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 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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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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Sean Aiken of OneWeekJob.com, uncertain about what career choice to make after graduating university, decided to take job hopping to the extreme by trying 52 one week jobs. He has since managed to parlay the first website outlining his intentions into a book deal, speaking engagements, a documentary and an on-going project helping recent graduates try different jobs. Those of you reading my IdeaEconomy.net blog will likely know that I love a great idea; by that measure Sean Aiken is pure brilliance! He has proved that a good idea, talent and hard work can accomplish amazing things. Sean offers some background details about his success with the project in this interview.

How did ‘One Week Job’ get started?

When I was looking for a job, I saw all of these important sounding job titles but I had no idea what the job would actually be like. I was scared at the thought of committing to one, not liking it, and then feeling trapped in the position. In my last year at Capilano University, my dad gave me some advice on finding a…

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Making the decision to move to another country is difficult and scary. It is even harder if you have a family to support and educate. Brandon Pearce, his wife and two daughters made that choice and moved to Costa Rica at the start of the year and are loving their new life outside of the US. Brandon is also proving that the idea of the low hour work week (he works 5 hours per week) is definitely possible if you put in the effort. Brandon offers some great details into his business and his lifestyle in Costa Rica in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your background.

I just turned 30 years old, and was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a child, I fell in love with both music and computers. I learned to play the piano and sing – a passion probably inherited from my parents who are both musicians – and when I was 12, I began teaching myself to program in QBasic. I always dreamed that one day I would either be a music teacher like my dad, or have my own…

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I love watching people succeed through hard work and talent. I often say that we live in amazing times, because anyone with focus and dedication and rise to the top. Corbett Barr is one of those people that I have admired since his blogging beginnings just over a year ago. He has managed to build two popular blogs, start several other business ventures and live location independent in Mexico for a good portion of the year. Corbett has the talent and dedication to accomplish big things. If you want to track the progress of a rising Internet celebrity, than I recommend watching and learning from everything he does.

Please tell us a little about your background

I’m a 30-something former careerist who traded salary and perks for doing what I love and living anywhere.

After growing up in typical American suburbia, I jumped on the career hamster wheel and ended up as a management consultant working for Fortune 500 clients. I traveled across the country and worked on projects that helped giant corporations make more money or become more efficient. It paid well and everyone I worked with was whip-smart,…

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We all love to take an occasional vacation, but there are few that have managed to turn travel into a way of life. Derek Earl Baron, more popularly know as Wandering Earl is one of those people. He has been travelling the world for 11 years now and has done it all. Earl shares some of his experiences on cruise ships, teaching English and selling eBooks in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your background.

I’m currently 33 years old and I’m originally from a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. I grew up living a normal North American-Jewish childhood, playing a good deal of basketball and baseball, studying relatively hard and being forced to compete against my cousins and other Jewish friends in every aspect of life!

Actually, that last part played a significant role in my upbringing as from day one I knew that my path would include four years at a good university and rising to the top of a well-respected profession as quickly as possible in order to ‘out-do’ my competition and make my own family proud.

And this even led me to declare, during…

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Taking a year off after university is a great way to see the world and delay the inevitable corporate grind for a little longer; unless you learn to make traveling a way of life. Seeing the world changes people fundamentally and makes you question all your earlier ambitions and goals. Johnny Ward’s one year travel adventure has turned into four years and counting with no end in sight. Johnny has discovered that he can contribute more to the world by working directly with communities in need than his previous plan of a career in finance.

Please tell us a little about your background.

Well, Im 26 and I’m from Northern Ireland – I lived there all the way through until I finished high school. At 18 I moved to England to study, I went to university there for four years there and graduated with a BSc (Hons) International Economics. All the way through from around 15 years old until about 6 months into traveling all I wanted from life was to be an investment banker in London, drive a Ferrari and wear Hug Boss suits (very fickle I know!). Thankfully, I’ve seen the light and now I…

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Nathan Hangen is half of the superstar marketing team that published the hugely popular ebook Beyond Blogging recently. Nathan also happens to be in the US military and was stationed in Afghanistan. He shares some of his experiences and advice in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your background.

Well, I’ll start by saying I’m 31 going on 19…feel like I’ve gone back in time over the past few years…much of which has to do with finding myself through my entrepreneurial ventures.

I have a wife, Heather, and 2 kids (a 3rd due any minute).

I’ve worked in every industry you can imagine…fast food, service, retail, manufacturing…etc.When I was 18, I worked for a very big company called Lexis Nexis…and having a job there was like a ticket to retirement. You just didn’t question a job like that. But then suddenly, they started laying off people that had worked there for their entire lives…it was really tough to watch…so I quit and went back to school. I just couldn’t take it being in an environment like that. The magic was gone.…

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My wife and I made it out of Japan. It has been almost one year since  my wife and I made a one year plan to leave Japan and begin a new career. We did it!

Lifestyle Design is Hard Work!

It was a lot of work and will still require a massive effort to keep moving forward but we committed and made it happen. We sold our business and car. Got rid of most of our possessions. Cleared out our house and started to get it ready to rent out. In particular, the last few weeks prior to departure were extremely busy and stressful.

Getting all the necessary paperwork, finishing up everything in Japan and liquidating all of our possessions was a phenomenal amount of effort. It was much more work then we imagined. The last week was the most stressful. So many things had to be done that we were sleeping for only a few hours per day. After a couple weeks of sleep deprivation and a 9 hour stop-over in Tokyo, it took about a week to get back to a regular sleep pattern. I will be…

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