2nd Year Studying Abroad?

So I'm doing Economics at Portsmouth, and I want to do my 2nd year abroad. Unfortunately the people doing International Studies get priority for places with Portsmouths linked unis. To get round this I thought I'd just attempt to apply directly to any unis I like, as my course tutor said if I can find somewhere suitable I can study abroad. So I'm going to go and apply for all the linked unis, only by myself instead of through the uni, just to see if they'll offer me anything. But to give myself more chance I'll also try to apply to any other unis that I think look quite good that arent connected with Portsmouth. So to get to my question (finally) does anyone know any good unis that are open to people just applying like this, or any websites that may help you finding good unis? I'm mainly looking into studying in Asia, with Thailand, S. Korea, and Hong Kong being my prefered destinations, although to be honest I'm open for almost anywhere in the world, except for the US, I've never really liked it there.

Thanks