Montreal Apartments

Rental Bicycles in Montreal

Patio Dinner with CouchSurfing Host Extraordinairre

Fairmount Bagels in Montreal

Our Favourite Bakery Cafe in Mont Royal

The Friendly Server and I at our Favourite Bakery

Croissant and Coffee

Bicycles Outside the Subway

St. Viateur Bagels, Simple and Fantastic Bagels

St. Viateur Bagels, Only 3 kinds. None of those nonsense tourist flavours.

Cafe Olimpico, The best coffee in Montreal

Montreal Firestation

Mont Royal Montreal

Seniors Enjoying a Good Coffee

The Market in Little Italy

Even the produce is art.

Typical Apartments in Montreal

Montreal, Canada has to be one of my top three cities in the world. There is a European feel and attitude but most people still speak English and it is in my home country of Canada. The best part is that Montreal is a world class city without the high costs.

Cafe Culture

My wife and I truly love going to unique cafes, drinking good espresso and people watching. We are not so interested in sight-seeing anymore so most of our travels involve going from one cafe or restaurant to the next. Montreal definitely has one of the best cafe cultures in the world.

There are so many great independent coffee houses with real character. Starbucks makes a decent espresso, but we would never go to one in Montreal. We love eating fresh bagels or croissants in small cafes with owners and staff that obviously care about what they are doing.

Montreal still has plenty of local shops where the owner still works everyday. I love seeing the vacation signs on shops saying they are closing for a couple of weeks. Why not shut down for a short break instead of trying to find replacements that are not going to deliver the same quality?

Slow Food

French Canadians also have an appreciation for food that is disappearing in most Western cities. High quality ingredients, good wine and slow meals with friends still take priority. Sure the fast food and shopping malls are encroaching but people still appreciate real food and culture.

St. Viateur Bagels and Cafe Olimpico are two perfect examples. At St. Viateur you can only get plain, poppyseed and sesame seed bagels. Skipping all the fashionable flavours means that your bagel is likely to come out of the wood burning oven just minutes before your purchase. Cafe Olimpico is completely devoid of all of those trendy, yuppy coffee blends that anyone who understands coffee would never drink. Both shops are about simple quality and are inexpensive compared to the franchised stores.

Culture Capital of Canada

The culture of Montreal is difficult to describe but the people are definitely more open minded and accepting than in other cities. I find that there is an appreciation of art, music and food that many other cities lack.

Once you get out to the suburbs, I am sure Montreal will be like any other Canadian city with the large shopping malls, and SUV driving yuppies that spend their evenings in front of TVs. However, the downtown core is so alive and vibrant that it definitely is my favourite city in Canada and maybe even the world.

Related posts:

1. Photos of Drumheller, The Dinosaur Capital of Canada
2. Photos of the 2010 Calgary Stampede
3. CouchSurfing.org is What Social Media is All About

Hungarian Goulash on an Open Fire

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 for six years in order to get his first vehicle. Needless to say, the Sunday newspaper was met with great anticipation. The only available cars were Soviet Ladas and East German Trabants. Until recently, you could see these old vehicles commonly broke down on the side of roads.

There was one small store in my father’s village. Everyday at around 3:00 P.M., the bread truck would arrive from the closest city. There were two choices; brown or white bread. Families would often send a child to wait at the store until the bread truck arrived. Not getting there early enough meant waiting another day for bread.

The only soda pops were Coke and Fanta Orange. When I was a child, the deposit on the bottle was equal to the price of the drink, 3 forints or about 5 cents. It was about 1/12th the Canadian price at the time.

In order to take a hot bath, they had to put hot coals under a water tank to heat it up. It took so much time and work that our entire family used the same bath water.

Most houses had pigs and chickens in the backyard. I still remember the frequent squeal of pigs as they were slaughtered in the mornings at various houses around the village.

Twice daily, cows were walked on the main road through the town to and from their grazing grounds. I loved watching 20 or 30 cows slowly walk through town everyday.

It is Not My Father’s Hungary Anymore.

The last decade in particular has brought huge changes to Hungary. There are the gigantic western supermarkets like Tesco, Auchan and Cora. If you were transported to one of the numerous modern shopping malls, you would probably have difficulty telling which country you were in. Now the coffee chains like Starbucks and Costa are popping up everywhere.

You can really see the affluence everywhere. Five years ago, expensive western cars started really becoming common. Now you won’t have much difficulty spotting a BMW, Volvo or even Porche.

The last three years have seen a massive explosion in high end sporting equipment. It seems like everyone has expensive bicycles and high end sports clothes.

The number of bus and boat tours for out of country visitors also have sky-rocketed. Backpackers can often be seen on every street in downtown Budapest now.

What does Rapid Westernization Really Bring?

I think there are two important lessons to learn from all of this ‘advancement.’ First, we really should appreciate just how comfortable and good life has become. Perhaps you have never seen empty store shelves or had to endure much hardship in your life, but your grandparents or great-grandparents certainly did. I don’t think we really understand how good our lives are now. We live in amazing times.

The second is sad and troubling; authentic traditional cultures around the world are disappearing. The influx of western ideas and goods are crowding out local cultures. Across Europe the most common foods are pizza, hamburgers, french fries and donairs. Over-sized shopping malls all over the world sell the same brands as your own country. Tourists are more likely to visit McDonald’s  than try traditional local food.

It is great that the world is advancing at an increasing pace, but I don’t feel that the ‘advancement’ is always a positive step forward. We are becoming more globalized and interconnected but that also means homogenized and commercial. It is amazing that we can fly across the world for only a week or two of salary, but do we really want to arrive only to eat a Big Mac and buy tourist kitsch? The time to travel is now, because in a decade or so foreign countries won’t be much different than your home town.

No related posts.

The Calgary Stampede midway early in the day before the crowds arrive.

Lining up before the Heavy Horse Show.

One of the hundreds of horses at the Stampede.

An entertainer talking to visitors.

Heavy Horse Show at the Calgary Stampede.

The score board where the Calgary Flames hockey team plays.

Sheep shearing contest.

Waiting to be shaved.

Blacksmith Competition.

The Calgary Tower seen from the Stampede Grounds.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

That's me taking a mist shower on a very hot day.

Outside the Rodeo Grandstand.

Calf Roping at the Calgary Stampede.

Bronc riding at the daily rodeo.

Another Bronc Rider

Indian Village.

View of the Stampede Grandstand and Downtown Calgary.

One of the Entrances to the Stampede.

Free concerts on the Stampede Grounds. We saw Theory of a Deadman

View of the Calgary Tower at night from the grounds.

The nightly fireworks display.

One of the many free Stampede Breakfasts around the city.

Cowboy police in Calgary during the Stampede.

Horse rides at a Stampede Breakfast.

People lining up for free pancakes at a Stampede Breakfast.

The Calgary Stampede

My home city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada hosts The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede every July. The Stampede begins with a parade through the downtown core and lasts for 10 days. The entire city gets into the cowboy spirit with most businesses decorated with western themes and many people in cowboy garb. There are free pancake breakfasts, beer gardens and country music throughout the city. There are also the world famous rodeo and chuck wagon races held everyday.

July is a great time to visit Calgary because the entire city is in a party mood. There are countless events happening all over the city. The rodeo is one of the largest in the world and is probably a very unique event for most visitors. I would recommend to see it at least once if you have the chance.

In recent years the rodeo has become controversial because of several animal deaths every year. It does seem somewhat barbaric to use animals like this solely for entertainment purposes, however rodeo has a long tradition in the west. I am not sure if that is a valid justification but my wife and I have seen it a couple of times now. It is a lot like bull fighting in Spain. It is definitely inhumane to abuse animals for entertainment or sport but the spectacle is a huge tourist draw.

The typical festival rides and games of chance at the Stampede  are particularly effective at extracting money from Stampede goers. There are also many free concerts, shows and attractions throughout the grounds. This year had a fantastic ice show with performances by Olympic skaters and Cirque du Soleil performers accompanied by a full-stage rock band. There were also dog shows, motorcycle daredevils, the regular hypnotist, countless live animals and of course, several beer gardens.

If you are going to visit Calgary during the summer I would definitely recommend trying to time it with the Calgary Stampede. The city is in a particularly festive mood and you are unlikely to see another event quite like this.

Related posts:

1. Photos of Drumheller, The Dinosaur Capital of Canada
2. Photos of Montreal, The Cultural Capital of Canada

Breakfast in Hungary

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 hard part, of course, is earning the passive income. After all, if it were so easy everyone would be doing it.  Many of the travelers I have interviewed are proving that consistent online income is definitely possible. (Check out some of my interviews with Pat Flynn, Kirsty Henderson, Karol Gajda, Nomadic Matt-Mathew Kepnes, etc.) One thing I can attest to, and I know all the people I have interviewed would agree, is that passive income is NOT easy. It takes a lot of upfront work and knowledge of internet marketing. You have to spend hundreds or probably thousands of hours learning until you can consistently deliver profitable results.

If Blogging Doesn’t Work, What Does?

There are people making money blogging, so I know it is not impossible. It is just really, really hard. There are rock stars making millions traveling the world, but there are also countless musicians that play only as a hobby. Becoming a successful A-list blogger is a lot like becoming a rock star. It takes years of dedicated, focused effort and some good luck helps a lot too.

A better alternative to blogging is creating mini-sites to market other people’s products or services. This is often referred to as affiliate marketing. It basically means building a small website to get targeted traffic to sell things. You don’t have to create the products because there are thousands made by others to sell already. You just have to get traffic to a site. If a sale is made through your web site you earn a commission, often around 50%. So for a $100 product, you would earn $50 per sale. Five sales per month would earn you $250, the equivalent of $100,000 in the bank as I mentioned above.

Get Rich Quick (Earn a Decent Income Slowly)

There is a science to getting traffic and finding out what works and doesn’t. It can take years to get that level of marketing and technical sophistication. There are some good training programs to walk newbies through all the steps of creating niche affiliate marketing sites. Some programs can cost thousands dollars, especially if there is a real life seminar, and others are membership programs for $97 per month or more. While I am sure those programs have value, they are a far too pricey for most people starting out.

I have just completed Corbett Barr’s Affiliate Marketing for Beginners course and found it to be a great inexpensive course to get started in affiliate marketing. Corbett walks you through all the steps in choosing topics, researching market potential, finding products to sell, creating mini-sites, search engine optimization and more with a real affiliate marketing example. The best part is that all the modules have comments so that you can ask questions that Corbett will answer. The modules explain everything clearly and concisely without all the hype and pushy sales tactics. Affiliate Marketing for Beginners is relaunching today (August 10th) with a two day discount. The price increases  on Thursday.

To be clear, this is not a quick and easy way to riches. It takes time to research niches, find products and start earning commissions. Some of your sites might be successful, some not. Like anything in life, consistent effort and regular improvements are required to find out what works best. My niche sites make almost no money at all. When I got started I didn’t know how to research key words and optimize sites effectively. Actually, I didn’t even bother to find products to sell. I hoped to earn enough from Google Adsense. Well, I know that ads alone don’t earn much income. Now I need to put in the work to implement Corbett’s techniques.

Again, if you don’t have the motivation to implement what you learn in the course then save your money. Corbett makes it clear that his program is about ethical marketing of good products that people want to buy. Creating a sustainable income honestly, takes work and time. If you want to get a good, easy to understand, comprehensive introduction into building mini-sites and Internet market, then Affiliate Marketing for Beginners is good value for the price.

You have probably guessed that I get a commission for selling Corbett’s program (affiliate marketing) . For anyone who buys through the links on this page, I would like to offer an extra mastermind group where we can regularly share our experiences, problems and lessons learned. If you are interested in working through Affiliate Marketing for Beginners with me please email after you go through the course. It would be great to bounce ideas off of others doing similar things. I can show you some of the sites I have and mistakes I have made to hopefully save you some time when you do it for yourself.

Related posts:

1. NomadicMatt’s, How to Make Money With Your Travel Blog, eBook Review
2. Interview with Entrepreneur and Digital Nomad Corbett Barr
3. Best Lifestyle Design, Personal Development and Travel Links

Jet Setter in Montreal

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 about staying with someone we have never met. Other than the profile everyone writes about themselves on the CouchSurfing.org site and reviews from other travellers, you really don’t know what to expect on arrival.

Will they actually be there? Is it safe? What etiquette is expected? What gifts should we bring? Many things were on our mind prior to our first meeting our host.

The World’s Greatest CouchSurfing Host

It turns out we managed to find the best CouchSurfing host in the world on our very first attempt. The generosity and trust of our host is amazing. He opens his home to couchsurfers constantly. There is a steady flow of new people living in his house. Each surfer gets the keys to the house and full access. Despite his never-ending kindness, for every one person he accepts, he has to turn two away.

My wife and I have had the opportunity to spend several amazing nights with him drinking late into the evening. We feel like we have gotten to know him more than some of our close friends.

CouchSurfing is What Other Social Media Sites Try to Be

I think many social media critics  associate online friends with superficial connections and banal conversation. That may be true in some cases but CouchSurfing is inherently different. The real value of the site comes from facilitating real life meet-ups. There is little chance that these kinds of connections could have been made before the Internet. Some good relationships can be developed online only but they will never reach the level of in person contact.

This to me is the real promise of social media. We are able to connect with like minded people on a global scale. That is huge!

It takes lots of work to build and maintain relationships but it can be so rewarding. I hope we have started the foundation of a life-long friendship with our host. I am certain we will meet again in different parts of the world.

Many people and businesses are using social media platforms as an inexpensive way to advertise. They try to friend or follow as many people as people with the intention of building a potential customer base. While that is part of life, I hope that it  is going to be a very small part of our social media experiences.

CouchSurfing is Not About the Money

With CouchSurfing there is absolutely no financial transaction, the host is generous without expectation of direct reciprocity. Certainly there are long term benefits of being repaid with future couches to surf, but most hosts seem to give a lot more then they will ever receive. The real reason for giving so much is the social interaction.

That to me is a very powerful idea. We are social animals after all, social connections have tremendous value. That value extends far beyond any financial exchange. We have been conditioned to be consumers over the last 150 years or so. It is important to remember that society wasn’t always like this and it doesn’t have to continue this way indefinitely.

Again, it is my hope that this is all part of the economic and social evolution of mankind. We are reaching for the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy. Life is no longer a struggle for food, shelter and clothing. We are looking for meaning and purpose in our lives. That meaning can’t be bought or consumed. Life is measured by the quality of our personal relationships and contribution to other people. CouchSurfing.org is the best example I have found of that so far. The only downside is that we have been having such a great time that I haven’t been able to get any work done. After the fantastic conversations we have had with our host, I am going to put a lot more effort into meeting people around the world.

I would love to hear about other websites that facilitate human interaction like CouchSurfing for a project I am working on. If you have any good examples or experiences please let me know in the comments or by email.

Related posts:

1. How to be an Expert at Social Media
2. Social Media is Not about Technology
3. Interview with Media Sensation, Sean Aiken of OneWeekJob.com

Biking in Calgary, Canada

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 knowledge. Canadians in particular should be ecstatic to have universal and affordable health care. In the cases of my family and friends, the patients went home after only a few days in the hospital.

Consider how amazing this is for a moment. People I know, probably you too, have gone into a hospital and had their bodies cut open. Some have had cancerous tumors cut of of their bodies, others have had hip and knee replacements. Think about how advanced a civilization has to be to cut into human tissue and fix what is wrong. Imagine how you would go about doing brain surgery on a loved one. Think about shaving a head, cutting into the scalp and sawing the skull to get access to the brain. Imagine the sound of sawing a skull. I personally don’t want to be doing any brain surgeries anytime soon, although I am pretty damn thankful that there are doctors out there with the skills and knowledge to help people now.

My wife and I are healthy and are able to live the life we choose. Nothing else is lacking from our lives. Sure lots of money, fame and things would be nice but they certainly aren’t necessary for a happy life.

When traffic is slow, think about how lucky you are to have a car. When you hate your job, think how easy it is compared to what your grandparents endured. When your body aches, remember that it is a sign that you are still alive and are fortunate enough to experience these great times. Life is good and we truly do live in amazing times.

Here is a great related video that has made its rounds but is worth watching again. It is Louis C.K. on Conan O’brien.

Louis C.K. talks on Conan O’brien about technology from Nathan Lunde-Berry on Vimeo.

Related posts:

1. What do you NOT want to do with your life?
2. We Did It! One Year to a New Country, Career and Life.
3. Review of the fantastic book, Juggle: Rethink Work, Reclaim Your Life

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller

Downtown Drumheller, Coffee on a rainy day.

Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller

Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller

Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller

Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller

The Hoodoos near Drumheller

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 to get a feel for the variety and size of dinosaurs that once roamed the earth more than 65 million years ago. It really makes human existence on this planet pale in comparison.

The area around Drumheller also contains visible records of Earth’s history. Centuries of climate change are on display everywhere in the region in the layers of rock sediment. The valleys formed by retreating glaciers are spectacular.

Drumheller is a great visit if you are travelling through western Canada. It is beautiful country and it is a good reminder of how fragile life is on this planet.

Related posts:

1. Photos of Montreal, The Cultural Capital of Canada
2. Photos of the 2010 Calgary Stampede
3. 20 Pictures of Rural Canada

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 around Asia ever since.

Please tell us about your travels?

We’re currently in South Korea. We started our trip in China, did the Southeast Asia route, headed back to China and then took a ferry over to South Korea. (All of the destinations we’ve been).
One of the things we wanted to do on this trip was learn a language and settle down for a while. Sharon is 75% Korean and so we thought the perfect place would be Korea. We lived in Seoul for a little over 2 months and now have settled down in the coastal city, Busan. Assuming Kim Jong Il doesn’t decide to do something stupid (again), we’ll be here for another couple of months before hitting the road again.

What has been the most expensive country you have visited?

Japan, hands down!! We couldn’t believe how expensive Japan was. On this trip, our average spend per day was $35 per person ($70 for the both of us), Japan however ended up being around $260 a day! We didn’t really splurge either. We did purchase the Japan Rail Pass, which put us back $300 each, but other than that, we slept in hostels in a dorm and ate at what we thought to be reasonable restaurants.

What has been the least expensive country you have visited?

On the complete other end of the spectrum was Vietnam. We traveled from north to south and spent about $23 per person per day. One of the best hotels we’ve stayed in on the entire trip was in Vietnam and it was $8 a night. Not to mention, it’s an amazing country with great food.

What has been the worst food you have tried?

The most difficult place for us eating wise was China. We knew only the very basics of the language and many restaurants do not have pictures of their food, nor do they have their menus translated to English. There were times where the only thing we could do was point to a set of Chinese characters and hope for the best.
I think the two worst foods we have tried on this trip would be:  1. Some kind of fried pork rinds that tasted like what I assume sewer and garbage would taste like.  2. Fried chicken feet.  I realize that chicken feet are very normal in Asia, but why?  It was like eating fried bones- there’s no meat there, not to mention they still very much resemble feet from a chicken, and that’s not a very appetizing thing.

What is a safe travel budget for a year?

For the way we travel, which is staying at middle-range hostels, eating reasonable meals out twice a day, taking buses and ferries rather than planes, $15,000 ($41 per day) a year should be sufficient per person. Extrapolating our budget, I think we’ll come in at $30,000 for the both of us. Which is great, because we saved $50,000 for the planned year trip!
Breaking that down is going to vary tremendously, but roughly (per day):

• Accommodation: $15
• Food: $10
• Transportation: $7.50
• Activities/Entertainment:  $5

This doesn’t add up to the $41, so the rest would be on other things: health insurance, flights to and from home, netbook, whatever. More detail on our budget and how we spend money by country.

How did you save enough money to travel?

The Twitter answer is: saving more than we spent .
The longer answer: I worked for five years, Sharon for four, in corporate America. We focused on saving and had to make daily decisions that prioritized saving for the trip over other things. We were still able to live comfortably, pay off most of our debt from school and have a good time with our friends. The key is automating your savings so you don’t have to think about it. I wrote a more detailed post on this topic.

Are you getting tired of traveling?

Now that we’ve discovered our preferred travel method, no, not really. The first 4 months of our trip we stayed in only two cities for longer than 5 days (and both were less than 10 days). Other than that we were constantly on the move. We now know this isn’t sustainable for us. We prefer more structure, where we can unpack for a while and have a stable Internet connection, make friends for longer than a night or two and really connect with a city. As many travelers have found, I think we’re happiest finding a place to live for a month to 3 months and settling down for a while.
In terms of things that we miss from home, we pretty much only miss our friends and family.  There have been many times when we experienced something amazing but wished our loved ones could have been there with us. Other than that, this lifestyle is tough not to love.

Have you had any serious problems on your trip?

No, thankfully not. Asia’s a very safe place and we’ve been very lucky so far.

Are you trying to extend this one year trip into a more permanent lifestyle?

The trip was originally one-year. We were heading to Asia for a year, then coming back to Northern California and looking for jobs again. I don’t know what happened to that plan, but it went out the window pretty quickly. I (Jason) always had an interest in entrepreneurship, but somehow lost that at some point. This trip has sparked my entrepreneurial interest again and I’ve launched a new travel site that I’m really excited about.

The site is called UnAnchor.com and it’s a place for anyone to create travel itineraries for sale. Eventually it will be a place for travelers to find all of the information they need in an itinerary for their next destination. Because it’s new though I’m still focusing on growing the database of travel itineraries. If you’re interested in earning some extra money, check it out, it’s easy to start and free to sign up. [End of commercial]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of traveling as a couple?

To be honest, it’s been pretty much gumdrops and rainbows. We’re both very easygoing people, so the benefits of solo-travel – doing things on a whim, and going wherever you want without worrying about someone else’s opinion is pretty much what we have. If one of us wants to do something, the other is typically fine with it. The advantages of traveling as a couple are numerous: feeling less isolated, splitting up the research process, finding places and things together.  However, we have had our share of meaningless bickering, but these were very limited to certain times; when we were wearing our backpacks, when we were lost and hungry, and when it was hot outside.

How do you deal with banking, bills and health care?

Banking and health care took a lot of upfront research, but we couldn’t have been happier with the companies we went with. If you’re in the US, you should check out Charles Schwab. They charge zero ATM fees, no foreign exchange fees and on top of that they even reimburse you when the ATM you’re using charges you a fee. So, we never have to worry about which ATM we use. We couldn’t be happier with them.
Health care, like most travelers, we use World Nomads. It’s essentially emergency-only health care. The deductible is $100. So if it’s something basic, you’re paying for it, but if it’s something serious, you’re covered. It’s pretty cheap as well, only $500 for a year per person.

Do you have any advice for people considering long term traveling?

Our favorite advice comes from Sharon: “just do it” (the Nike corporation are thieves!). There are so many excuses: it costs too much money, I have a house, I have kids, I’m too old, I’ll have a big gap in my resume. For every excuse you can think of, we’ve met someone that’s overcome it. We’re not saying it’ll be easy, but if you’re serious about it, you can find a way and it’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Links
LifeAfterCubes Jason and Sharon’s Blog
Follow LifeAfterCubes on Twitter
UnAnchor.com Travel Itinerary Site

Related posts:

1. Interview with World Travelers, Uncornered Market
2. Interview with World Travelers Alex and Mina of Sending Postcards
3. Interview with Location Independent Freelance Writer Sharon Hurley Hall

I definitely don't have the Marathon Gene

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 causes many people to give up before they even try. “I am tone-deaf so I can’t play musical instruments.” “I not good at math.” “I can’t draw.” “I can’t understand computers.” “I was never good at sports.” When we see others excelling we often say things, like “He is a natural.” “She is so smart.” They have so much talent.” Our language seems biased towards a belief of naturally born talent.

In the article, The Making of an Expert in Harvard Business Review, authors K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely say,

Popular lore is full of stories about unknown athletes, writers, and artists who become famous overnight, seemingly because of innate talent—they’re “naturals,” people say. However, when examining the developmental histories of experts, we unfailingly discover that they spent a lot of time in training and preparation. Sam Snead, who’d been called “the best natural player ever,” told Golf Digest, “People always said I had a natural swing. They thought I wasn’t a hard worker. But when I was young, I’d play and practice all day, then practice more at night by my car’s headlights. My hands bled. Nobody worked harder at golf than I did.”

Even personality traits can be learned, the authors go on to say,

A surprising number of executives believe that charisma is innate and cannot be learned. Yet if they were acting in a play with the help of a director and a coach, most of them would be able to come across as considerably more charismatic, especially over time.

In fact, working with a leading drama school, we have developed a set of acting exercises for managers and leaders that are designed to increase their powers of charm and persuasion. Executives who do these exercises have shown remarkable improvement. So charisma can be learned through deliberate practice.

Do you have the Running Gene?

I ran another marathon last week. I am still painfully slow, but I have managed to drop my time by more than half an hour over my last race in December. I am mentioning this because when I did my first few marathons, I was terrified the night before. Running 42 kilometers is scary if you have never done it before. It sounds like an impossible task. In some of my earlier races, I couldn’t sleep the night before and got incredibly anxious about what I was going to eat, whether or not I could make it to the toilet before the start, what was the weather going to be like, what was I going to wear. I was worried about everything. I always felt that my body isn’t designed for sports.

Now that I have completed many marathons and shorter races I have no anxiety at all. The last 10 kilometers are always a killer but I know I can finish. Like anything in life, the more I train, the better I get. My wife also runs with me and despite the fact that she only runs a few times a month, she is still managing to consistently improve as well.

This same nurture versus nature argument has played out in many different aspects of my life. I never thought I had any artistic skills. However, daily practice with some basic drawing books and Internet tutorials has improved my skills phenomenally. I only wish I started 30 years ago, then maybe I would be a ‘naturally gifted’ artist now. I have found similar results with guitar, business and blogging.

There is no Substitute for Hard Work

It is highly unlikely that people who are better than you have some genetic advantage. The most likely cause of the their success is focused practice with good coaching and other environmental conditions. Blogging is no different. Starting off on the Internet can seem daunting. Everyone appears to have beautifully designed blogs, great technical skills and an innate understanding of social media platforms. How can you possibly catch up? You do it the same way everyone else did, you learn one thing at a time. The more deliberate practice you put in, the more you will learn and the better you will get. Online, everyone is making it up as they go. The difference between the self-proclaimed experts and you is only the hours of time invested.

Sure some may have some genetic advantages, but for most of us trying to earn a living, stay in shape or find our calling in life, our own personal drive is far more important. Giving up on art, blogging or a business idea before you have had an opportunity to develop some competence is not a genetic problem. I have often used the genetic inferiority excuse to justify my lack of effort. Not anymore, for everything I want to accomplish in life I know that any lack of success in my endeavors can only be attributable to lack of practice or quality coaching. Those two factors are definitely within my control. As I often say, we all can do ANYTHING we want, we just can’t do EVERYTHING we want. I just need to focus on what is most important and put in the quantity and quality of practice to excel. Deciding on what to focus on is the difficult part of course, but I am pretty damn fortunate to have excessive choice as my biggest life problem.

What do you think, is nature or nurture more important to to success? What percent is attributable to each? For most life choices I would say that it is 90% nurture, only in certain elite level sports would it shift more towards nature.

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Zimbabwe- HIV:AIDS Orphanage Project Visit with the Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Associations in Harare

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 volunteers at farmers’ markets, the Earth Sangha (an urban reforestation organization), and 1Well (an NGO focused on sustainable development projects all over the world).

D: Bernard’s background is as an expert on political campaigning and communications. His expertise in organizing state and national campaigns for the AFL-CIO has resulted in the election of major pro-worker candidates and laws in California, Kentucky, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon and Pennsylvania. He has developed communication programs for labor organizing all over the U.S. and has worked extensively with media reporting on workers’ issues. He is currently traveling across Africa with me, meeting with labor unions and workers across Africa, and blogging everyday from Africa on our personal site called BorderJumpers.

Are you both full-time journalists?

D: Last year the Worldwatch Institute received a two-year grant to evaluate environmentally sustainable solutions to alleviating hunger and poverty, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The grant is enabling us to expand our research and writing on food and hunger issues, do more on-the-ground research, and develop a comparative analysis of different agricultural innovations and technologies to help policy-makers, farmers, NGOs, agribusiness, and development agencies make more informed decisions regarding food production and food security goals.

The major outcome of this project will be State of the World 2011, our flagship publication, focused on hunger. Over the next two years, we will also publish research on this topic in Worldwatch’s other print and digital publications. I am traveling throughout sub-Saharan Africa to highlight stories of hope and success in environmentally sustainable food production.

Bernie and Dani in Zambia

Where are you now?

D: Africa is the epicenter of hunger and poverty, so it seemed logical to focus our research for the project here. We are currently in Dakar, Senegal, headed across Western Africa all summer to Mali, Cote D’Ivoire, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, and Cameroon. Countries we’ve traveled so far include: Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Since we left in October 2009 we’ve visited approximately 130 projects in those countries.

Uganda- Visiting Schools with Project Disc (Slow Food International)

Please tell us about your work in Africa?

B: We are tired with all the misconceptions about Africa. All we hear in the media is about conflict, HIV/AIDS, famine and disease. You almost never hear anything positive, and as a result people think the situation is hopeless. That’s why everywhere we go we are looking at African-led innovations and sharing those stories, in hopes of reaching the funding and policy making community so they can get scaled up or replicated, but also to challenge misconceptions that things in Africa are “beyond repair.” After sixteen countries, we’ve really seen firsthand how much incredible work is happening on the ground here and I’ve never felt so much hope.

D: The project is a two year grant to evaluate environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger and poverty with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.  We hope to build a roadmap for the funding and donor communities of projects that either need to be scaled up or replicated across the continent. Hundreds of millions of dollars are poured into funding agricultural projects every year in Sub-Saharan Africa. The reality is that so much of that money is misused, or misplaced and never reaches the hands of the farmers, workers, and people who need it the most.

We want to paint a new picture of Africa, one far different from the infomercials and images we’ve become accustom to. We are meeting with Africans on the ground, who are using their vast knowledge, and developing innovative ways of reducing hunger and improving food security in their communities. We want them to be the face of our project, putting their stories front and center, sharing their hopes and dreams to audiences they’ve never reached before.

From what you have seen, are African countries progressing and improving the quality of life of their citizens?

B: There is a lot of news that is not being reported on from the continent — we are seeing dozens of examples of stories of hope and success in agriculture from NGOs, policymakers, farmers groups, workers, unions, etc, that are helping to further not only food security in Africa but general quality of live. For example, in Uganda, a young team of volunteers is working with kids, parents, and teachers to reignite an interest and appreciation for indigenous food. In Rwanda, Heifer international is working with very poor farmers to improve their qualities of life through smallscale livestock projects. In Ghana, NGOs are working to improve access to processing facilities for palm oil so that farm workers can earn more money.

What have been your least and most favorite countries so far?

B: There is no least favorite because every country is different with positive and negative aspects which you could also say about the United States. We didn’t like aspects of Nairobi, but we loved traveling deep into rural parts of Kenya like Samburu. Johannesburg at times was stressful for us, but we’d definitely be up for living in Pretoria, Durban or Cape Town. Within countries there is so much diversity that it all is a valuable learning expierience for us.

Is Africa safe to travel?

D: I would say that Africa is like anywhere else, you have to be careful, obviously political conflict is more an issue than in the United States but we either have been very lucky or everything you’ve heard about Africa being dangerous is wrong. With that said, big cities like Nairobi and Johannesburg are not safe to be by yourself at night, you need to take a taxi, etc.

B: We’ve also been lucky and blessed. We watch each other’s backs as we travel together. People warned us about places that have had recent political upsets like Zimbabwe and Madagascar but we are really glad we went to those places because they turned out to be some of our favorite countries. We are avoiding Libya and the Sudan, just because we feel uneasy about our safety.

What African countries do you recommend for other travelers?

B: It depends on why you are traveling to Africa, we like to go off the beaten track a little bit. If your looking for a vacation, go to Mauritius. If your looking for something off the track, head to Zimbabwe and Madagascar. If you want to see a lot of wildlife, then head to Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. If you are looking for great live music, then check out Ghana and Senegal. Africa has every adventure you could ever dream of.

Have you encountered any major problems or dangerous situations?

D: No (knock on wood), we’ve been very lucky.

What are your travel expenses?

B: On average we spend we spend $50 a day which includes a budget hotel or hostel, local meals, travel by taxi, and entertainment. VISA fees vary greatly and can be very expensive for Americans – but it ranges from free (Senegal, Botswana, South Africa, Rwanda) to over $100USD (Nigeria, Mozambique, Cote D’Ivoire). It all depends on what you want to do, plan several hundred a day if you plan to hike Kilimanjaro in Arusha, Tanzania; Lemur trek in Madagascar; whitewater raft at the source of the Nile in Kampala, Uganda; or Gorilla trek in Rwanda.

Africa can be very expensive depending on what you want to do and it is worth splurging for safety – private taxis at night, long haul-buses instead of shared taxis for international travel, making sure you are staying in a good location, etc. We also benefit by the fact that projects we visit go out of their way to make us feel at home, from airport pickups, to driving us between projects, to feeding us in their homes, it really helps cut down costs.

Traveling in Africa is totally not what you expect. People are often afraid to take a risk here, so they plan very packaged vacations for things like the World Cup or a safari. We couldn’t imagine a more friendly, or welcoming place to travel.

Are you able to get good Internet access and other modern conveniences?

D: We are really surprised how connected Africa is in terms of hi-speed wifi (these are mostly in cities). Also Skype allows us to keep in touch with the United States for free, SIM cards in each country make local calls incredibly cheap, and email is accessible nearly everywhere. In terms of what we miss — it is mainly different foods — like fresh salads, bagels with cream cheese, vegetables like broccoli, cranberry juice, a good latte, etc… Stuff that we totally took for granted in the United States but are hard to find here.

Do you see yourselves ever permanently relocating to Africa?

B: Yes, definitely a possibility. We love the people, energy, the diverse cultures. Our choice would be Senegal so far (with that said we have 25 more countries to see). In reality we’ve talked about how we could live in Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Madagascar, and Senegal. Since that list will only grow, it’s hard to imagine ever leaving.

Links
Borderjumpers
Follow Bernie and Dani on Twitter

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