If you are reading this blog, then you might be an aspiring travel writer and fancy yourself as the "next Rolf Potts." Oh we can all dream! Yet many aspiring writers decide never to pursue their writing dreams because of the lack of money, the seemingly huge amount of competition and the difficulty getting into...

Log this under “Cool Things to Do in your Lifetime”: carry the Olympic torch. Three average world-citizens (though soon with at least one claim to fame) have just been chosen to carry the torch during a portion of its route around the globe, as a part of a competition by Lenovo looking for “ new...

I'm probably a little late to the party on this book (it was published a couple years ago), but I recently came across Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry , and it had me laughing uproariously in the bookstore, causing other customers to stare at me and shake their heads in disapproval. The book...

If you've traveled to enough hostels and backpacker dives, you're familiar with the conversation that travelers usually have with one another. At home, small-talk usually has to do with what someone does for a living, or how many family members someone has, or what someone does in their spare time. On the road, however, conversation...

You’ve probably heard about CouchSurfing.com by now; for the last couple of years, it’s been getting some big-time media attention . But for the uninitiated, CouchSurfing is a networking site that connects travelers with local residents in locations around the world, providing an extremely inexpensive alternative to hostels and B&Bs. But CouchSurfing isn’t just about...

Talk to many people and they'll tell you with a wistful gaze in their eyes that they've always dreamed of traveling, if only they could afford it. Then the next day they'll start telling you all about the fab new pair of shoes they've just bought and how they only spent $70 instead of $100...

That free hour or two before your flight won't pass nearly as slowly as it once did—for better or for worse. Wi-fi is on its way to replacing airports' magazine-heavy bookshops as the best way to make use of your time before your flight—especially if the wi-fi is free. Jaunted asks for travelers' votes for...

Picture this...a road-weary traveler decked out in a threadbare t-shirt (quite possibly with a beer logo on the front), sporting well-worn khaki cargo trousers and the regulation must-have sandals. Standard travel attire indeed for most of us but there are times when being savvy about where you're going and what to wear can save you...

Cultural differences compel a lot of us to travel, but they're exactly what can catch us off-guard. I might know to cheek-kiss in Italy or tuck my feet behind me while sitting in Thailand, but what about all of the other unwritten rules? That's when I do my best to blend in, and just hope...

What's one thing that everybody, in every different culture, has in common? If you said, "Loving Raymond," you're way off. It's music. There hasn't always been television, or internet, or even books, but for everyone, everywhere, for all time, there has been music. It's almost always a unique, identifying mark of a place's culture, but...

The holidays are coming up, and even though they're supposed to be a happy and pleasant time of year they inevitably lead to stress. One of the best antidotes to stress that doesn't involve a trip to the pharmacy is either being on a trip or having a trip to look forward to. So, with...

Four years ago, Rolf wrote about what happened when he first looked in to purchasing a "vagabonding" domain name. He was surprised to find out that vagabonding.com was already taken. Since that time, the travel blogosphere has exploded with "vagabonding"-related sites, like vagabonding.org , vagabondboots.com , and the Washington Post's suspiciously titled Vagablog . I'm...

Stories. Everyone has them. Whether a person lives their entire life in small town Iowa or spends their life dodging military checkpoints and hopping ocean freighters, everyone has a story to tell. These stories are what travelers Bill and Liz wanted to hear when they set off on their "Talk To Me!" journey. After the...

In spite of the great quote that Rolf recently posted about not letting technology get in the way of true experience, as a working vagabond and not-so-closet gadget freak, being wired to some extent is a must for me. As one commenter to Rolf's quote pointed out though, going whole days or more without touching...

If you’re like me, you get inspired by personal stories. I want to hear the specifics; something that I can relate to—the internal debate, the rash decision, the unexpected twist. That’s what I like about the book “ Getting Out .” Published in 2006, “Getting Out” only caught my eye recently for the first time....

One of the things I'm frequently asked, when it comes to permanently traveling the world, is what my husband and I would do if everything went wrong. Whilst it's a relevant question, I don't think it's a very good one. Firstly, there's the question of definition; what does one mean by "everything"? Secondly, there are...

Want your photo or story to be featured in a national travel magazine? How often do you get that chance? In the case of Budget Travel, once every 10 years. It's the 10th anniversary of the "Vacations for Real People" magazine, and they're celebrating—letting the readers have free rein over the June 2008 issue. That...

A few weeks ago, the IgoUgo travel blog came out with its Top 10 Big Media Travel Blogs . One thing that almost all of these so-called "Big Media" blogs have in common is their obsession with writing about air travel-- as if the airplanes themselves are destinations rather than means of transportation. Over at...

Kids everywhere are trying on costumes, teens are stocking up on toilet paper and eggs, and the old lady down the street has already purchased that horrendous peanut butter candy with the black and orange wrappers (the kind I used to trade for apples with razor blades). This can mean only one thing-- Halloween is...

Matador Travel member “novoarte”, better known in real life as Julie Schwietert Collazo, spends her days bouncing between Mexico City, Old San Juan in Puerto Rico, and New York City. Married to a Cuban, she also spends a fair bit of time in Havana, visiting the in-laws that her husband has had to go years...