May 24, 2013

Affordable Tips for Embracing the RV Lifestyle

RV Living for Less Pic

After months of shopping for an affordable tow-behind recreational vehicle to use for family camping and North American exploration, a manufacturer of custom cargo trailers caught our eye. When David and I pulled in to see if the cargo trailers could be modified for RV use, the business owner gave us a bargain tour.  The [...]

Location-Independent Career Options

location independent careers

Many beginning excursionists think that in order to embrace their travel dreams full time, they will be required to have all of their money up front. The truth is, with a location-independent career, you can live on the road for as long as you want. Here are a handful of career choices that provide flexibility [...]

Maintaining a Business Wardrobe on the Road

business wardrobe

On a business trip to Miami, a pair of sleek boots became a multitasking fashion tool. The boots were worn with jeans, dress pants, a knee-length dress and a long skirt, taking functional footwear to the next level. On that same trip, a faulty hotel iron and rumpled blouse — a clearance special — taught [...]

Work-Juggling Tips for Road Warriors

working from road

Meeting deadlines during a month-long trip to Quito, Ecuador was supposed to be a breeze.  But a local energy-saving strategy of scheduled power outages caught my husband and I by surprise and short-circuited our workday.  Unplugged, we relied on extended-use laptop batteries, advanced planning and a restructured mix of work and sightseeing to handle professional [...]

12 Things to Look for When Shopping for Travel Clothing

Otavalo sweaters

I know we all like to think about the warm and fuzzy aspects of traveling, like the great sights we’ll get to see or the awesome business deals we’ll close. But the brutal truth is that your choice in travel clothing can have a huge impact on the quality of any trip. To a certain [...]

How to Make Money While Traveling

savings

To enjoy as much time as possible traveling in the Middle East, I opted for an international teaching position in Kuwait. With paid utilities, complimentary housing, tax-free compensation and annual roundtrip airfare, it was a job that allowed for regional travel opportunities and additional freelance tutoring gigs for extra cash. It’s possible to make money [...]

Travel Photography Tips for Beginners

El Oriente Close Up

Travel photography isn’t just big business in its own right, it’s a great way to collect free souvenirs, embrace the travel decorating scheme at home and begin to attract even more visitors to your travel blog. It’s also true that travel pictures can help you sell quite a bit more of your work if you’re [...]

How to Be a Professional Hobo

tent

When Nora Dunn sold her financial planning practice, along with everything else she owned in 2007 to follow her dream of full-time travel, she knew she wanted to share her adventure. Theprofessionalhobo.com, Dunn’s web site, chronicles how she’s managed to travel full time in a financially-sustainable manner for over four years. In addition to freelance [...]

Travel Beauty: Trek Hound Tips for Looking Your Best on the Road

Relax

Looking good on the road is no small feat. Traffic jams, flight delays and extreme weather patterns can all wreak havoc on a road warrior’s appearance. Lost hair bling, broken nails and spilled sauces bring additional appearance stress, and take you from dreamy to dumpy in a hurry. So how do you look your best [...]

One-Bag Travel Tips for Road Warriors

Suitcases

With excess baggage fees spiraling out of control, learning how to pack light is becoming a serious survival skill for perpetual road warriors. Here are several one-bag travel tips to help you keep costs under control. Use them for short excursions, international vacations, train travel and road trips when you want to reduce luggage weight [...]

Tenba Messenger Bag Review

Tenba Large Engraveable Messenger Bag

At roughly $110, Tenba’s large engravable messenger bag might seem a bit steep. Until you compare it to other pro gear bags on the market. There are a number of reasons why I dished out the dough for this particular Tenba bag. What follows is my complete Tenba messenger bag review, along with the several [...]

Rolling with the Punches on Road Trips

road trips

After departing the California coast for a several-month stint in East Asia and the Middle East, we were confident our cold weather gear would no longer be needed. Shivering temperatures and shin-deep slush in Amman, Jordan proved us wrong. Fortunately, Amman offers my favorite Middle East problem solving solution – the souk. A quick shopping [...]

Product Review: Why We Dished out the Dough to Purchase Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire 1

Few devices have gotten as much buzz lately as Amazon’s new tablet, the Kindle Fire. With full-color access to digital magazine subscriptions, streaming video, Android apps and more for just less than $200, the price point seems poised for a huge presence in this year’s holiday sales figures. What finally convinced us to dish out [...]

Are You a Road Warrior on a Money App Quest? Check out These Four Free Finds

Money apps

With all of the time most people spend on the road these days, having a great money app or two in your smart phone repertoire is practically considered personal finance 101. New to the mobile banking and shopping playing field? Check out these four free resources and see if there’s a money app that works [...]

25 Resources for Building a Better Expense Report

expense report

Ah, the dreaded expense report. You have the best intentions with every business trip. You really do. But then reality sets in. Missed flight delays, grabbing a cab in a developing nation where receipts are only a suggestion, solving an unexpected client crisis during the only available receipt scanning time you’ve had all week . [...]

Five Items I Never Travel Without

gorillapod

Portable Tripod Sometimes you just want to be in front of the camera, instead of never in a pic because you’re the one behind the camera.  If only you had a tripod.  A traditional tripod just is not practical for most people. It’s large, cumbersome, and not always convenient to have on hand. This is [...]

Writers’ Retreats and Workshops

sunset

Sunset Retreat As a writer I dream of quiet, uninterrupted places where I can write for hours without be disturbed by a slobbering dog or a cat meowing for food. If you’re a writer with children I imagine you muliply that desire x 20. So what’s a writer to do to get away and just simply write? [...]

Lakeshore Park – Ashtabula, Ohio

Lakeshore-Park

I grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio, next to a town park right on Lake Erie.  On a recent visit home, my sister and I took several walks through this park, as one of its entrances is only a couple hundred feet from our mother’s front door. With the help of the Army Corps of Engineers, [...]

Portable Office Files for the Serious Road Warrior: A Product Review

PIC_6857

I’ve recently been giving the house files a thorough purging and taking a serious look at just how low I can go when it comes to the number of hard copy documents we’ll need to have on hand.

How to Be a Road Warrior: Streamlining the Laptop Security Check

airport laptop security

  Flickr Photo Credit: Steven Witherden Just when we thought we’d streamlined packing and minimalized travel items and chaos as much as possible, we were slapped with the following reality:

How to Be a Road Warrior: Online Word Processing Reference

word processor

Flickr Photo Credit: Marcin Wichary I found this great article today listing and linking to 10 different free online word processing resources tailor made for road warriors on the move.

How to Be a Road Warrior: The Fishing Tackle Supply Cabinet

tackle supply box

Photo Credit: We Be Sharin’ Last night, I was feeling just plain frustrated with my office supply situation.

How to Be a Road Warrior: Budget Strategies for Operating Out of Your Car

ontheroadoffice

I just LOVE the Dollar Stretcher newsletter. It always has fantastic ideas, but recently I found something that was just over the top cool.

How to Be a Road Warrior: A Great Online Blog Article

officeonwheels

Flickr Photo Credit: Tuppus Hello, everyone. If you’re like me, you are always looking for a way to streamline mobile productivity. Here’s something might help.

How to Be a Road Warrior: Some Cool Products

mobile gear

Flickr Photo Credit: Jon Rawlinson I know I usually try to lean towards the extreme budget end of things, but I ran across a couple of items here that I am anxious to try out when budget and circumstances permit.

Temple Rubbings

rubbings

  Flickr Photo Credit: Pipi Wild Head When we were planning our trip around the world, I couldn’t wait to see the temple rubbings available at Angkor Wat. That got me to thinking about the possibility of a novice like me actually attempting my own.

Work from Anywhere with Online Schools

online teaching

Flickr Photo Credit: Sridgway Hello, everyone. This is a follow up to the online teaching post of earlier. At the suggestion of a friend, I switched the search criteria to online schools rather than online teaching.

Maintaining Flexibility: The Online Teaching Arena

online edu

Flickr Photo Credit: Web Chicken Online teaching is an extremely flexible way to use your teaching credentials in support of your location-independent lifestyle. More opportunities are beginning to arise for those who don’t necessarily want to teach at the college level, making it a more accessible money-earning option. Here are several resources to begin to [...]

Teaching Around the World

international teaching

Flickr Photo Credit: Cambodia4kidsorg If you are comfortable in the classroom arena, and want to finance your world travel experience, international teaching may be for you.

Work Your Way Around the World

planet pic

Flickr Photo Credit: Woodley Wonderworks For those of you on an extreme travel budget who want to stay on the road for an extended period of time, one issue makes its way to the top: money.

How to Be a Road Warrior: The Cyberpower Car Charging Adapter

cyberpower

Photo Credit: Cyberpowersystems.Com Last May for my birthday, my parents sent me a Cyberpower car charging adapter.

How to Be a Road Warrior: Options for Portable Solar Power

solar

Flickr Photo Credit: Tiago Celestino This is an area we’ve been looking into for a while now. While the technology has definitely come a long way in terms of portability, it has been a bit of a quest to filter through the information on which items can be fully charged, and which can only be [...]

How to Be a Road Warrior: The T-Mobile Dash

dash

Photo Credit: T-Mobile.Com After months of trying to decide between palm pilots, Blackberries and other similar devices, we were told about a newly released product from T-Mobile . . . the Dash.

How to Be a Road Warrior: Solving Hotel Email Problems

hotel email check

Flickr Photo Credit: Daquella Manera During a recent hotel stay, my outgoing emails on Outlook Express started bouncing back with error messages. While the incoming mail from various accounts continued to arrive without incident, the situation with the outgoing mail became rapidly critical. Here’s how it all got solved.