Overcoming The 7 Major Obstacles To Traveling The World eBook
It started with a simple list of 7 reasons you won’t travel the world, a post which I had planned on following up with one quick summary. My series on overcoming obstacles to traveling the world turned out to span 2 months, generated over 100 comments, and had my inbox filled with messages from people who wanted to, had, or were currently overcoming the 7 obstacles themselves.
That’s why I decided to convert the series into my first eBook Overcoming the 7 Majors Obstacles to Traveling the World which you can purchase here now.
What’s In The eBook?
- I’ve taken the series and put it into a single collection.
- Added some additional information to help you overcome the 7 obstacles.
- Personal stories and advice from other world travelers John Bardos, Marina Villatoro, Dan’s Adventure, The Q Family Adventures, Deb and Dave, The Road Forks, and Cody McKibben.
- Useful links to help you build your knowledge of how to prepare for and sustain long-term travel.
You may have already read some or all of the series over the last few months and having it all in one place and reading it through can have a powerful effect if you want to travel the world but don’t know where to start. It’s also a resource you can have with you to check on your progress or give you a boost when you need it from time to time.
Get A Copy of Overcoming the 7 Major Obstacles to Traveling the World
You can get you copy of my eBook, Overcoming the 7 Major Obstacles for $8.00 by clicking the ‘buy now’ button below. (If you don’t have a Paypal account use the Google Checkout link.)
I really believe that many of you will find this eBook valuable and useful.
I’ll also send you free updates to the book which will include new additions to the series. I hope you’re ready to pick apart each obstacle and overcome them one by one.
Affiliate Program
Have you read and enjoyed my eBook? If you want to help spread the word and make some money doing so you can join my affiliate program by clicking here. Set up is fast and easy and you’ll earn 50% of all the sales that come from your website.
Use Corporate Discounts To Get Better Deals No Matter Who You Work For
Large hotel and car rental chains, as well as many airlines, all give corporate discounts for employees of large companies that most anyone can take advantage. Hotels, airlines, and other players in the travel industry typically give these discounts to entice the huge business a corporate partner can give them.
Since sales staff will rarely verify your employment by a corporate partner you can often get a corporate discount just by saying your work for (some specific) Fortune 100 company.
In addition to discounts, a corporate connection (or just by saying you have one) can get you bumped to the front of the line when there’s a shortage of rental cars or you’re a few behind first in the standby line. While I won’t debate the ethics of doing so, the best way to maximize your corporate discounts is to research ahead and not be shy to ask.
Pick Your Company
You’ll need a company that you’re an employee of but generally anyone on the Fortune 100 is a good bet.
Call Ahead
Prior to booking any hotel, rental car, or airline reservation give the specific branch a call directly and ask if they have a corporate discount. Don’t be shy and call around to see what’s available and which companies have agreements with which chains. No need to go into details of exaggerate (you’re just an employee, not the CEO).
- Don’t forget to check for conferences in and around town the dates you’ll be there. Hotels usually have discounted rooms for those attending corporate and private conferences (like Comic-Con). Do a simple Google search to find conferences of all sizes.
Head Of The Line
We’ve all seen chaos at ticket counters and hotel lobbies when things are overbooked. People go up to the clerk and fall back to the crowd in a rotating line of frustration. Using your corporate connection you can go up to the counter and get yourself bumped to the head of the line and maybe even get a better deal while you’re at it. Your ‘corporate discount’ may entitle you to an upgrade, so while all of the rooms are booked there might be a presidential suite you can afford.
- You’ll be more likely to get your way in any situation if you use Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to win battles at the ticket counter.
Sorry, We’re Out
A busy weekend where there are no rental cars, rooms, or flights available usually means not available for the general public. Companies usually set aside a certain number of cars, rooms, seats, etc. for valued members, which generally includes those with corporate connections. All you have to do is say you’re traveling for (insert Fortune 100 company here) and ask if there’s anything available for preferred customers.
- Don’t panic if you’re asked to show some proof of your employment. Just say you don’t have any – if that costs you a discount then so be it.
Keep A List
It’s best to be organized and keep track of which places gave you which discounts so you’ll have less reconnaissance to do next time you book. You can also try changing companies to see if perhaps some get better discounts than others.
Things To Remember:
- You don’t necessarily need to be wearing a business suit when you ask or when you show up.
- While large chains are usually a safe bet ask for corporate discounts and smaller hotels which may not advertise their corporate partnerships.
All You Have To Do Is Ask
You don’t have to wear makeup, change your voice over the phone, or come up with an elaborate story about how you became the most powerful person since Steve Jobs. It’s as simple as coming up with a company big you work for (whether you do or not) and asking if that hotel, rental car company, or airline offer a corporate discount. The worst that can happen is they don’t or won’t give you one which is where you’ll be if you never ask anyway.
[photo by: thinkpanama, Warder Jack, koalazymonkey]
My Interview With Rod Burkert of GoPetFriendly
Rod and Amy Burkert run GoPetFriendly.com a site that lets travelers find pet friendly accommodations so they can enjoy extraordinary travel experiences with their pets. They’re currently traveling across the US and Canada and were kind enough to answer a few questions about their trip, website, and pets.
Rod, where are you and Amy traveling and why?
Our goal is to spend three weeks a month traveling throughout the US and Canada. We hope much of the travel will be in an RV that we plan to acquire later this year. Our goal is simple. We travel with our dogs to make it easy for other people to travel with their pets … so more businesses will become pet friendly … which will make it easier for more people to travel with their pets … and so on.
How many places have you been and where are you headed now?
Unofficially, we have been traveling with one or two dogs since 2001. Most of that travel has been in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, the midwest states, and New England. We launched GoPetFriendly.com in June and on August 23, we left on our first “official” road trip with our two dogs – 3500 miles over 24 days. We started in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. We’ve traveled due west through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. As I write this, I am in western Wisconsin visiting family. We are planning a side trip to Iowa to look at RVs. Then we are headed north through Minnesota to Kashabowie, Ontario for a fishing vacation. We’ll return home over the north shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, then over to Niagara Falls and Buffalo, and finally back home by way of New York’s southern tier.
How are you financing your trip (i.e. savings, promotions)?
My wife and I are on sabbatical from our day jobs (we ran our own business valuation firm). So in our reinvented lifestyle, our current trip is being financed with savings. As word spreads about who we are and what we do, we believe revenue from our web site will finance our travel.
How does traveling with two dogs change the experience of travel?
Certainly pet travel requires patience and flexibility. But mostly we believe pet travel enhances the experience because it relieves the stress of wondering how your pet is faring if you left them with a sitter or kennel. I don’t know about you, but I won’t have a good time on my trip if I’m worried about my dogs. For people traveling with children, we think you give kids a different set of memories and teach them a different set of responsibilities – that you don’t need to leave the family pet behind in order to travel.
What should travelers consider before setting off on a trip with their dog or cat?
The most important thing to consider before heading out on a trip is training your pet so that you will all enjoy the experience. Start with short trips in the car to fun places – take you pet along when you run errands or go to a local park. You want your pet to associate being in the car with having fun – not a trip to the vet! Work your way up doing the things you’d do if you were on vacation – take a longer drive, eat out, even spend a night in a hotel. You’ll encounter challenges that you’ll want to work on before you head out for a two-week trip. With dogs, remember to practice all obedience commands in new locations because it will be harder for them to do what they are asked in unfamiliar situations.
Your website, GoPetFriendly.com is a great resource for travelers with pets, how do you get all of that information?
The basic hotel information on the site is obtained through an affiliation with HotelsCombined. All of the hotel pet policies, campground information, activities and service providers were gathered by brute force – a telemarketing firm made tens of thousands of telephone calls, and we gathered data from various travel guides, web sites, and Twitter.
How are you managing blogging and getting online on the road?
Most hotels and campgrounds offer free or fee-based wireless internet connections. In the event that falls through, we purchased the Verizon MiFi 2200. If we have cell phone coverage, we can get on the internet with the MiFi. All that being said, we were dark for five days when were fishing in Kashabowie, Ontario due to its remote location. The best laid plans of mice and men …
Finally, any plans to extend into international destinations as well?
That’s a good question. While foreign travel is a blast, we have no plans to extend our coverage outside of the US and Canada. To travel beyond those points ourselves we would have to fly our dogs, and that is something we just wouldn’t do with the options currently available.
Rod I appreciate you taking the time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions. Aside from the GoPetFriendly website you can get more updates on the road by following Rod and Amy on Twitter @GoPetFriendly and their blog GoPetFriendlyBlog.com. You can also check out my more pet-oriented interview with Rod on my other blog How To Travel With Pets.
How I Got Robbed In Guatemala and Other Hard-To-Believe Escapades: Part 6
September 11, 2009 by Anil P.
Filed under Guest Post
This is part of a true story written by Marina Villatoro who writes the travel blog Travel Experta about everything you need to know about Central America. Every Friday over the next two months I’ll be posting another chapter of this adventure. Catch up with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, and Part 11 in case you missed them.
In the doorway stood a dazed Henrik with the lock in one hand while twirling the goat’s leash in the other. “Hey… the lock’s broken. Look,” Henrik, the detective, demonstrated as he closed the lock and then pulled it open, easily.
I have, to some extent, modified my idea of normalcy to what the San Marquenos think it should be. Accepting: flies and goats as playful house pets, Monkey’s and Cat’s multiplying, spiritual-escapist-beliefs, rum and blindfolds used as remedies for damaged lost souls, but what happened next spun me for a three-hundred-and-sixty degree loop.
One of the two nondescript dark-skinned, law-abiding officers took the lock, turned it over once, opened and closed it a few times, handed it to his partner and solved the crime.
“You placed your things inside the house and left for dinner. While your friend was eating you came back and robbed yourself!” He concluded with an affirmative nod to his colleague, placed the lock back into the rings and walked away. It took me a few seconds to digest this newly-released info. Was he serious? Impossible! How could anyone invent such a ludicrous explanation? I wasn’t sure if I should applaud them for creativity or cry.
I ran after them.
I Robbed Myself?
“What are you saying? Are you saying that I robbed myself? What for? What would that prove? You can’t walk away, POR FAVOR. I was robbed and I DID NOT DO IT!!!”
“Mira. You put a malfunctioning lock on the door. Then you came to tell us someone robbed you… Whose house is this? Where are the owners? If you didn’t rob yourself than they must have robbed you.”
They waited for a reply sneering up at me (their heads barely reached my nose) with a how-dare-you-insult-our-intelligence look.
“Monkey lives here,” (say that to a real cop and they would cuff you right there, but we did have a slight language barrier), “He and his wife went away for two days and I’m watching the house. They have no idea of my plans especially that I went to dinner for two hours. And they definitely didn’t drive back from wherever they were to ROB ME!”
Hitting A Wall
Their faces were blank. Empty. Cold. They didn’t care who did it or that I was robbed. They hated me for making them work tonight. They hated the idea of helping a blond, American girl. They hated me because of who I was and where I came from. Why would they go out of their way to ease my suffering, when everyday of their lives, along with their families and friends they endured poverty, illness, malnutrition and discrimination? I was the enemy. No matter how I pleaded, no matter what I said, I was losing an uphill battle.
A quick digression: I come from a background of Russian Jews, who migrated to the U.S. during the cold war. We carry certain characteristics that are hard to overlook. The most memorable and at times rather annoying: we are extremely loud. An outsider invariably wonders: Why are we always arguing? So when I’ve exhausted all other methods of protection, genetics kicked in. My voice escalated to decibel levels that surprised me! I don’t enjoy being armed with such a pathetic weapon, but more times than I care to mention it has worked in my favor. It was my last resort. I yelled at them. I accused them of injustice. I demanded assistance. Finally they stirred, turned on their flashlights and headed to the back of the house. Exhilarated, I threw myself into the hunt with vigor and determination. Five-minutes later… I stood in complete darkness.
“Que paso?” I raced back to the house in time to catch up to their receding bodies.
Annoyed as hell, they turned to me and declared. “We are done! You are a liar and thief. You are working with the owners of this house and have planned this from the beginning. We’ve wasted enough time. Adios.”
My foundation cracked, the dam erupted and a cascade of tears poured down my face.
“Por favor. What can I do to make you see that I did NOT do this to myself! I don’t have travel insurance, so I can’t get any compensation for what was stolen. I don’t even have enough money to get to Panajachel. Please my stuff is around here. Help me. Por favor.”
A surge of compassion certainly wasn’t their primary motivation, nor wiping my tears with a hanky. Unless something official took place in the next few seconds there would be no hope for them to return to catch the next game show. They thrust a piece of scrap paper in my direction and ordered I write down all the stolen items. Once I finished, they told me they needed to get their radios for the search and will be back in half an hour.
They never returned.
Silence
My unprecedented donation of all my worldly possessions to the ‘Crooks of San Marcos Charity’ was rewarded with a spot on Cat’s floor, unclaimed by mold and mildew. A piece of cloth from Janka’s travel-bag worked as a makeshift pillowcase covering a heap of dirty clothes and my jacket as a blanket.
I didn’t sleep a wink. Bracing myself in the disquiet of the night I prayed for the sun to rise and the scary shadows to disappear.
Dawn. I jumped up and bolted out the door. A few passing chirps and ‘bahhhs’ from the goat greeted me and watched as I disappeared into the woods far from the village and recommenced my search. I left no rock unturned, no leaf untouched and no creek unexplored.
Then… I heard a sound: leaves and twigs snapping beneath giant footsteps. I stopped dead in my tracks and worriedly surveyed my surroundings. It grew louder and louder. I jumped into a pile of leaves to camouflage myself, poked my eyes out and held my breath. What the hell was I doing? Haven’t I been through enough? I should be thanking my lucky stars I was alive and unharmed. They were just things, the-kind-you-buy-in-any-store, stupid things. Ok, there were the memories, but they’ll always be with me. Then why the hell was I putting my life at risk? For what! I prayed for the sound to go away. Promised to return back to the house, take care of business and proceed with my trip…
[photos by: Dunechaser, nathancolquhoun, mikelao26]
Bio
Marina has been living in Central America for over 7 years and her site Travel Experta is all about traveling in Central America. Marina loves to help people plan the perfect vacation to this amazing part of the world! You can sign up for her RSS feed and join the fun on her Facebook fan page and follow her on Twitter at @MarinaVillatoro.
