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Motoko and I have made it to Hungary. Hungary is my father’s home country and I still have a lot of family here. I first visited when I was 5 years old and have returned many times. It really is astonishing how rapidly the country has developed in my lifetime.

Hungary in the Good Old Days

Some thirty plus years ago, Hungary was still in control of the communist U.S.S.R. This meant severe restrictions on everything we take for granted. It was impossible to travel to western countries because passports were only valid for communist block countries.

My father escaped in the 1956 revolution. Even though his escape wasn’t politically motivated, deserters were still viewed as traitors for a long time. It was 18 years before he was able to return to visit his family.

In order to buy a car, you had to pay a sizeable downpayment and apply for a number which indicated your order in the queue. The list of numbers was published in the Sunday newspaper so that everyone could track how long it would take to get a car. My uncle had to wait…

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Many travelers hope a travel blog is going to provide enough income to have a location independent lifestyle. What could be better than getting paid to write about your travel experiences? The problem is that blogging is one of the most difficult ways to earn an income online. It takes a phenomenal ongoing effort to write and promote posts and even then you have to steer topics towards selling something; you don’t make money by writing an online travel diary. There are much more effective, faster and reliable ways to earn money while traveling.

Want to be a Millionaire?

Imagine if you had one hundred thousand dollars in the bank. In today’s financial climate, you would be pretty lucky to earn a safe 3% per year or $3,000 ($250 per month). That means if you could make $250 per month in regular passive income, it would be the equivalent of having $100,000 in savings. If you could ratchet that up to $2500 per month you would in fact have the income of a millionaire. ($1,000,000 X 3% = $30,000 per year. $30,000 / 12 = $2,500 per month)

Elusive Passive Income

The…

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Greetings from my favourite Canadian city, Montreal. This is our second time in the cultural capital of Canada but our first experience couchsurfing.  CouchSurfing has been fantastic so far, not only as a free place to stay and an introduction to an unknown city, but as the quintessential social media site. It’s very essence is about connecting people in real life.

What is CouchSurfing?

For those of you who don’t know, CouchSurfing.org is a network where travellers can connect and find a place to stay  with a local person in cities around the world. There is no cost for the website or for the couch (bed, room or floor) but it is expected that you are going for the social exchange and not just a free place to sleep.

This is how my wife explained it to her mother, “We are going to stay at a stranger’s house. We found the person on the Internet.” (Very rough English translation. )

Prior to our visit, I must admit we had some apprehensions…

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I have been back in my home country of Canada for about four months, now I have two more weeks to go before I leave again. It has been great to be back home, but I think I enjoyed it more because I know it is not permanent. My wife and I have not made any roots and have not anchored ourselves to a lifestyle we don’t want. The greatest insight I have discovered is that life is fantastic.

Sometimes it is easy to forget just how good we have it. Several friends and relatives have recently undergone major medical surgeries. I have heard many complaints about how far they had to drive to get to the hospital, how long the waiting lists were to get a hospital bed, how many times their surgeries had been postponed, how late the doctor was, etc.

I understand people under-going life threatening operations are under huge amounts of stress and want to get out the hospital as soon as possible, however I think they may be over-looking how lucky they are to be in a rich developed country with amazing technological advances and medical…

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The city Drumhelller is about 1.5 hours drive from my home city of Calgary in Alberta. It is home to the Royal Tyrrell Museum which houses one of the world’s largest collections of dinosaur fossils.

The museum is a great place…

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I am constantly discovering  people who are not happy with their careers and are looking for something more interesting to do with their lives. Jason Demant and Sharon Duckworth are two people that share my philosophy on life. The time to experience life and travel the world is now. As Jason and Sharon have found, once you begin you may never want to go back. They share some of their experiences and advice in this interview.

Please tell us  a little about your background.

We’re both 26 and originally from northern California. We met in college at the University of California, Santa Cruz (go slugs!). We both graduated and independently moved to the Silicon Valley. Jason worked for Seagate Technology for almost five years in a few different positions: project manager, finance and finally marketing. Sharon worked at a gym teaching kids motor-development skills originally, but ended up selling out and joined a commercial real estate company.
We always knew we wanted to travel, but weren’t planning on leaving until October 2010. When the economy started going downhill, we started really pumping up our savings to leave sooner rather than later. Last October we left and have been traveling…

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On a recent post on Untemplater.com, I wrote about how I think talent is created, not born. I called the post, You are a Monkey so Stop Thinking You are so Special. I learned a couple of things from the comments, apparently people don’t like being called monkeys and some people place a lot of emphasis on the genetic side of the debate.

Of course genes are important in many circumstances. It is difficult to be a professional basketball player if you are short. It helps to have big hands and feet if you want to be a world class swimmer. Good eyesight is necessary to be a pilot. So yes, genes do shape our future to a degree, but how often does genetic makeup really limit what we can accomplish?

The purpose of the monkey post was to show that since humans have 99.9% of the same genes as chimpanzees, maybe we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on our genetic makeup. The worst part of an over-reliance on nature over nurture is that it…

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Long-term travel is a life-changing experience. It is exciting to meet new people, experience new cultures and completely broaden your horizons. Most of us travel for our own personal satisfaction and growth, however there are many people, living and traveling abroad, dedicating their lives to make the world a better place. Such selfless devotion truly is amazing. Bernard Pollack and Danielle Nierenberg are two of those people striving to make a difference in the world. They took some time out of their African endeavors to answer some questions here.

Please tell us  a little about your backgrounds.

B: Danielle currently serves as Co-Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute , a Washington, DC-based environmental research organization. Her background is in sustainable agriculture; impacts of meat, egg, and dairy production on the environment, primarily climate change; animal welfare, and farmers; greenhouse gas emissions and the food system; biofuels; urban agriculture; and food safety.  She also worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic and…

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