Articles and Ideas

Well you won’t be traveling to Monaco and staying at a five star resort on a budget, will you? Maybe so!  Mostly, traveling on a budget means finding the cheapest price for the experience you want.

When traveling on a budget it’s best to keep in mind the following points:

1. Travel in the off-peak seasons. You can save up to as much as fifty per cent off air flights and accommodation costs if you plan to travel in low season times.

2. Stay away from popular tourist spots (unless they are on your ‘must-see’ list). If you can go off the beaten track with your destinations, things can be cheaper to see and do and your cultural experiences will be richer.

3. Try camping. Not only is it the cheapest form of accommodation it’s a great way to get up close and personal to nature. It’s the best way to see National Parks and Heritage listed areas. 

4. Look for special travel offers (or packages). But make sure you check everything that they include - and don’t include.

5. Invest in a travel pass where you are able. Most developed countries have a rail or bus transport system where you can obtain day, week or monthly passes that will get you around cheaply.

6. Get a work permit if you aim to gain employment while traveling overseas. Working can help subsidize places that aren’t so cheap, such as Europe and Australia.

7. Look for good exchange rates on the dollar. This may help you decide which country to travel to.

8. Think about shortening your visit to destinations that are expensive and increasing your length of stay in cheaper places.

9. Where possible use your credit card. The exchange rate is better.

10. When staying in a hotel, avoid paying for ‘extras’. Don’t touch anything from the honor bar. Don’t watch the in-house movies and don’t use the hotel phone. And try not to use room service too much!

On the world scene there are some great places to travel on a budget for under thirty dollars a day. In Asia you can try India, Laos, China, Cambodia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Thailand, Sumatra and Burma. In Central and South America you can visit El Salvador, Bolivia and Ecuador. If you are after a budget experience in the Pacific, try Fiji or New Zealand. Over in Africa there are some great budget destinations such as Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Ghana. Don’t forget the Middle East where places like Iran, Syria and Turkey provide excellent value for money and wonderful experiences for the budget traveler.

There is no ‘best place’ to travel on a budget. Just be prepared to look around, avoid the pitfalls of unwanted costs in package deals or hotel bookings. If you want to travel and your budget doesn’t meet your expectations, be flexible and see if there is somewhere cheaper you might like to experience. You could be pleasantly surprised with your stay in India or Iran, when you thought you wanted to go to Tahiti.

This article was provided by:

Stuart S. Travel / Your All World Travel Guru

http://www.stuartstravel.com

Hotel Guide

So you’re going on a trip. Fantastic! Exciting! But what sort of trip are you planning to take? Is it for business or pleasure? Where are you headed? Who are you going with? Just what kind of travel experience do you want?

Traveling on a budget can give you all sorts of experiences, depending on a) your budget, b) where you want to go, and c) what you want to do. Everyone’s budget will be different, and traveling on a budget means knowing how much money you can afford to spend and sticking to that amount. So if you have a budget of two thousand dollars, your travel experience will be different from someone who has a budget of ten thousand dollars. It’s all relative to the dollar amount, but knowing some tricks to help you save money while traveling will make your dollars stretch further therefore increasing your travel experience.

Do you want to travel overseas? Do you want to travel around your home country? Do you want to stay in luxury accommodation or are you going to back- pack? Are you traveling with children or are you honeymooning? Are you traveling with a bunch of friends or are you keen to experience a group tour with strangers? Do you want to go to popular tourist sites or do you want to experience a destination’s way of living in remote areas? 

All these questions are things you need to ask yourself before you begin to plan your trip. You can either plan your trip with your budget in mind, or plan your trip, work out how much money you’ll need and save until you can get there. The first is probably a little easier to do because when the travel bug hits, you generally want to take off as soon as possible. Knowing your budget can guide you in making your decision of how and where you will be traveling. But if you have your heart set on a trip of a lifetime to an exotic island in the Pacific then you will need to save accordingly. It’s your choice.

Once you know what type of experience you are after, it’s time to work out the best way to get it on your available funds. Traveling on a budget is easier than you think these days. No longer does it mean living on stale food and sleeping in questionable accommodation. If you are wise and spend some time investigating deals to your chosen destination you could be able to enhance your traveling experience more than you thought possible. A bit of research will get you a long way when traveling on a budget.

This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru

www.stuartstravel.com

Visit Friends

Wouldn’t it be great to travel the world and get paid for doing so? When most people think about traveling, they think of the two outdated ‘travel models.’

1)    Work really, really hard and save a lot of money. Once you have ‘enough cash,’ you travel for as long as you can before going broke and getting another job (or go back to your old one).

2)    Travel as a part of your job. These would be low-paying jobs like working on a cruise ship, as a tour guide, bartender, adventure sport instructor, or simply getting a regular job in an exotic location. A better option, to be sure, but…

How can you travel wherever your heart desires, ‘working’ at something that fascinates you? The answer is closer that you may imagine, and a lot more attainable. No, you don’t have to sell anything to your friends or join a cult. I present to you option 3.

3)    Utilize simple technology to automatically provide people with value. For doing so, you make money.

Sound like fun? It definitely is.

The underground movement of travelers who hold no jobs and ‘work’ out of internet café’s and on laptops a few hours a day (or a week) grows larger every day. Here are some quick ways you can join this group.

•    Film your travel adventures and drive Internet traffic using your videos. You’re taking pictures and videos anyway, so why not make some money for doing so? Did you know you can use sites like YouTube and Flickr to send traffic to websites that will PAY you for the traffic?

•    Write about your travel adventures. Most ‘travel writers’ work like mad to make a few measly hundred bucks selling their stories to travel magazines. Instead, land a high-paying job on Elance or Guru… or better yet, post your stories to your own easy-to-create blog and make a Google Adsense income off of your readers.

•    Become a salesman for the biggest store in the world… Ebay! This is one of the most under-appreciated travel-income methods of all time. Most people think they have to ship a physical product on Ebay… which limits your inventory to what you could fit in your luggage or backpack. Unfortunately (fortunately for you!) this is completely wrong. You can sell digital products like e-books and courses on Ebay and never pay a red-cent for shipping. For physical products, you can also easily setup a fulfillment center that will ship your stuff without your ever having to lift a finger.

•    Drive internet traffic to sites using simple techniques. Can you get on an online forum and answer other people’s questions about a subject? Then you’ve got enough skill to drive internet traffic! If you send traffic to websites looking for customers on your subject, you can get paid for it.

Making an income while traveling isn’t as difficult as it may seem… you just need to take action on a few simple steps that not many people know about. Soon, you will be making more money while traveling than you would if you had a 9-5 job! The only thing stopping you is taking action.

**Attention Readers**

To get your copy of our free step-by-step guide showing you how to make money as you travel without ever holding a ‘job,’ visit http://www.moneyfortraveling.com. The expert authors at www.MoneyForTraveling.com have all made a substantial internet income while traveling or they have been hired and paid well to travel the world and will show you how to do the same.

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. However, you may sign up as an affiliate at MoneyForTraveling.com and insert your affiliate links to earn income for your efforts.

Hotel Guide

There are many things to keep in mind when traveling, whether you are a budget traveler or not. You obviously want to keep what money you have for your trip rather than lose it or have it stolen. You also want to keep yourself and traveling companions safe from harm. Here are some tips to follow to ensure your trip is safe and enjoyable in a foreign country.

1. Have a valid passport and all visas required for your trip. Make two copies of your passport. Keep one in a separate part of your travel luggage and the other leave with someone at home.

2. Be aware of any travel warnings for the country you are visiting. Find out about security and safety conditions in your destination.

3. Secure travel insurance!

4. Ensure you have been vaccinated against any infectious diseases prominent in the area you will be traveling to.

5. To make sure you can be contacted in case of an emergency, make a copy of your itinerary and leave it with someone at home.

6. Travel light and don’t pack valuables that you wouldn’t want to lose. Leave your jewelry at home but take an extra pair of glasses if you can’t live without them.

7. Remember you are a foreigner when you travel. You are a guest in their country and therefore should abide by their laws, and to a certain extent, their customs. For example, if you are a female traveling in an Islamic state, be considerate of your dress. 

8. Try not to bring too much attention to yourself when traveling. Don’t go out looking like a tourist with a flashy camera and expensive clothes. Try to blend into the scenery.

9. Travel in a group where possible and in well known areas. There will be times you want to get off the tourist track, so make sure you always have a traveling companion with you.

10. Only carry small amounts of cash on you. Your credit card and travelers checks will pay for most things.

11. Watch out for pickpockets! Wear a money belt and keep your purse/wallet in the front of your body. Report any loss or theft immediately to the local authorities.

12. Don’t leave your luggage unattended. Apart from having it stolen or items from it taken, you could also become an unsuspecting drug courier.

13. If traveling with a partner, pack half your clothes in their luggage and vice versa. This way if one of you loses your luggage, you will still have some clothes. 

14. Lock your luggage and label everything.

15. Lock your hotel room. Keep money and valuables with you, not left unattended in your room.

16. When using public transport be aware of possible theft. If you are traveling overnight, secure your luggage and sleep on top of it if possible. It is not uncommon for tourists to be drugged while on trains and buses so don’t accept gifts of food or drink from strangers on public transport. 

If at any time you feel unsafe, whether it is on the streets or in your accommodation, get out. Follow your instincts. Stay safe when you travel by being aware of the dangers and obeying the laws of the country you are visiting.

This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru

www.stuartstravel.com

Cheap Holidays

You are going traveling. You have lots of expenses to cover. You need to pay for your air fare, your accommodation, your food, your travel while away, cultural experiences and the list goes on. You want to save money so you decide not to bother with travel insurance. You are going on the trip of a lifetime so nothing will go wrong. It’s an unnecessary expense so you don’t need it. Wrong. Very wrong. Traveling with out insurance can be the biggest mistake you make when organizing your trip and a very costly one.

What is travel insurance? Well there are two kinds of insurance to look at when traveling.

1. Travel insurance, (sometimes called trip insurance) which covers cancellations, delays, lost baggage and emergencies.

2. Travel medical insurance protects you against any medical expense while traveling.

Ideally, you need a combination of the two when traveling. 

Imagine these scenarios:

You are in Darwin, Australia when a cyclone hits the area. The city is devastated by the cyclone and all services shut down. You have to be evacuated and sent home. Your travel insurance will cover you for this. You do have travel insurance don’t you?

Your luggage goes missing in India. You need to buy new clothes and fast. Can you afford it in your budget? Of course you can, you took out traveler’s insurance – didn’t you?

Or what if you go surfing in Hawaii and take a big wipeout? You are so severely injured you need surgery and major medical assistance, and then are airlifted home. But that’s okay – your travel medical insurance covers all that. You have got it, haven’t you?

Travel insurance is there to protect you in case bad things happen on your trip. It is a necessary expense. Overseas medical costs can be astronomical if you are not insured. And if you are injured in a developing country, medical attention may not be as good as at home. If you are insured you can get flown home and attended to at no cost.

Every year the government deals with thousands of cases of travelers being injured, falling ill or dying overseas. This is a distressing situation for all involved, but made even worse when the travelers are not insured, often leaving them with huge bills to pay. Hospitalization in other countries can cost over one thousand dollars a day. Medical evacuations can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you die in Europe, it can cost over ten thousand dollars to bring your body back home. If you do not have travel insurance you have to cover these costs yourself (or your family will have to find the money).

Travel insurance is a cost you need to budget for. If you don’t take it out, your medical expenses could cost a whole lot more. Insure yourself and travel safe.

This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru

www.stuartstravel.com

Cheap travel

The Internet gives you easy access to so much information that you can become overloaded. When traveling this is definitely the case. Friends and fellow travelers tell you to book your trip on line yourself – you’ll save hundreds of dollars. But is that really the case? Will you be able to access the best and lowest deals? Isn’t it quicker and cheaper to do it all yourself? Maybe – maybe not.

Beware the discount web site. Don’t book on the first deal you see. It may claim to be the lowest fare, but you won’t know until you look around and surfing the web for the best price may take quite a while and time is money.

Research of web sites stating they will give you best deal shows up many times as an incorrect claim. Many big travel web sites pay homage to their sponsors and advertisers, by showing their ‘deals’ only. In the airline industry, a number of small carriers are ignored and they may well offer the best deal for you, but you won’t know if their information isn’t displayed.

Prices of air flights differ wildly on the Internet. Try it and see. Go to a number of travel sites and look for fares to Sydney, Australia. See what you get. And this is what you need to do when booking your travel through the web. It might then be worthwhile to see what a travel agent can get for you. Yes they do have a booking fee imposed on your tickets but, did you know that many of the best budget deals are not available on the web? Specific web sites are only accessible to travel agents.  UNTIL NOW!  STUART S. TRAVEL is a full service on-line travel agency.

Remember that air fare prices change many, many times a day. It is going to be impossible to find the best deal. You need to be smart and organized and willing to spend a bit of time researching the best deal for you. Once you think you’ve found a great travel deal, remember to read the details to see if there are any restrictions. Will you be able to change your flight details? If so will it cost you? And how much? Those kinds of details. Things can change and your travel plans sometimes need to be flexible so make sure you know what it‘s going to cost you if you have to alter anything.

So if you are going to book your travel through the Internet remember these points: shop around and compare prices; be prepared to be flexible; ask questions; don’t believe everything you read on the websites; read the fine print; give yourself plenty of time to find the best deal and; if in doubt, don’t book it. 

If it all seems too confusing (which many web sites aim to be), go to your local on-line travel agent and see what deals they can do for you.

This article was provided by:

Stuart S. Travel / Your All World Travel Guru

http://www.stuartstravel.com sherry.hardsey@aol.com

Best Travel

Celebrity Gossip and celebrity scandal are everywhere. When it comes to stars and celebrities we love to talk about them. Not many people can resist a good old gossip preferable about someone that is known. Celebrity gossip and news can be found in magazines, on the radio, and on the television screen.

Celebrity Gossip is a great way to take a break from the more serious news that is found both locally and around the world. As a society we like to follow the actions of those celebrities we see in media. We talk about them. After all, do you really want to miss out seeing the next outrageous outfit that Paris Hilton is going to wear?

Do you feel a twinge of guilt about buying a gossipy celebrity magazine? Don’t. Tell yourself instead that you are merely honoring a respectable ancestral survival mechanism by engaging in celebrity gossip. This reveals lots about our culture. Celebrity gossip helps us tackle our social anxieties (what if we started breaking the rules like some Celebrity) and celebrity gossip tells us something about our dreams (only if I were to be rich and careless like Angelina).

Celebrity Gossip and our past.

Humans as a species live in groups, so it is essential for individuals to learn what other members of the tribe are up to and what this means. In our modern world with its instant communications celebrities make up part of that group. We feel we know them even if we have not even met them in real life. This drives us to engage in gossip about the celebrities. This begs the question :

Did celebrity gossip just start recently or has celebrity gossip been around for a long time?

Long ago reputations were important, we are talking, middle ages here, even more so than they are today. Women needed their husband to uphold their reputation - if a woman felt she was losing their husband, she would vocally accuse her competitor of trying to take him away by calling her a *****. You could even be punished for gossiping!

The punishment was various - but included a scold’s bridle, a metal band that fitted over the head and had a 3.5 inch protrusion which was inserted in the mouth and lay flat against the tongue. One sure way of making sure they did no more scolding.

Going back further. “If primate intelligence originally evolved to solve complex social problems, such as keeping track of shifting coalitions or countering against deception, then it’s possible that present-day human intelligence carries a legacy of this history”. So it seems that even in history mankind has been engaging in different forms of celebrity gossip.

Celebrity Gossip Today.

As we get to the point where we have less and less friends in common, the only way we can engage relationships and communication is to try to find people who are known to both of us - celebrities, public figures, sports stars, and media figures of all kinds. This allows us to gossip about a common theme - the well known celebrity. Now that communities include virtual ones, we engage in virtual celebrity gossip by e-mail, text or Internet. Most of the time this is for pure entertainment and the forming of social bonds. This need-to-know what happed to so and so could explain the enduring popularity of soap operas and other gossipy media. This human need for celebrity gossip was shown in Scotland in a recent human group experiment.

An interesting discovery about Celebrity Gossip

Scottish Psychologists devised a mind test similar to the game known as “Chinese whispers”,

They gave 10 volunteers four different texts to read, and then asked them to write down what they could remember. Their efforts were then passed to another set of volunteers as passages for them to learn, and the process was repeated four times.

The final version of the texts were then compared against the original - and the psychologists found that “celebrity gossip-like” information, involving deception and infidelity and the interactions of other people, was most easily remembered and relayed with the most accuracy.

However, the volunteers were hardly able to recall purely descriptive information about individuals or their surroundings. These results suggest that humans attach a high importance to personal and social data. Just the type of data we find when we engage in celebrity gossip. Could this information be used in the future to educate our children? Who knows but finding out about other people’s private lives and interactions is a key for human survival. We must also remember that celebrity gossip does have a serious side to it.

Celebrity Gossip and work

It’s all to do with being a human being. You simply will not survive unless you can gossip about the people you know, for a lot of us that means celebrities. We just love to exchange information about them and find out more about them. This need also comes to the fore at work.

In any organization, you’ve got a boss that’s one person you need to know about - their idiosyncrasies, their peculiarities and their relationships. As a result most office gossip is focused upwards - it’s looking up the hierarchy. This is another reason why we gossip about celebrities so much as they appear to be above us in the human hierarchy.

Celebrity Gossip and Public Relations

Some businesses use this information to great effect. In the Public Relations business it’s important to control the flow of information and when that information is released to the public. Public Relations companies need to know when and where to show the public important information about their clients who are incidentally often celebrities that they may be representing. Most importantly is where people gossip about celebrities.

To find out where this gossip takes place, one enterprising PR company compiled a top ten list of the places that people are most likely to engage in celebrity gossip…

Top 10 places to engage in gossip.

1. Restaurants

2. On the train or Tube

3. Friends telling friends

4. On our mobiles voice and text

5. At Meetings

6. In crowded bars

7. With the cabdriver

8. With their coach or personal trainer

9. Supermarket queues

10. Unisex toilets.

Do you see how those same PR companies use this information to target us. All those strange advertisements we see about upcoming celebrity events in train stations and on tube escalators, it gets us talking.

What if there was no gossip?

What would happen if we stopped gossiping about people? Just imagine if all celebrity gossip, were to stop tomorrow, what would we talk about? Who would we talk about?

Without celebrities or people we see as above us it would be an imperfect world - the most obvious reason is that about 80% of talk that occurs now, simply wouldn’t happen. That’s about how much of our conversation is celebrity gossip. Imagine no celebrities to gossip about! Society would break down, because the information we get from other people is fundamental to managing our relationships with them. We need to know who the friends, fools and the scoundrels are.

So to sum up we need to talk and to talk means to gossip. Celebrity gossip is a great way to take a break from the more serious news that is found around us. As a society we like to engage in celebrity gossip and follow the actions of those celebrities we see in the media light. It helps us bond. Celebrity gossip is here to stay. Just imagine seeing the next outrageous outfit that Paris Hilton is going to wear on the front of a magazine! Would you ignore it? Or talk about it?

Ever had the desire to quit your lame 9 to 5 job, tell your boss to shove it, pack up and start traveling the world?

All of us have had that desire at one point! The thing that stopped you was probably the same thing that stops most people: money.

“How will I pay for my flights, food, lodging, transportation, yada, yada, yada,” you asked yourself.

Don’t let these concerns bother you too much, because there is an underground, growing group of travelers who are utilizing some simple but hidden techniques to make significant incomes while traveling.

Here’s an overview of how we make money traveling and by landing travel jobs:

Underground Travel Income Method #1 – Traditional Travel Job - Hold a job that either a) pays for us to travel or b) is located in the place we wish to travel to. This is the lowest paying and most complicated method of all, but is the most commonplace.

Common jobs that pay for travels are for professional speakers, salespeople, package couriers, flight attendants, travel nurses/doctors, conservationists, cruise ship workers, etc.

Travel jobs located in the places we wish to go to can be any of the above, but also are specific to the location we travel to. There are some FUN jobs overseas that are looking for foreign workers!

Underground Travel Income Method #2 – Travel Writing – Travel writing jobs for magazines are more common than you may imagine. However, there are LOADS of other ways to write as you travel and make money, including blogging, picking up projects from sites like Elance and Guru, and writing travel guides, both online and offline.

Underground Travel Income Method #3 – Selling Affiliate Products – Using a simple website, you can drive online traffic to a product that will be of interest to your online followers. Don’t be intimidated by this! It can be as easy as using your very own Facebook or Myspace profile. Affiliate products typically pay 50% to 75%, so you can make a very healthy income for selling just a few objects.

Underground Travel Income Method #4 – Filming Your Adventures – If you’ve got the camera out and you’re taking pictures, why not switch it to ‘film’ mode and make money from it? You simply make a video of your destinations using iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, then use your videos to create a customer base!

Underground Travel Income Method #5 – Podcasting – If filming scares you off or intimidates you, you can make an iTunes podcast. It is easier than ever to get listed in iTunes and there’s a HUGE audience of podcast listeners. Simply talk about the places you visit two or three times a week and watch how your following grows… and how your bank account grows!

Underground Travel Income Method # 6 – Ebay – The common misconception about Ebay is that you have to sell a physical product to make money. Here’s the trick: You can set up a fulfillment house to ship your product (or hire your little sister or the neighborhood kid). All you have to do is create your Ebay post from an internet café and collect the money!

Take any one of these six ‘travel job’ methods, and there are hundreds of travelers all over the world making more money than they would at a regular ‘job…’ and they’re living it up at exotic, world-class destinations. Take your pick, and take action on the ideas here!

**Attn Ezine editors/Site owners**

Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site as long as you leave all links in place. You may not modify the content and must include our resource box as listed above. However, you may sign up as an affiliate at MoneyForTraveling.com and insert your affiliate links to earn income for your efforts.

Cheap travel

Traveling in a group? You are the holiday packagers dream! Imagine being able to offload bulk airline seats, rail passes and entertainment packages in one booking. A group traveling is a wanted commodity and because of this you can secure great deals for your group. But as always, beware of any hidden ‘extras’ such as cancellation policies and preferred partners when stepping outside the package. Be prepared to shop around for the best deal. 

Here are some tips for the traveling group on a budget:

1. Travel insurance can be bought through some companies where savings can be ten percent or more. A group usually consists of four or more. Contact a number of travel insurance agencies and compare quotes.

2. Pack as many people as you can into your hotel room (keeping it legal). The more heads in the room, the higher the number to divide the cost by.

3. Renting a car when traveling in a group of four is usually cheaper than buying travel passes – and more convenient.

4. Food, guidebooks, taxi fares can all be split between the group bringing costs down.

5. Rail passes for groups or pairs may find discount offers in some countries.

6. Some airlines offer discount rates to groups of ten or more traveling together.

7. Group package bookings that have everything included in the price will have all expenses covered so you won’t be surprised by any extra costs, apart from shopping!

8. Discount holiday packages for large groups of travelers are offered through a number of travel agencies. Sports fans may be able to travel to big events using one of these travel packages for much cheaper than organizing it on their own.

If you want to join a group tour so you don’t have to travel alone consider all the pros and cons. Will there be like-minded people? Is there any flexibility to the travel arrangements? If not, will this outweigh the savings you’ll make on joining the tour? Some travelers like the convenience of all the travel arrangements being made for them. Group tour operators will find the best fares and reputable places to stay in. This saves you the hassle but it may mean that some of the cultural experiences you want will have to be put aside for the relatively cheaper ride.

Traveling in a family group can also benefit from a number of offers. Inform your booking agent that it is a family and ask about any special offers or deals. Can you visit any amusement parks or tourist attractions at family discount rates?

When traveling in a group, never be afraid to ask for a discounted rate. Everyone involved in the tourism trade is looking to get large numbers on seats or through doors. Groups are welcomed and catered for accordingly.

This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru

www.stuartstravel.com

Hotel Guide