Articles Archive
The Simple Three-Part Budget Plan for Travelling Europe
If there’s one thing budget travellers in Europe are good at it’s surviving on bread and cheese and not showering for weeks probably budgeting. Because we’re trying to leave home and keep travelling on the smallest amount of savings, every scrap of income is carefully stored and cared for until we hit the continent.
My wife and I travelled through Europe from March 2006 to September 2008. We visited over 30 countries during this time and — as well as creating the Indie Travel Podcast, an award-winning website about budget and independent travel — figured out how to keep ourselves alive while we weren’t working.
How I Learned to Shut Up and Listen
I sat at a table of no fewer than fifteen people on the street Pio Nono, entry to Bellavista, the down-home party section of Santiago, Chile. I’d been invited to go out for a beer after the monthly critical mass bike ride, and we stacked our bikes tidily (handlebars to rear wheel) against a nearby tree and set to the matter at hand. We sat at a long series of card tables extending down the street, each of us perched on one of those ubiquitous white plastic chairs, serving ourselves beer into small glasses from the liter bottles of Escudo on the center of the tables. Some, drinkers of fan-schop (a Chilean specialty), mixed theirs with Fanta. I drank mine plain, and listened.
I arrived to Chile in 2004, with way more than a passing knowledge of Spanish. Between high school and a couple of travel and study stints in the mundo hispanohablante (Spanish-speaking world), I could express myself fairly well, if not cleverly. Hadn’t I explained the electoral college to a group of teachers in Antigua, Guatemala in the 90s? Wasn’t it me who grabbed other travelers by the hand to take them to the post office, the bus station, to get their hair cut? I enjoyed helping, expressing, being in charge. I could get you a seat on the bus, a doorstop, tape to fix a book – you name it. I could ask for it directly or circumlocute it. I spoke, and people understood. At the time, I felt that this was the only necessary linguistic accomplishment. You, listen to me. And then it was over.
Disappointment: When Places Don’t Live Up to Your Expectations
Expectation is a dangerous thing. The higher the expectations, the greater the chance they’ll be dashed. But when it does happen, know this: it happens to lots of travellers.
To prove it to you, I rounded up 19 travel bloggers and asked them to share a time when a trip or place didn’t live up to their expectations.
Why We Travel: Nancy Sathre-Vogel’s Story
What could possess an otherwise perfectly sane family to take off to pedal bicycles 20,000 miles from one end of the earth to the other? I wish I knew…
We were just your ordinary, everyday, American family one day. And the next we were anything but. In May 2008 the four of us were living in a typical American home in Boise, Idaho. The boys attended fourth grade at a local elementary school. I taught Special Ed at a local high school. John was serving as our stay-at-home dad, fixing up the house and doing other assorted chores. In short – life was typical and predictable.
But a month later, the four of us were living a life very few can imagine. We arose every morning in our tent, packed our sleeping bags, strapped all our earthly belongings onto our bicycles, and pedaled away to face the adventures of the day – of which there were plenty!
Why We Travel: Mark Shrime’s Story
All it took was a nun.
The flight from New York City to Paris and on to Benin was about as uneventful as flights go; maybe half an hour of turbulence and two complimentary glasses of cognac rocked the entire sixteen hours of travel. Until I landed in Benin, the only thing eventful that had happened to me was that, despite my best efforts, I thoroughly and completely lost an armrest war to my left-hand neighbor, who seemed to consider that his window-seat ticket also bought him a controlling share in the adjacent aisle seat.
Given that he was approximately double my size (you will see…this promises to be a recurring theme), I’m surprised I lasted as long as I did—which, to be fair, was only about 27 minutes. I had little choice but to become intimately familiar with the contralateral armrest, and each passing, just-wide-enough-to-make-you-rue-elbows, duty-free-stocked beverage cart propelled by plastic smiles.
Tell Somebody: How to Get Over the Fear of Travel
I was walking along the Regent’s Canal this weekend as a new resident of Islington in London and wondering how I got here. Not, mind you, in a negative way. Not like those who – ball-gag in their mouth and gun to their head – wonder “How did I get here?” Rather, I was wondering in the happy, positive way of someone who is enjoying themselves at a really fancy party with exciting people.
One year ago in February of 2008, I was living in Toronto with little idea that I would be an ex-patriot Canadian by June. I would say that life moves in mysterious ways, but in reality there is no mystery to it. I chose to move, and did move, and now I am an immigrant to a new country, finally living my dream to live abroad.
The question some of you might be asking is how I did it, because it can seem like one of the scariest concepts ever. How do you take that step and travel, when it can seem so daunting?
Why We Travel: Craig Heimburger’s Story
I was working full-time in Phoenix and doing evening classes for my MBA (paid for by the same consulting company that I’d later leave just weeks after finishing my degree). I was happy, getting plenty of love and leisure in that lifestyle (despite the terribly full, yet routine schedule).
Corporate brass wanted to promote me to a senior level that would’ve probably doubled my salary and expanded my ability to enact change within the organization. By most standards these dimensions of personal and professional success would’ve been enough to keep the lips of most any 25-year-old grinning from ear to ear, behind a glass of rum at least half his age.
How to Blog from a Cyber Café
For a large portion of my travels I did not have a laptop. When it came to blogging about my travels this brought up a heap of new problems. I had no choice but to use public computers, some located in pretty dodgy cyber cafés. Others located in shut up tight ultra modern machines that don’t let you do anything but surf. Here are a few tips and tricks I used when travel blogging from cyber cafés.
The Pros and Cons of Travelling with a Laptop
My husband and I have been traveling with our laptops for the last eleven months. We’ve visited sixteen countries, taken eighteen flights, fifteen trains and eight long-distance buses, not to mention numerous subways, tuk tuks, long tail boats, scooter taxis, local buses and lots and lots of walking.
And throughout the whole journey, a pair of MacBooks have been along for the ride.
For us, the question of whether to bring our laptops wasn’t really even a question. But it is something we get asked about a lot by other travelers – so here’s my take on whether or not it makes sense to bring a laptop on your journey.
My Travel Blog Saved My Life
I’ve never been very good at keeping in touch. I expect my Facebook status to skip hand in hand with my Twitter account around the fires of my Flickr pages and the result be that everyone knows just enough. When my laptop allows Skype into its inner quarters, I begin my conversations with “so sorry I haven’t been in touch…” and The Other End routinely console me. My Myspace is slumped in a shiver and a dozen ‘RE: Where are you?’ lie beneath dust and disgrace in any one my three spam-infested inbox’s. Postcards? I’ve sent a couple. Text messages? Reserved for belated birthdays.
