Are you sitting at a desk, staring at a computer monitor and dreaming of traveling? Thinking about seeing your screen savers in real life? You aren’t alone. Mini retirements and gap years for adults are becoming more and more popular.
Here are ten reasons to take a career break and travel. Right Now.
We’ve just returned to beautiful BC after a month-long road trip to visit family in Manitoba and Alberta, Canada. In total, we spent over 48 hours in the car (darn you, Canada for being so… large) with our two little ones and our cat, Cosmo. Cosmo was lucky enough to stop for part of the trip and spend a few weeks at Grandma’s garden and luxury cat spa (aka my Mom’s house) while we drove to Manitoba to hang out at the cabin and play in the lake.
Aside from traveling and visiting family, we’ve been busy giving interviews (how fun is that!) and writing for some great travel sites. Here are a couple of the other projects you might have missed, including a fun interview with me and an article on finding out of the way things to do in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
I have two words of advice for anyone on a long road trip with little kids: …
Put your feet up, pop some popcorn and indulge in some great travel TV shows with us.
Travel can be a nightmare if you manage social media accounts. Luckily there are great tools to help out.
As a vegetarian, it can be a challenge to eat on the road, so here are a few of our favorite vegetarian recipes from the multi-talented folks at other travel blogs.
People often ask me why I travel, and why it’s so important to me. It’s not about climbing the tallest mountain, or getting bragging rights by visiting dozens of countries. I love travel because of how it changes and enriches me. It makes me a better person.
I grew up in a little prairie town in the middle of Canada. Travel wasn’t part of my childhood, and I never truly thought it would be a reality for me. I saw travel as too expensive, too exotic and just too far outside of my experience.
I dreamed of traveling, but I set my dream aside for the more practical things. Buying a house. University and graduate school. Responsibility. The status quo. Security. A stable job.
Life wasn’t bad. But it just wasn’t… good. I was going through the motions, living someone else’s idea of what my life should be.
Something changed when I …
In this day and age, anyone that travels seems to be defined by what they bring (or don’t bring) on their travels. As a result, this digital age has brought another term to the backpack scene: flashpacker. Flashpacking is simply backpacking with more technological toys. It also usually refers to travellers with a few extra dollars to spend while on the road. The term affluent is sometimes associated with it as well however in this day and age almost everyone has a few tech toys with them. As such I suppose you can call us flashpackers but in truth, I like to refer to us simply as travellers or even nomads since we tend to follow the seasons. Our little ones tell everyone we’re Barefoot Nomads and to be honest, it puts a smile on my face every time they say it.
When we first started seriously travelling back in ’02 one of the first places we stopped was Singapore. At the time Singapore was said to be miles ahead of the West in terms in technology. It usually took a few months for products to show up in Canada and the US that were already collecting dust on the shelves in this Asian country. As such, we had decided to pick up both a digital camera and a new laptop while we were there. Though we were far from pioneers at the time, a traveller with a decent laptop was still a rare sight.
These days, finding a serious traveller without a laptop is a rarity and digital cameras are cheap and plentiful. Some of the equipment the typical backpacker takes and uses could probably…
I’ve been a vegetarian since I was about ten.
I love to get immersed in the countries I’m visiting. This means getting as far away from any English speaking folks or signs as I can.
As a vegetarian, this can be pretty tough. I break out my bad Mandarin (or Thai, or Cantonese) and ask for something with no meat. I almost always get pork or fish, because most people assume vegetarians just don’t eat red meat. Vegetarian is a concept that just doesn’t translate well.
After countless meals trying to order vegetarian food, I was getting frustrated. And hungry.
And then I found the …