Have you ever returned home, only to feel like home was more foreign than any of the exotic locales you’ve visited?  You’re not alone.  Reverse culture shock has a way of ambushing people, despite how much you may have heard about it. When we travel, we have our awareness up.  We know we must learn and adapt.  But home?  We let our guard down.  We don’t have to think too hard, because we’re back on … Read more »

Are you a digital nomad?  Chances are, you wrestle with dodgy Wi-Fi, electrical adapters, and figuring out what apps could help you travel more efficiently.  You don’t care which startup just had a big IPO or the latest viral meme.  What you’d like is a convenient guide to what gadgets you need.

Enter Too Many Adapters.  A site by digital nomads, for digital nomads.  They cover all the different types … Read more »

Last week, Lindsey Rue’s post on Vagabonding inspired me to reconsider slowing down to enjoy the music from another perspective: the musician’s.

I have been a punk rock guitarist for the best part of my twenties, and I have started to love travelling because of the long, inspiring van drives linking venue A to venue B across beautiful unfolding scenery. At that time, the goal … Read more »

Hostels vary wildly in quality.  Some are total fleapits; others are so luxurious they rival hotels.  How can you find the quality hostels instantly?

The website Hostelworld.com announced the 2012 winners of the “Hoscars,” their awards for the best hostels in the world.  Users around the world voted for their favorite places to stay.  The establishments are clustered into an amazing variety of categories.  You can find hostels based … Read more »

Planning a round-the-world trip can seem as complicated as a space shuttle launch.  There a million things to think about: plane tickets, visas, money, etc.  The hard part is that everything seems important.  Where to begin?

Alex MacCaw wrote a helpful, in-depth post titled, “How to travel around the world for a year.”  Although he’s mainly talking to a Silicon Valley audience, … Read more »

Video: Vlogger Natalie Tran on how to cook in a hotel room

I’ve mentioned vlogger Natalie Tran in a previous post.  In the video above, she shows you uses everyday hotel items as cooking utensils.  Definitely not as the manufacturers intended.

From seeing that, it’s understandable why some backpackers rate hostels with kitchens more highly.  If you’re in an expensive city or country, cooking on your … Read more »

The New York Times had a commentary article that argued in favor of students taking a gap year before college.  In response, their inbox got flooded with comments from readers.

Naturally, many of the letters were from parents worried about the cost of travel.  One example:

Great advice … Read more »

When you look over your travel photos, do you linger more on the people shots more than the location pictures?  I know I do.  It’s an experience that’s happened to me over and over again.  I go to a place excited to see famous landmarks.  Yet after the trip, it’s the new friends and fun memories that stay in my head.

The country music group Lady Antebellum put backpacking front and center in their … Read more »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvz9BLjhexw

Here’s a story: a university student posts up funny videos of her random observations on life.  She builds up a huge audience with a million subscribers on YouTube. Now she’s a popular vlogger. She’s about to graduate and unsure of what to do next.  So she calls up Lonely Planet and asks if they would sponsor her on an around-the-world trip. The deal is that she keeps making videos along the way.

Sound too … Read more »

Seems like the ideal setup: you’re about to visit a country that one of your friends has already been to. Naturally, you ask your pal for advice on where to go and what to do.  What could go wrong?

Plenty, as it turns out. The Tnooz tech travel blog had an article called Why the social travel model will never truly work.  … Read more »