To your friends and family back home, it might seem like you're living an endless vacation. Especially if you only share cool photos on Facebook (I've been guilty of that). But long-term expats know better. The challenges of residing in a foreign country are very real. There was a discussion thread on Quora titled, What...

Some twenty odd years ago, Ian Mckaye - at the time the angry singer of straight edge punk pioneers Minor Threat - sung “guilty of being white”. The lines of the aggressive chorus blazed into my mind as I stepped at the airport’s immigration line to re-enter Malaysia; a bunch of what seemed young Australians...

The only way to survive a 10 months post travel blues was fairly simple to me: I took it as a holiday. Seriously. You may not have seen your folks and friends for several years, but this should not be a reason to freak out. The same goes for your friends; because pretty much, nothing...

Do we really need to scrupulously record our travels in this decade? After reading this article on packing a "multimedia backpack," I am confused: as much as the suggestions are important, do we really need to “go forth and journalize”? Possibly yes. Most traveler types dream to earn a living by doing what they love:...

So you've made the decision to go on an extended, round the world trip . You fought through the naysayers and are making your dream come true. Now what? Often people get stuck immediately after making that decision. It all seems so daunting at first. You have so many questions. Where should you begin when...

There's a great quote by the writer Mark Twain that goes: Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. Gavin Aung...

This past week on BootsnAll, we focused on the idea of career breaks, a movement that has been gaining steam in the United States over the last decade, but one that is still quite foreign to most of the population. Our friends over at Meet, Plan, Go are gearing up for their third annual nation-wide...

Located in a classy but nondescript building in the Kensington neighborhood of London, the Royal Geographical Society is not your normal tourist attraction—but it should hold a special place in every traveler’s heart. Founded in 1830 as a dinner club hosting lectures from hearty travelers, the Society (or RGS as it’s often called) became a...

Packing. Just that one little two syllable word can cause angst and frustration in so many people. When flights are involved in your travels, there are so many decisions to make, especially with all the rules, restrictions, and fees the airlines have put in place over the past decade. When it comes to packing and...

I recently stumbled across a list of signs you travel too much compiled by Nomadic Matt a while ago. After reading it, I started thinking and comparing the funny points to my real life experiences. If I definitely do not recognize airports by their codes – as I generally take the harder, more rewarding overland...

"I'm busy." When your friends and family say that, what's the impression you get? Do they sound stressed out? Or is it almost a kind of bragging? A sign of being important and sought after. The New York Times had an opinion article titled The Busy Trap . Maybe not consciously, but do people use...

Why do you travel? In a recent BootsnAll article, author Jo Fitzsimons reflected on her time at the famous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan during an extended trip. After a conversation with a fellow traveler, she began to question why it is that we travel ? While I'm never going to be one to...

In the past year I met a few travelers that liked to call themselves “digital nomads”: people who can travel the globe and work remotely from an internet connection, everywhere in the world. However, as I was enjoying some remote mountains and almost missed my weekly deadline, I have a couple things to say about...

In this second installment of Realities of Travel Writing, I’m continuing on the topic of getting the assignment. It bears fleshing out, as you can’t board the plane until you land the gig. So, first thing’s first. After you’ve come up with a great article idea and researched the websites, blogs, or magazines you want...

As I am thumbing my way across the Central Asian republics, I made a very much welcome discovery by typing “hitching to Dushanbe” in Google. What I found was a bit puzzling, at first: I would have never thought that a volatile, hazardous and utterly non-scientific art such as hitching a ride could have a...

Tony Wheeler, co-founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook empire, wrote a post titled Airports - love them/hate them . Very often, the airport is your first impression of a country. You start setting expectations. Is dealing with officials painless or painful? You'll get more of the same out of the airport. Does the place feel...

One of our core values over at BootsnAll is to love learning . It's something we like to focus on when it comes to work and our daily lives. The learning experiences when it comes to traveling are immense as well, and whenever we have a chance to promote the idea of learning while on...

You get into some crazy situations when you travel. The food you eat, the people you meet and the things you see. Yet on later reflection, those are the same things that build character and allow you to evolve as a person. Derek Sivers described this well in his blog post: Push, push, push. Expanding...

Moral dilemma: there's a country with wonderful sites you'd love to see, but your tourist dollars might end up in the pockets of a military regime. Should you still go? That's the central theme in this New York Times article: Visiting Myanmar: It's Complicated . Since the nation has made small steps toward political reform,...

Everyone has memorable travel moments from their lives. It could be from family trips when young. It could be from a study abroad opportunity, or maybe that first independent trip you took without your parents. No matter what those memories are, chances are another person was involved. It could be someone you went on that...