wanted to gamble again. He called his friends and they came soon. But they were afraid that the police would come. He told his five-year-old son to go to find out if there were the policemen outside. They waited for a long time and didn't think the police would come and began to gamble. Suddenly a few policemen opened the door and came in.

    "I saw there weren't any policemen outside, daddy," said the boy, "so I went to the crossing and asked some to come."

    In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity(繁荣). Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

    I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

    However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: "I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try."What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve(缓解)can we discover a new meaning in competition.

Over the years, electronic commerce or e-commerce has grown rapidly. The rise of e-commerce large enterprises such as Amazon and Alibaba in the mid-90s changed the face of the retail (零售) industry. E-commerce may be thought of as an open, global marketplace or a digital version of mail-order catalogue (目录). Nearly every imaginable product and service is available through e-commerce dealings these days.

Many young entrepreneurs have dived into the e-commerce world, ambitious and hoping to succeed. Some, like Mitchell Zvagelskiy. Zvagelskiy is the co-founder of Scale Online, a fast-growing startup in California and runs several e-commerce stores. Zvagelskiy and his business partner began opening online stores and building a team to grow them, allowing the stores to earn as much as $100.000＋ in monthly revenue. Zvagelskiy owes his success to teamwork and his willingness to seize opportunity.

"Being able to do this all by the age of 20 is something I didn't expect and would not be able to do if I constantly listened to other people and just went the typical college then job route," he said. "Life can change fast if you change fast."

Thanks to the rapid success of his YouTube channel, Mitchell has been able to not only make great profit from his companies, but help others in starting and growing their own e-commerce stores too. "My meaning of success arises from my relationships with other people," he said. "By focusing on building strong relationships with others, I'm able to partner up and work with like-minded individuals in finding market opportunities and solving whatever problems people are facing."