You’ve just spent two months traveling around Australia and now you’re about to spend another two months in Southeast Asia. And while you enjoyed every single minute of your stay in Oz, you’re ready to explore the intriguing cultures of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. You arrive at Melbourne’s International airport 2 hours prior to your direct flight to Kuala Lumpur and you quickly join the long check-in line at Malaysia Airlines. Thirty minutes pass until you are

When it comes to protecting our stuff while traveling, such methods as chaining our backpack to our train seat, using a PacSafe when leaving our bag in our hotel room and hiding our valuables in random places, go a long way in easing our minds. We certainly don’t want to take any chances as the thought of having our computer, camera, favorite sandals and boxes of Pure Optical contact lenses stolen remains permanently in the back of every traveler’s mind. Just like home owners w

I walked along the sidewalk of Jamshedji Tata Road in Mumbai, sweating profusely in the 115 degree heat and under the increasing weight of my backpack. Both of my hands struggled to hang on to a 50 lb (22 kg) duffel bag that I carried for a fellow traveler I had just met on a bus and as a result, I was unable to wipe my face dry. My eyes stung and there was nothing I could do about it. To make the situation worse, my good friend (who had joined me on this trip to India) and I couldn’

How many times have you received a gift from someone, only to stash it away, with no intention of ever using it? Think about all of those gifts that we don’t need, don’t want or simply receive just because certain occasions demand that gifts, any kind of gifts, be exchanged or given. In the end, what’s the point of accumulating more stuff, year after year, that will spend its existence rotting away in a box pushed into the back corner of a closet? It seems a bit silly. W

During a walk around Playa del Carmen yesterday, I happened to pass by a small, colorful building down a narrow side street, a street that I had never been down before. In the front window of this building, hanging from some sort of rotting suction cup hook, was a handwritten sign advertising “Estudios En Renta Por Mes” (Studios for Rent by the Month). And even though I already have a place to stay down here, my curious nature led me inside the doorway where I soon found myself asking the

After writing my “Living Abroad for Less than $1000 per Month” post a few weeks ago, I received all sorts of interesting emails from readers. I honestly had a great time answering them and I stayed up until 3am a few nights in a row trying to respond as quickly as I possibly could! Through all of those emails, I did happen to notice that one particular question kept popping up over and over again, and so I thought it best to answer this question as a post in the hopes that the information

Well, thanks to the wonderful advice of so many of you, I can now say that I’ve finally been spending a significant amount of time away from my computer over the past few days, and as one might expect, I haven’t felt this good in a long while. A few swims in the Caribbean Sea and a handful of abnormally long sleeps seemed to have been exactly what I needed. Even when I sit down to work I find that I’m more motivated and focused now that my body and mind have been allowed

Over the past few months, every now and then, I’ve mentioned that I’ve been working on a variety of new projects. And while at times it seems as if some of these projects will drag on for another 30 years without ever being finished, I am thrilled to announce that one of these projects has now been completed! So why am I even bothering to make this announcement? Well, even though I normally prefer to avoid talking about my current income-generating endeavors on my blog, this ca

Two nights ago, I sat at a small plastic table just a few feet from the sidewalk, ready to eat one last meal at my favorite restaurant in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. As I sipped on my vanilla-infused mango shake, I kept looking all around me, trying to catch a glimpse of every tree, every storefront and of every person that passed by. I wanted to notice as much of Mexico as possible and to preserve as many memories as I could before flying back to the USA the following morning. However, none

A desire to explore the world is hard to ignore, and for many travelers, as soon as that desire became too strong to be ignored, they simply packed up their backpack or suitcase and took off into the unknown. However, along with that strong desire to travel, there is something else that is needed in order to actually make it all happen. The fact is, you’ll barely make it across your home town if you don’t have at least a few dollars, pounds, euros or yen in your bank account.

Now that I’m no longer living in Mexico, I’m beginning to realize that, in terms of being a backpacker, I’m a little bit rusty. I haven’t been ‘on the road’ for quite a while and as a result, I just haven’t had to think about such things as long-distance transportation, finding nightly accommodation and of course, obtaining tourist visas. Basically, I seem to have misplaced my travel skills and I’m having some trouble getting them back! My su

The plan, and I use that term lightly considering that I have yet to book a flight, is to arrive in Turkey within the next ten days. Actually, before I continue writing, and this if purely for my benefit so I do apologize, I’m going to promise myself that I will book a flight before publishing this post. That should help me get my act together! Anyway, despite not having a flight reservation at the moment, I’ve already begun the interesting process of trying to decide where I&#

On this current trip, I have yet to sleep on anyone’s couch even though I planned on doing so upon signing up to be a member of Couchsurfing.com. I did attempt to get in touch with potential ‘hosts’ on a few occasions but it simply hasn’t worked out. And now that a month has passed since I’ve arrived in this region of the world, I think I’ve realized that my travel style is simply not too compatible with Couchsurfing. Here’s why: First, I generally

It happens. Travelers get ripped off. And it happens often. One of the most common ways of getting ripped off involves taking local transportation and sometimes it seems as if we spend hours every single day trying to negotiate taxi or rickshaw or tuk-tuk fares wherever we go. And somehow, no matter how hard we try, we almost always end up paying infinitely higher prices than locals. Of course, as soon as we find ourselves being ripped off by taxi drivers or once we learn that we paid much

The other day I was asked if one of my goals was to visit every country in the world. And after a lengthy pause, I replied by saying that while I certainly do intend to visit all 193+ countries at some point during the span of my life, I’m obviously not too dedicated to this goal. Clearly, if visiting every country in the world was a top priority of mine, I would be traveling around to places such as Namibia or Latvia right now, places I’ve yet to visit, instead of finding mysel

What do PayPal and Award Wallet have in common? Not much really, except for the fact that I’ve been dealing/working with each of these online tools quite a lot as of late. First, let me state that this is in no way a sponsored post. I simply woke up this morning, sat down at my computer and when I began to write, realized that my recent experiences might prove useful to anyone else who spends a good deal of time traveling. PAYPAL SOLUTIONS FOR THE TRAVELER Okay, I honestly don’t

As travelers trying to stretch every dollar we have, it only becomes natural that we should try and find the absolute cheapest airfare we possibly can when it comes time for us to fly somewhere. As a result, I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves at some point staring at the computer screen after an hour of flight research, trying to decide whether or not to fly to Cairo on British Airways or to save $150 bucks and fly with Bob’s Flying Bathtubs instead. And the fact that sav

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the method(s) I’ve used over the years to carry my money while traveling, mentioning that the money clip is generally my preferred method. However, what I failed to mention in that post is what exactly I carry around with me, clipped in to that money clip of mine. Obviously, I carry some money, but as several readers pointed out, that’s a bit vague. Do I walk around with $500 in my pocket or do I keep a much, much smaller amount on me, such as $10

Arriving in a new country, especially if it’s your first time traveling, is almost guaranteed to be an intimidating experiencing. This is even more so the case if you’re starting off in a mega-city such as Bangkok, Mexico City, Delhi or Sao Paolo, among many others. It’s one thing to ‘force’ yourself to get on that plane, often times alone, to head off to unfamiliar lands. But it’s another thing to suddenly find yourself in the midst of a chaotic, intens

You want to travel. You make a vague plan. Maybe you’ll fly to Thailand or maybe to Mexico, but either way, you’re leaving in six months time. You start saving money, you start doing research every single night and your level of excitement grows with each passing hour. Of course, as this will be your first ‘real’ travel experience, you’re a bit afraid to travel on your own and naturally prefer to travel with other people. So you start asking your friends to jo