Australia's gigantic festival season is coming up, with Big Day Out preparing to suck in thousands of youngsters willing to pay $165 for a ticket and stand pressed elbow-to-sternum in 45 degree (Celsius) heat, while paying $8 for a bottle of water. Sounds like fun, right? If you still think so, and you don't want...

Have you ever been abroad during a significant moment in your home country’s history? I was living abroad at the time of the last US elections and, I have to admit, it was hard to be away from America at such a significant time. Sure, I was having a sit-in, glued to the news channel,...

The biggest requirement for being an ESL teacher is, obviously, to be a native English speaker. However, having taught English in several parts of the world, I’ve found that sometimes certain schools or areas are looking for a specific type of English and you might just have to adjust to meet expectations. When I began...

As you might guess from the title, Don't Tell Mum I Work On The Rigs, She Thinks I'm The Piano Player In A Whorehouse , is a bit of a quirky exploration of the itinerant oil rigging lifestyle. As vagabonders, we get pretty focused on how we can work and travel; can we write for...

I’ve always been rather fond of STA Travel. My only experience with them was enormously positive. My travel consultant had an awesome personality, she didn’t mind talking at length about different areas of the world, and she sure did find me a few plane tickets that were hundreds of dollars cheaper than anything I’d found...

The rapid advances in communications technology are enabling people to work from anywhere. This can be a big relief for people who stress over choosing between traveling and their careers. Luckily, now you don't have to give up either. Six Revisions, a blog for web designers and developers, wrote a great article on How to...

One of the most eye-opening moments when working abroad is finding about all the differences between your host culture and home culture. For example, a Japanese salaryman might accept unpaid overtime as business as usual. A French worker, on the other hand, might disagree with staying beyond normal business hours. Salon.com did a detailed comparison...

Qadisha Valley, Lebanon There are places in this world that urge you to pause, and Lebanon’s Qadisha Valley is one. As the day ends over this historic landscape, you look around and sense that the sun has set here for thousands of years, well before you were born, and will continue to set long after...

More and more it is becoming popular to forgo the pricy North American continuing education degree and opt for the cheaper alternative by enrolling directly in one of the public universities in Europe. Some students limp out of their 4-year degree, swearing to never undergo the same financial atrocity in graduate school and begin searching...

"Travel is an education" is something many vagabonders would agree with. Who hasn't come back from a trip filled with new knowledge, new friends, and great stories to tell? The personal finance website Mint.com dedicated a blog post to the venerable gap year: The Gap Year: why taking time off to travel is good The...

When I was a child, my mother thought I'd join a nudist colony; I was always taking off my little toddler dresses and running around in the backyard with nothing on. As an adult, I've managed to parlay comfort with my body into an easily portable financial application: nude figure modeling. There are two genres...

Vagabonding for an extended time through Europe isn’t the same shoestring travel it was 20 years ago, but the continent still remains as alluring as ever to travelers. It can be rather expensive to travel abroad in Europe long enough to really immerse yourself in the culture and feel like you intimately know the place....

Damascus, Syria I had seen the ads for television extras in Bangkok hostels, and I had spoken with travelers about their Bollywood background roles in Mumbai. But I had never made an effort to pursue this myself. But last Monday at 9:00 a.m., while stepping out of the hostel to buy a bottle of water...

After a year of collecting suggestions from over 32,000 people , the U.S Dept of State has unveiled a completely revamped source for travel information, travel.state.gov . While most Americans may only interact with the Bureau of Consular Affairs when they obtain or renew their passports, their charter also includes assisting citizens who fall victim...

Just got back from India. For some reason, I thought this homecoming would be like all the rest. What I didn't expect was to wind up in a stampede of my friends' forward momentum: A graduation party two hours after arrival, an NYU commencement in Radio City Music Hall, and Facebook pictures aplenty of caps...

Recently Rolf posted some tips on making the transition into life as ESL teacher in Korea. But what happens after you’ve been in the country for a while and you’re starting to feel worn down by the hidden demands of teaching? Here are some great ways to relax and stay healthy while getting to know...

More expats are moving to China, attracted by business opportunities and hopes of advancing their careers. However, working with the locals can be tricky, as illustrated by this New York Times article: For American workers in China, a culture clash . The Chinese have a saying that captures this challenge neatly: "same bed, different dreams."...

I'd never thought much about senior travel until a wrinkled yet muscled man sat down next to me on the Pokhara to Kathmandu bus. Preston had lived in Mexico, Hawaii, Nepal, Thailand and more -- he'd been on the road for most of his life. He'd relied on his wits and his skills to take...

The Chinese language is notoriously complex. There are the tones, the accents, and not to mention the writing! China and Singapore use simplified Chinese characters, while Hong Kong and Taiwan still use traditional Chinese characters. Then there are the different dialects. Mandarin is spoken in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Hong Kong and China's southern Guangdong...

I love drawing when I'm on the road. Even when I'm lugging around a decent digital camera, nothing beats recreating impressions, scenes, objects, and people with your hand. For me, drawing feels more intimate because you get to notice details that are often overlooked when taking a photograph. But carrying around a full set of...