Tag: Traveling

6 Fantastic Reasons Why Travel Is Good For You

You don’t have to tell me how hard it is to take the plunge and throw yourself out there. I know all about that! There are so many reasons not to. These include your job, your family, your security, not knowing what to take, or what is out there and the fear, of course. For those reasons and others, millions don’t pursue their dream of seeing the world. Heck, they almost kept me from getting back out there on many occasions.

That’s a shame, because – as you no doubt know by now – I’m an advocate of the open road and what it can do for us. I believe travel is good for you, and I don’t just mean that for us as individuals, either.

I’m convinced that travel is a natural antidote to the surge in nationalism we’re seeing today.

(For those hit by the latest demonstration, check out my article about how to get out of the US of A)

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WTF? He Won! Quick, How Do I Get Out Of Here?

No doubt you’re halfway to packing your bag and booking tickets to Canada. It doesn’t look like you’ll be alone. Many have said they’ll get out of here with a Trump victory. And why not Canada? It’s a beautiful country.

At the same time, there is a lot more world than just Canada. Have you considered seeing more of it? After all, plenty of research shows that travel is good for you and this might well be the perfect opportunity. After all, the inconceivable happened. Donald Trump won. The world as we know it as irrevocably changed.

So why not use this as an excuse to make a change in your life? Heck, at least you leaving has a chance to work out for the best. What’s more, it’s a lot easier than you may think. I’ve given up the steady life for a life on the road on three separate occasions and never found it all that hard.

The biggest problem with heading off into the wide open world? That’s the fear, plain and simple.
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Freelance Abroad From Coroico, Bolivia

Much like Sucre, where we spent a month and a half, we ended up in Coroico almost by accident. We heard about it while having a few beers in a bar. Some Scandinavian guy was singing its praises (or maybe he was just speaking, I can never tell with Scandinavian English). As it was only three hours away, we decided to give it a try.

And boy, are we glad we did!

It was an absolute gem. What’s more, as I’ve explained in Slow Travel, when you hear about a place like that it might be the real deal. Why? Because it hasn’t yet been advertised in ever magazine and website. That means they aren’t as likely to be overrun by tourists. Nor are the locals as keen to gouge you.

Like I’ve said before, on the road a place is a lot like a lover. You don’t want too many people to have gone there before you.
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My Struggle to Overcome the Fear of Traveling

Today we have Vagabond Writer’s first guest post! Our guest poster is the fabulous Gaia Mori and she talks about her fear of traveling and how she overcame it. She spent most of her adolescence moving around the world. Aside from her studies and work in Marketing, she loves practicing yoga, reading, and essentially anything that requires her to reflect abstractly.

We’ve all seen those movies that light a fire under our butts and make us dream of a life of adventure. You know the ones, where the protagonist rides on elephants in Thailand or swims with dolphins in Australia.

After I watch such movies I always imagine myself doing the same thing.

I rush home, flip open my computer, and spend the evening Googling my brains out trying to see how I could make it work. But when morning comes rolling around, I always find myself brushing those dreams aside, or burying them under a mountain of “should’s”. I should have a steady job. I should own a house. I should be there for my family.
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3 Actually True Travel Stories That Will Astound You

You know how they say that truth is stranger than fiction? That’s even truer on the road. Just like you’ll meet some amazing people, you’ll see some crazy stuff.

I’ve experienced all these travel stories or heard about them first hand. No ‘a guy in a bar told me’ here. All I’ve done is changed the names and told them in the third person.
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Lonely in Paradise

Anybody that’s traveled for a while knows the feeling. You arrive at some stunning location that should have you slack-jawed in wonder and you find it barely moves you. You meet yet another fascinating person with great stories to tell, but you can’t muster the interest. You feel lonely in a bar full of friendly people who are just dying for a conversation.

You get somewhere new and all you can think about is the place and the people you left behind.
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Road Interview: Phil Buck, Professional Adventurer

On the road you see some beautiful places, but really it’s the people you meet and the stories they tell that really stay with you. I thought I would immortalize some of the best ones I come across here on VagabondWriters.com. We’ll begin with Phil Buck, who I met in La Paz, Bolivia, where he is building a reed boat and plans to sail it from Chile to Australia.

“I wasn’t going to climb that mountain in Nicaragua,” Phil tells me, “But then I found this guy who specialized in landmine removal and he said he could take me to the top. He still had all his fingers and his toes, so I followed him. He set out a route with red flags but I still made sure I put every foot where he’d placed his. Man, that was scary.”
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Freelance Abroad From Sucre, Bolivia

It’s hard to be working on projects while you’re folded up around your laptop on a 24 hour bus ride without a wifi signal. Similarly, you’re going to struggle to work when one eye is watching your bags and the other is scanning when your plane boards. For that reason when you freelance abroad, you’ve got to stop and go.

The question is: Where can you go to stop a while?

For if you just pick at random chances are you’re going to end up in some horrible dingy motel without any windows. The veteran travelers know the kind of place I’m talking about. Those locales where the internet is even flakier than the paint on the walls. The kind of places where it is a running question if you’ll manage to finish your article before the bedbugs have finished with you. (When I’m in one of these places, I always worry all they’ll find of me after a night is a mummified husk).

Of course, you can follow the suggestions of other travelers. Sometimes they’ll point you true. The thing is, they don’t freelance abroad. Instead, they are therefore focused on completely different things like hikes and adventure. And so, they often steer you wrong despite their best intentions.
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7 Reasons Why Slow Travel is Good Travel

Sometimes you meet them on the road – the anal retentive travelers. These are the people so obsessed with schedules and making sure they see everything that they spend more time charging around than actually looking. They dash around to make sure they see every sight and get home more tired than they left.

I don’t blame them. Some people need that kind of thing. They’ve got to be in control and a schedule worked out to the minute makes them feel that way. It’s great that they found enough reasons to travel in the first place.

Still, I would never want to be (with) one of them. For their way of travel is no way to travel. Of course, this is particularly true when you’re freelancing from the road as you need time for your work. But even if you’re just traveling without a worry in the world, slow travel is absolutely the way to go. That’s how you find happiness

Why? Read on.
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How Not to Get Robbed While Abroad

One of the big dangers when you’re out and about in foreign countries, with all your belongings packed into two bags, is that somebody decides to take what is yours. That can put a real crick in your holidays and your travels.

This is particularly true if, like me, you live on the road and freelance from the world’s corners. As then your livelihood, as your work depends on having your gear. Losing it means a double whammy of replacing it and not being able to work while you do so. And that’s a hard thing to survive, no matter how many of the characteristics of a successful traveling freelancer you have!

For that reason, over the years I’ve learned a number of strategies how not to get robbed. I thought I’d share a few with you.
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