18 Travel Apps and Tools I use Daily on the Road

Traveling used to be a lot harder.

I remember trying to write a blog post in Buenos Aires in 2008. Wifi as we know it was not widely available, but internet cafes were everywhere, and they worked pretty well if you could get around the non-US keyboards and the impossibility of finding the ‘@’ symbol.

The ease of modern travel with a local SIM card powered smart-phone with broadband internet access is borderline ridiculous. Nothing is impossible when you can get on the internet, and wandering around looking for accommodation has been replaced by some quick tactical research. Continue reading >>

5 Reasons You Should Quit Your Job to Travel Now

There are a million great reasons to quit your job to travel the world, but here are five things that matter right now. There’s never been a better time to get out and experience the world.

#1 The US Dollar-Euro Exchange Rate is at a 10-year best.

Source: Xe.com

While traveling in Europe is the quintessential trip–and much cheaper than most Americans tend to think–the catch has always been the 25-30% ‘tax’ on travelers coming from the US in the form of the Euro-Dollar exchange rate.

But things have changed in the last 6 months, and dollar is now as close to the Euro as I’ve ever seen it. As I write this a dollar is worth about 0.94 Euro.

That means your USD are going a lot further, not just in Europe but everywhere.Continue reading >>

Location-Independence: Musings from My 3rd Year on the Road

What if home was everywhere?

After more than two years on the road it finally sunk in: location-independence is not an aberration. Moving around the world at will is a perfectly valid and (extremely) advantageous lifestyle choice, but ultimately just another way to navigate through life.

It has, however, warped my notion of reality over the last 6 months. Continue reading >>

Why I Stopped Booking Airline Tickets in Advance

Or how I nearly blew $1500 booking tickets I didn’t need last year.

Back in the day, airline tickets were really expensive and inflexible. Not anymore.

Welcome to the world of low-cost, flexible world travel.

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While visiting family in February I decided not to get on my flight home. I wanted to spend some additional quality time there so I just didn’t show up for my flight.

Mom was flabbergasted: “You can do that?!”

Yep. You’d be amazed by what airlines let me get away with last year.

This conversation led me to the realization that in the last 19 months, every single flight I pre-booked more than a few weeks in advance I either didn’t get on or had to change for a lot of $$$.

If I no longer have pre-defined location constraints, and if pre-booking flights is both “a major turnoff” and expensive, why would I still do it?Continue reading >>