A Kent man went on gap year 12 years ago... and decided to never come back home.

Mark Phipps, from West Malling, left the UK aged 19, before heading to university, but the trip spiralled into a round-the-world adventure he's now documented in a new book.

The 32-year-old first had the idea to go abroad in 2010, during sixth form at Mascalls Academy in Paddock Wood.

"My friends were talking about university plans and what they were going to study," he explained.

"I just remember sitting there thinking ‘I have no idea what I want to do’.

"Australia came to my head and I had heard about the working holiday visa, which gives you 12 months abroad.

"The initial plan was to go for about six months – maybe do the classic ‘find myself while I’m travelling’ – then come back to university.

"Six months turned into a year, and I had met so many interesting people who had been to places that I wanted to visit."

He added: "I saved up some more money and travelled through South East Asia – visiting Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia.

"Then I went back to Australia for a second year, and it just kept snowballing from there."

During his time in Oz, Mark worked for an agency completing part-time manual labour.

A couple of months later in he found a permanent job as a waiter at an Italian eatery.

He said: "All of a sudden I was working in this high-class, fancy restaurant, opposite the opera house.

"Instead of weekends spent down at Leybourne Lakes, it was weekends at Bondi Beach. It was different and felt very glamorous.

"I enjoyed it, but I was very much out of my depth – I was thrown into the world of hostels, independence and rent."

In the space of more than a decade, the 32-year-old has visited more than 30 countries.

However during Covid, he became stuck on the southeast Thailand island of Ko Pha-ngan for 14 months.

"I lived in a hotel which emptied out and I had a very small wooden bungalow on the beach and that was it," Mark said.

"The travel industry just shut down completely and I wouldn't leave the island except to go renew my visa.

"That was the most still I had been in the last 12 years."

Most recently, Mark spent some months living in Los Angeles – which eventually landed him coming face-to-face with America's strict border security.

"This year was definitely a bit of an eye opener for me," he explained.

"It’s expensive out there and I needed work, but it was very difficult to get a visa.

"I went as a tourist for 90 days, and after that ran out I would travel to Belize, Mexico, El Salvador and Costa Rica, then go back up to LA.

"I ended up finding a job at a bar, where they gave me cash in hand. It was a bit of a risky game to play, dicing with US immigration.

"In March I flew back into the States and my luck ran out – I got pulled aside and questioned for around 12 hours.

"They went through all my bags and every single text I had ever sent over the last couple of months.

"In the end they found a message to a friend saying I was at work and that was it."

Mark was denied entry and sent on an aeroplane straight back to El Salvador.

He added: "Most of my belongings were still at my apartment in LA with my girlfriend at the time.

"I landed at 2am, and I didn’t know anyone in the area or speak a lot of Spanish – I was basically stranded.

"It was a bit of a traumatic time."

Mark now works for a tour company called Intro Travel, which he first joined back in September 2014.

He trains group leaders who run the tours, as well as managing some of the packages and itineraries in each destination.

"When I used to be a tour guide, I would be taking groups of 20 people around either Thailand, Bali or Sri Lanka," he said.

"That’s when I realised I could really make a job and a career out of this.

"You would meet thousands of people a year and I now have friends dotted all around the world."

The 32-year-old has brought out a book, called One Way Ticket, which documents the highs and lows of his travels over the past decade.

"Hopefully people can take some inspiration from it," he commented. "It can help if you are a little bit lost in life and not sure on what to do.

"It doesn't always have to be school, then university, then job and marriage."

One Way Ticket is out on Amazon now.