It’s easy to get carried away with customer reviews on the world wide web. Personally, I’m one of the worst culprits; I pore incessantly over reviews before I commit to anything. And although conducting these silent surveys is oddly empowering, they become debilitating as you find conflicting opinions. So, I’ll do something a little different. Rather […]
Imagine you’re stranded on a desert coastline… Namibia’s, perhaps. The searing heat drains your body of fluids and your mind slows to a snail’s pace. Forget food, forget sunburn, forget your coordinates; your biggest danger here is dehydration. If you don’t find water soon, you’ll perish, simple as that. As you stand there, you can’t […]
If I think back to what inspired me to travel, it had very little to do with reading about others’ adventures. Sure I loved stepping into the shoes of climbers on towering peaks and donning the suits of divers in circuitous caves, but those stories didn’t actually get me moving. More than anything, I attribute […]
For us long-term travelers, eating out every night is expensive and generally unhealthy. There are some exceptions, such as in certain regions of Asia, but they’re rarer than you’d think. So we need to find a balance between cost, convenience, taste, and healthiness. It’s difficult enough at home, let alone on the road where no […]
In the blue corner, we have the group tour bus: a diesel-powered road-train full of drunken sex-charged youths, all wanting to say they’ve ‘done’ Europe. And in the red corner, we have the independent traveler: a weathered, leathery, stolid character, who’s at least 10 times more snobby than all of the ‘snobs’ he left behind. Both […]
Back in 2015, I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. My team decided on climbing up the Machame Route (also affectionately known as the Whiskey Route). At the time, it offered the best compromise between traffic, scenery, weather, and availability. But preferences are personal. Would you prefer to sleep in tents or huts? What about traffic, would you […]
One of the byproducts of cheap flights is having to deal with awful departures, layovers and arrival times. But that’s what travel hacking is all about: relinquishing luxury to make travel cost less and last longer. Coming from faraway places like Australia, you can easily end up with 40+ hour flight itineraries. And chances are, […]
I scoured the web for four straight hours: Kayak.com, Priceline.com, Expedia.com, and about 30 other ‘cheap flight’ websites. It was a roller coaster. I started with a quote of $1,000, then cheered after finding one for $900, then jumped up with a dance for $800, then punched the air for $700, and then suddenly, Bingo! […]
Our last post on Things to do in Montreal was a little lightweight, so we’ve broken it up a bit and put in more effort to serve you up a list of local eats. By asking some of our local friends here about the best places to eat in Montreal, we ate our way around […]
Imagine traveling for a year on a budget you thought would only last a few weeks. That’s the reality when you find cheap accommodation. It can turn your trips from weeks into months and months into years. I know what you’re thinking… youth hostels are the cheapest form of accommodation. But no, hostels are actually one […]
There are so many people who dream of traveling around the world in search of something more. They’d love to explore new places, meet new people, and just have a better understanding of what’s really out there. The age-old problem though is that traveling takes money. And while our careers provide that money, our careers […]
At home, life is so structured. We wake up at the same time, eat the same breakfast, and perform the same duties throughout the day against the same schedule. But despite this discipline, most of us find it difficult to keep fit. On the road, when we’re enticed to try local deep-fried dishes and where […]
Full disclosure: Montreal is currently my favorite city on Earth. It’s not too big, but not too small. Not too populated, but not too quiet either. It has enough culture to be different, but not so much as to make it inconvenient. And the icing on the cake, it has a vibrant travel community. We’ve […]
I’ve heard countless stories of people traveling (often through developed countries) on very small amounts. I’ve even heard of a family traveling the globe on only $25k per year. And while it sounds great in theory, once you hit the road, you realize it’s not so easy. Like most goals, the key to sticking to a […]
Yea yea… We could tell you to visit the Opera House, climb atop the Harbour Bridge, visit Bondi Beach… but then you’d spend most of your time with other tourists. Instead, we’ve put together a list of the best-kept secrets of Sydney, from a local’s perspective. These are places where you’ll meet real Sydneysiders while taking advantage […]
It’s become quite the celebrity challenge, but don’t let that put you off. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro tests your endurance, fitness and comfort levels. Many believe that the required strength and fitness for the climb are out of reach, but this just isn’t true. Sure it’s a mountain, but it doesn’t require any technical mountaineering skills, […]
When most of us hear ‘free accommodation during travel‘, we think of CouchSurfing. It affords us, lowly global nomads, a place to sleep when the wallet’s looking a little thin. But more than that, it provides a way to immerse ourselves in local culture by living and sharing living quarters with locals. But CouchSurfing can […]
The first thing you have to realize is this: Airlines offer frequent flyer programs because they are massively profitable. And since they’re profitable, the average consumer is losing out. But a rare few travelers actually benefit from them. So I’m going to tell you the secrets for how to actually exactly how to get cheap […]
By far the most defining characteristic of Montreal is the architecture and street scenes of this charming city. Surprisingly the traditional French vibes are mixed with a more modern and contemporary style. From the streets and structures around the city, photos can only elevate your discovery of some of the hidden gems that the city of Montreal has […]
You know what I love about international travel? Observing and analyzing the nuances that underpin a different culture, one that’s a world apart from my own. When I look at something and think, “Hey, that’s so odd, but it’s so much better than how we do it at home, how amazing”, that’s when I know […]
You can’t blame the people who run hostels; just imagine trying to control hundreds of sexually-charged youths cramped into sardine tins. Most of them have never once washed their own clothes, and now they’re being trusted with kitchen appliances, cooking utensils, and heaven forbid, an unrestricted supply of alcohol. It’s no wonder why hostel proprietors […]
Your real cost of living in a new city depends on how you will live in that city, not on how an average person with an average job and 2.5 children may live. Even more importantly, the way you live in your current city is NOT always the same way you will live in a […]
The digital nomad movement isn’t new, but it’s becoming more and more popular as people realize there’s no point deferring all of life’s fun until retirement. We tried to convince you of this in a previous post, 7 compelling reasons to become a digital nomad. (Hopefully, we succeeded.) Once you see the light, once you realize […]
Searching the Internet for travel companions has riskier potential than a blind date. I ignored my wise-trepidation and posted on Mountain Equipment Co-op’s website for “trip partners” confident that nobody would sign up for 17-days of mountain biking Peru. With so many sites to see in Peru, most folks flock to the famous sitings of […]
