As you may remember, we took part in an event this past September with Solo Traveler and JourneyWoman in Toronto.

It was the first annual Meet, Plan, Go! event where our aim was to inspire and help people that are interested in taking their extended career break or sabatical but have no idea how to go about it.  Founded by Sherry Ott and Michaela Potter of Briefcase to Backpack, they organized and developed this unprecidented event taking place in 13 cities around Canada and the United States on the same night.

They’re Now Offering An Amazing Online Course

Since that time, they have developed a program called Meet Plan Go! Career Break Basic Training with professional career coach Tara Russel of Three Month Visa.  It is a self paced, online course giving you the tools you need to make your own extended travel plans while learning in a community and social environment.

Many People Feel Confused and Isolated When Planning their Career Breaks

Meet Plan Go! Career Break Basic Training consists of eight lessons to help you plan your dream trip.  From overcoming mental hurdles, planning and budgeting,  and an essential to do list for reentry, career plans and while on the road.

Often times people feel isolated and alone when planning their sabbatical from their careers.  North America doesn’t encourage career breaks and is it difficult to find like minded people to discuss your fears, concerns and excitement.  By training in the Meet Plan Go program you will meet like minded people that you can chat with during weekly sessions, within the forums or on personal blogs and chats.

What Meet Plan To will Do

Meet Plan Go also connects you with valuable resources such as experts in the field of international volunteering, teaching English Overseas and helping with your financial planning.

By the time you finish this course, you will have the confidence and tools you need to take your own career break.

Sign up Today!

Live your Dreams

The Career Break Training Class is open for registration this week!!!

Also for a limited time, for the first 20 people who sign up will receive a $100 gift certificate to any Unconventional Guide Product from Chris Guillebeau.  Plus for the first 60 people who sign up we’ll send Chris’s book The Art of NonConformity for free.

Visit the Career break training class to find out more, read testimonials from other students, meet your coaches and study the curriculum.

There’s nothing to lose because Meet Plan Go! offers a 30 day money back guarantee.

You can visit their page by clicking here now!

Where am I?

That is the question I’ve asked myself nearly every morning during this past month.  It has been the busiest travel of our lives.

A week in Fiji was spent changing resorts, doing adventures both morning and night and taking in as much of the main island as possible.  China was just as hectic.  We spent three weeks flying, taking over night trains and private & public transport from Hong Kong, to Yangshuo and Shanghai to Beijing.  Covering thousands of miles and seeing every major site, we explored most of the famous attractions in a very short whirlwind trip.

As I wake up in a different bed each day, sometimes I am sleeping beside Dave, others I am in a small single bed, I am confused.  Am I at my old home in Canada? Is it my childhood house? Or am I back in India? I never know until the grogginess subsides.

Travel is hard on the psyche. That is why it is important to bring a little piece of home with you.
We have our comfort things that come with us wherever we go.  It is our little home in our backpack.  Even though we are on the adventure of a lifetime, we miss our family and friends and most of all we miss having a place to come home to.

-

Here are a the things we have and do to make sure we travel in comfort.

Our computers - They have become our home away from home. I can be sitting in a café in Bangkok or in the basement of my parents house and I feel comfortable as long as my computer is with me.  It is my link to home. I can check emails, the news, facebook and I can even skype with our families.  It feels  like we are in the same room and it makes us miss them just a little less.

iPhone – Sure, we have our computers and we can do almost everything on them. But when we are sitting in a cramped hot bus it is comforting to be able to check our facebook status and see that our friends from home haven’t forgotten us. It is also a great way to call home when we are feeling lonely.  Sometimes Skype won’t do and we want to be able to chat even if our families are not online. That is where online phone cards come into play.  We don’t have to wait for our mom and dad to pop up on skype, we can just give them a call directly to their home phone.

Sarongs – We have been traveling with our same sarongs for a couple of years.  We own dozens and when we go home, we change them out for fresh and new ones.  When we lay them on our beds in a strange hotel, it warms up the room and makes us feel like this is our home even if only for a short time.  We snuggle up to them when we’re cool and lay on top of them when we’re hot.  Sarongs are the most comfortable thing to sleep on and wear.

Journal – I am still old school and love to write in my journal.  There is nothing more comforting than seeking out a coffee shop to sit down and watch the world go by while writing in my journal.  It is the same feeling in Shanghai as it is downtown Toronto.

Integrating with Society - People are the same wherever you go.  No matter which race, religion, caste or creed, everyone has someone they love, they have families and friends. They smile the same, they laugh the same, they hug the same and they play the same.  The ysit quietly and read a book the same in every part of the world and they are willing to let you into their lives no matter where you go.  When we surround ourselves with other people, we feel a little more at home and a little more a part of the community.  A shared smile or quick exchange is all it takes to make us feel at home.
iPod – Dave can’t live without his music.  When we are traveling, he flips on his music and starts air drumming away without a care in the world.  I look over at him and smile. He could be at our loft in Toronto or camping in the middle of the desert. It doesn’t matter where we are, he will tap his feet just like he is at home in his boxer shorts.

Good First Aid Kit – Medical facilities are different everywhere in the world. If something doesn’t feel right, we just can’t call up our doctor and make an appointment.  We have to take care of ourselves.  Knowing that we have the necessary items to take care of any minor problem gives us a sense of comfort.  Dave had a case of Athletes foot in China and luckily we had the right cream to fix it straight up.  We’ve already had a few ailments and we have only been gone 6 weeks, but we have had something for every situation in our kit so far.

Wine Opener – It is no secret, we love our wine. While we don’t get to drink much of it when we are in Countries in Asia, we still like to splurge every once in a while when we get to a city.  Having our wine opener along makes us feel just a little more civilized.  When we can sit and have a glass of wine at night while sitting on a veranda of a bungalow, we feel just a little closer to home.

Each Other - Dave is my home and he will agree that I am his.  No matter where I am on earth, I am home as long as I am with Dave.  I couldn’t travel without him.  If I were to go somewhere without Dave there would be a giant void.  We are lucky to have the same goals and dreams. We are lucky that both of us have a passion for travel and are willing to give up a normal life to see the world.

But with all the points above, it definitely helps to have our comfort items to make things a lot easier when we travel even if we have each other.

Today marks the beginning of something special in the online travel community.  Meet Plan Go is taking place in 13 cities across the United States and Canada and we are lucky enough to be a part of the panel of speakers at the Toronto Event.

Meet Plan Go is about inspiring people to travel and live their dreams.

As we lead up to the event and work on our introduction speech we began to  think about why exactly we chose a path of uncertainty.

What makes two people that had successful and glamorous (at least when looking in from the outside) careers throw it all away to travel the world?

Time for a little background on Dave and Deb

It was a time long ago in a suburb far away from the lives we live today.

Dave was a marketing major in College and I had aspirations of singing on Broadway.

We met at a bar…We had the same cowboy boots and it was love at first site.

We had never been overly conventional in our lives.  When we graduated from college, it wasn’t long until we sold all our belongings (for the first time) and moved to the West Coast of Canada. Vancouver had beckoned.  We packed a guitar and two suitcases and flew off to a new life without a job or a plan.

And we couldn’t be more excited!

It was here, in Vancouver that we fell into the film business.  Things were booming in British Columbia at the time, The X Files, Jumanji and Rumble in the Bronx were shooting in town (just to name a few) and productions were desperate for people to work on their movies.

-

History was made.

Naturally, we both started working in movies.  We were now a part of Hollywood.  We were hobnobbing with the big boys. We went to wrap parties and we even saw Pulp Fiction with Robin Williams.  He stood in line with us and everything (along with 5 or 6 other people from the movie)  But we could never be friends.

We learned quickly that as exciting and glamorous as the life seemed to people on the outside, for the lowly production assistant and grip (our jobs at the time) it was just long hours, decent pay and very little prestige.

The only thing we had was bragging rights.

Deb working on Urban Legends

-

We lasted in BC for 3 years, and then our vagabond hearts led us back to Toronto.  We could never stand still, even in the early days.

The change did us good.  It wasn’t long until Dave worked his way up the ranks to become a Rigging Gaffer, (one of the heads of the lighting department) and I became a make-up artist – the cushiest job on set.

We worked long and hard and made very good money.

We had the dream life.  We were a couple that genuinely loved each other, we had no kids, no mortgage and we were just starting to take off our in careers.

-

-

So we took a trip to Thailand in 2000.

It wasn’t an easy decision. We had just begun working steadily and we had just started to see the money come in.  How can a person leave for over a month when their careers are just starting to take off?  We should have been by the phone waiting for the offers to come in.

I repeat, we have never been conventional.  It didn’t look like the best career move. I turned down a movie and Dave made himself unavailable for calls at a peak period in the Toronto film industry.  We didn’t have a plan, it just seemed like it was the right time. If we didn’t go now, we might never go.

That was the trip that changed our lives.

Dave climbing for the 1st time

Five short weeks was all it took.  Our hearts and minds were opened up to an entirely new way of living.  We had heard that to truly change, a person needs 40 days.  Many a pilgrimage is based on this theory.  In 40 days great things can happen. It is long enough to rid you of your worldly ties and actually make an impact on the way that you think.

Our 40 Days had a huge impact on our lives.

When we came back from Thailand, it was like we had a renewed sense of energy about us.  It was merely one day after we landed in Toronto that Dave received a phone call that changed the course of his career, he was offered a key position on Mariah Carey’s film Glitter. (don’t laugh, it was expected to be huge!) -he want on to work on over 30 films! Dave Bouskill IMDB.com and it was a week later that I was hired at a studio that I would end up working at for almost a decade.

Once we allowed ourselves to be open to new possibilities, life gave them to us.  Every time we took a risk to live our dream of travel, we came home refreshed and ready for new opportunities. And new and better opportunities always presented themselves right after a long travel. We started to feel that if we didn’t go away, we would become stuck in a rut.

Seasoned Backpackers

When people stay in a routine, they don’t allow room in their lives for new and exciting possibilities. The more you are open to change, the more the universe rewards you. Even Swami Jee told us that.

We followed this routine for the next 7 years.  Life was good for awhile, but then it became just that…routine.

I have never heard of anyone regretting going away, but I have always heard of people regretting not taking a chance.

In time, our jobs weren’t fulfilling anymore.  They had become routine. We felt as if our wings had been clipped.  I felt stuck behind my make-up brushes.  I wanted to be like the actor spreading my wings, not the person standing in the background watching them soar. Dave was doing well as a Rigging Gaffer, but it was no longer a challenge. He wanted to call the shots and be more creative.

Writing and Photography filled those voids.

We felt guilty about our frustrations because for anyone living on the outside looking in, we had it made. We worked for a few months of the year and then we travelled for a few months in the winter. How could we not be satisfied? But we felt as if we were straddling two worlds and belonging in neither.

The more we travelled, the more we felt at home on the road.  It was our home in Canada that started to feel foreign to us.

We knew we had to make a change.

It was time to step out from the shadows and live our dreams.  We had always been artists. Dave was a drummer in a band when we met and I was singing in shows.  Over the years, we stifled our creativity and dreams of greatness to make money with respectable jobs.  We buried our ambitions and ignored them as best we could.  After all, we had good jobs right?

Wrong.

We feel completely alive when travelling. We love the rush of witnessing a famous attraction that we have read about, we are pumped when we summit a mountain or finish a trek and we are awed when we witness an incredible act of nature or a stunning landscape.  Our experiences around the world are sensational and we wished that everyone could share in them.

That is why we felt compelled to start the blog.  When we started traveling, we didn’t blog about it. We didn’t even email our friends and families.  We would phone home from and international phone booth every once in a while to let them know that we were O.K.

But back in the early days, we always said to each other “if only our families could witness what we are seeing right now”

And today, they can.

We have never made such little money. And yet, we have never been happier. We are finally living our purpose.  And now, our families and closest friends are getting the chance to experience and witness what we are seeing.  They are given a glimpse into our lives and they are free to choose if they want to go out and try a life of travel first hand.

If they don’t, that is fine. but at least we have been able to show a few people some snapshots and moments from around this fascinating planet we call earth.

-

“What are you planning on doing in Jaipur?” our hotel manager asks us.  “Not much.” We say. “Can you point us to a mall?”

Travel Fatigue

We are two months into our trip in India and travel fatigue has already kicked in.  It has been a non stop adventure since arriving.

We have been on backwater cruises, taken yoga courses, have attended numerous festivals, rock climbed and been on safari to name a few. But right now all we want to do is rest.

We don’t want to see the Pink City, we don’t want to see the Monkey Temple or Amber Fort. We just want a mall.

Worlds Largest Calendar at the Mall in Jaipur

We want to barricade ourselves in our hotel away from the noise and the hawkers.  We want to give our minds a rest.

It is exhausting fending off hawkers everyday.  It is exhausting answering the same questions day in day out.

• Where are you going?
• Where are you from?
• Have you seen the temple?
• What is your name?
• One photo please?
• One Rupee please?
• First time to India?

We usually try to be polite. We try to answer their questions with a smile.  And we make a point of not ignoring people when they say hello.

Sometimes it is a little difficult.

Once one person leaves, another person comes along to ask us the same set of questions all over again.  It has become progressively worse in Rajasthan.

It isn’t so bad when it is someone that legitimately wants to say hello or practice English, but mostly it is a person wanting to be our guide or a rickshaw driver that will ask the questions and then go in for the sales pitch once he thinks that he’s got us hooked.

Creature Comforts

When we finally made it to the mall it was a little bit of heaven.  We walked around its sanitized aisles in air conditioning.  We didn’t smell exhaust fumes or urine and we didn’t have shop keepers yelling at us to come inside. We were allowed to just be.

We found a McDonalds.  We went inside and had a McVeggie Meal, we read the paper and we enjoyed the familiar taste of their famous fries.

We then went to Baskin Robins and had ice cream.  I had been trying to get some ice cream for days.  Every time I went somewhere where it was on the menu and ordered it, I always got the reply that they were out, finished.

We stuffed ourselves and promptly felt sick.  It is not wise to gorge yourself on western fast food when you haven’t had it for awhile.

We have been in Jaipur for four days and we haven’t seen one tourist site.

Instead we have watched Sherlock Holmes and Twilight, we have sipped lattes at the Barrista and we have had our dinner at Pizza Hut.  It was so nice to have a simple salad.

We didn’t seem to be alone in our need for the familiar.  We saw many travel weary faces sitting in McDonalds and Pizza Hut.  People read books and wrote in their journals.

Some people had their heads in their hands.

Is Jaipur the stop where everyone just runs out of steam in their travels? It certainly seems like it to me.

We can’t bring ourselves to do anything. I am sure that the forts and palaces are beautiful and I am sure that years down the road we will say that we should have gotten ourselves out of bed to take a look at them, but I don’t think that we will make it to much while we are here.

We leave for Agra in two days to see the Taj Mahal.

The adventure is about to resume whether we want it to or not.

-

-

-

Have you suffered from travelers fatigue on your journeys?
Have you missed out on a famous site because you were just not in the mood to leave the hotel or the coffee shop?
We would love to hear some of your experiences and how you got yourself back on track and in the mood to travel again

We are always amazed with how much our personalities change while we are traveling.  How we care less about the little things, but sometimes care too much about ridiculous things.  Travel can change your perspective on life, and here is a list of some situations that we have found ourselves in.  Although they seem perfectly normal while we are away,  I don’t think that we would feel the same at home.

We would love to hear about your peculiar situations that you have found yourself in while traveling abroad.  This is just a short list of 10, but I am sure that it could go on and on…

10. You know that you have been traveling too long when you barter hard over the equivalent of a dollar or less. You know they are asking too much money and there is no way you are going to pay that extra 50 cents.

9. You know you have been traveling too long when its seems perfectly normal to have someone pass their kid and a big box containing their DVD player up to you in a crowded truck, where you proceed to hang on to both of them for the next 5 hours.

8. You know that you have been traveling too long when you splurge on a nice meal at an expensive restaurant and while you are eating a cockroach crawls up your leg.  Once you notice what it is,  you simply brush it away and continue to enjoy your dinner as if nothing happened.

7. You know you have been traveling too long when Vang Dalat tastes good.  That is all I have to say.

6. You know that you have been traveling too long when you get on a bus in Asia, and after the ride you say, “Wow, that bus driver wasn’t too bad”. Huh?

5.  You know you have been traveling too long when you are invited in for tea and you watch your nice host rinse out the dirty glass with his fingers and you graciously accept his hospitality and drink it up.

4. You know you have been traveling too long when showering with cold water over your squat toilet doesn’t really bother you.  Or, when showering in a brothel in Ethiopia is heaven.  We won’t elaborate on that one.

4b. You know that you have been traveling too long when you shower one day and then seriously have to think about whether you should shower or not the next.  I mean you just showered yesterday! (showers and toilets deserve 2 parts in a travel list, they are always good for an interesting story or two.)

3. You know you have been traveling too long when you are in a country or city that has a very famous pagoda or temple and you just can’t be bothered to go and take a look at it.

2. You know you have been traveling too long when you stop taking your malaria medication.  I had a severe reaction to my doxycycline, and when I went to a clinic in Vietnam, they told me that I had to stop taking my malaria pills.  I was a little worried, because we were planning a bunch of jungle treks.  But the doctor didn’t seem to care so I stopped taking it and Dave said that if Deb didn’t have to take it, then why should he.

1. You know you’ve been traveling too long when you discover that your hotel room is infested with bed bugs, and you end up staying anyway.
In Thailand, Dave and I stayed in a hotel where he complained for 2 days about being eaten by mosquitoes at night.  I never feel mosquito bites, so I didn’t give him any sympathy and laughed and laughed saying, “I’m not getting bitten”.  Well, payback is sweet (for Dave).  On the morning of day three, I woke up and hopped in the shower.  As I was washing, I looked down and saw a bunch of red marks all over my body, I pulled on my glasses and saw, hundreds of little red bites in nice and neat rows all over me.  I freaked out.  I read my Lonely Planet, so I knew exactly what the symptoms are for bed bug bites were, and this was it. I barely managed to rinse off and ran out of the bathroom screaming; “we are getting out of this place”.  Dave kept repeating, “I told you so.  I knew something was wrong with this place”.  So we threw our stuff together and went down the 3 flights of stairs to the lobby.  By the time we got down 2 flights, we started losing interest and reconsidered.  It was hot outside and we had just settled in, the last thing we felt like doing was looking for another place to stay, so by the time we got to reception, we simply asked for another room.  We didn’t even ask for a discount.  It was pretty pathetic.

The best way to save money when traveling is by booking everything yourself.

If you want to budget your travels for the long term, you have to travel independently.

Travel for months and see this

No prepackaged tours here, this is about figuring it out when you get there.  If you follow these points, you just may be able to travel for months on the same budget that you would have spent going to an exclusive resort.

Tips to to budget for long term travel

Baby steps to Long Term Travel

It is easier to travel on a budget when you have the time.  Instead of taking several short vacations each year, take one long trip. It will be a far more fulfilling experience and you will have the chance to really immerse yourself in the culture.  Save up those vacation days and put your holidays and sick days together.  Book during a long weekend or National holiday and you have instantly added more days to your trip.

Better yet, life is short, ask for a leave of absence or take a sabbatical and travel for several months.
For the sake of these blog posts, I am going to assume that you are traveling for months at a time, however these words of advice can be used for a shorter trip of two weeks.  We went to Peru for 16 days and followed the same principals that we always do and had a fantastic time.

Now that you have more time, lets start with the flight.

How to book flights

Check internet sites for flights and call travel agents.  Believe it or not, travel agents can still get you the best deal.  I will take a quote with me from the best fare I found online, go into a place like Flight Centre and they will beat the price by a couple of hundred dollars.  It is worth it to check everywhere. There are excellent online travel sites, but you are wise to compare, arm yourself with all the information that you need and then go to your travel agent to see if they can do better.

Booking from Canada, we are not offered the best deals on the planet.  However, flights go frequently from Toronto or Buffalo to England or France. Remember, flexibility is the key, so if you are willing to fly on any day of the week, you may just find a gem of a deal.  So, don’t book your flight directly to Nairobi or Mumbai, fly to London first and then travel from there.
Once you are in London, you will be able to find a flight to Asia, Africa or the rest of Europe for a bargain and possibly cut your flight expense in half, giving you more money to spend on other things.

For simplicity’s sake, I am going to talk about traveling to Asia.  I know it well and can offer great advice, but you can apply these principals to anywhere.   A great bare bones airline is Air Asia.  It offers reasonable long haul flights to all of South East Asia.

I always like to arm myself with guide books for the destination I am going to.  Rough Guides, Lets Go and Frommers, these are great. Also, if you know of someone who has traveled to your destination before you, pick their brain.  My friend Lana almost entirely mapped out my first trip to Thailand right down to what number bus to take to Phuket.

I prefer The Lonely Planet myself.  These guides give you step by step advice as to what to do once you arrive in a place.  They tell you what parts of town are good to stay in and where you should avoid.  They break it down in price range from cheap to luxury accomodation and they tell you what you can expect to spend on a meal, room or taxi.  They really are handy for advice.

Remember however, that they are just that a travel guide. Nothing is set in stone and things change quickly so you have to be prepared to be flexible.

Plan for long term travel

Before you arrive at your destination, be sure to have a plan.  Booking a hotel in advance will cost you a lot of money, you will never get a cheap deal in Canada. If you book a hotel in Canada, you have just spent $100 out of your budget that should only be costing you $30-$50 per day already cutting your trip down by 2 days. Just for overspending before you even get there.  A lot of people want the comfort of having a place booked when they get there to save them the hassle, but you are just going to have to move the next day anyway and deal with it then.  So why not get it over with and start enjoying your trip sooner.

Here is a way to make landing in the airport and catching a cab easier.  Most airports even have train and busses that head downtown.  I don’t recommend this unless you have been there before, taxis are very reasonable in most countries and they can take you directly to your destination.

Knowledge is very valuable when traveling

Once you land, you need to be armed with knowledge.
Know the area of town you want to go to, and have a choice of 2 or 3 hotels in that area to give your taxi driver.

A great piece of advice is to know a bit of the local language.  Hello, thank you and goodbye can go a long way in breaking the ice and making you seem like a more informed traveler than other people.

Know the exchange rate before you go and have a calculator on hand at all times.  I never settle on a price until I do the calculations into Canadian.  Sometimes the price will sound great in their local currency and then you do the conversion and you have just over paid by a mile.

Don’t fall for the taxi drivers seeking out fares in the airport.  Ignore them and go straight outside to the lineup of cabs on the street.  The airport guys are usually a scam and will charge you far more that a registered taxi.

Every country has official taxis and every developing nation has the people who pose as taxi drivers.  I can’t fault them for trying, they are just trying to make a living, but they are not usually the safest or cheapest way to get around.  Look up in your guidebook or on the internet, what a real taxi looks like. They will have distinct markings that will distinguish them from the fakes. Not all official cabs have meters. Some cities have metered taxis some don’t so be prepared to barter.

Know the cost of things before you arrive

Before you get into the taxi from the airport, know how much it is supposed to cost to go to your location according to your guidebook.  Ask them the price and do the calculation. If it is close to what you were expecting go for it.  If they are way off and have doubled the amount, say No and barter.  Prices change but double and triple the amount is unacceptable. Once you have bartered down to a reasonable price, which will most likely be a little more than what is suggested in the book, tell them what hotel you want to go to, what district it is in and what street it is on.

Conquering Common Travel Scams

In countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia alright, almost everywhere, cab drivers will receive a commission for bringing people to a pre-determined guesthouse.  Don’t fall for this.  Be firm and tell them where you want to go.  Act like you have been there a hundred times before.  Study the map of the area, so that you sound like you know exactly where it is.  Dropping phrases like, it is near Kho San Road, or Siam Square makes you sound like an authority and they most likely won’t be so quick to scam you.

I know it sounds terrible to talk about all of the scamming going on out there, but it is a fact of life in developing countries.  Everyone is trying to take advantage of the western tourist because they think we all have money so the more armed you are with defenses against it, the better time you will have.

When you arrive at your hotel, ask if they have a room, how much it is and if you can see it before you decide to check in.  I have made the mistake of taking the room based on the price and then they stick me in the worst room in the place.  Once they know that you are smart enough to ask to see the room, they will make sure to give you a clean, comfortable room that is worth the price of the night.
If it is not up to your expectations, or it is too much money, move on to the second choice on your list.

Budget Travel Means Lower Standards

Places like Thailand are definitely developing quickly and you will find all of the modern amenities that you need.  But be prepared to have lower standard than at home.  Unless you want to spend a lot of money at a luxury hotel, (which I only recommend to do every few weeks of a long trip) you may have a squat toilet in your room and no TV, maybe only cold water to shower in.
However, we have paid very little for rooms as low as $4 to have satelite TV, Hot water and comfy beds with breakfast included.  The accommodations will vary greatly, just be prepared to be flexible.
Dave and I are not hostel travelers and you can travel on a budget by staying in hotels, bungalows on the beach and guest houses, you just have to be willing to give up a few of your creature comforts for an adventure. Besides you don’t want to spend all your money on accommodation when traveling for a long time. You are there to experience the culture, cuisine, sights and scenery, not to be stuck by the pool living the way you would at the Hilton here in Canada. You can stay home to do that.

Stay tuned for more long term travel and budgeting advice.