There are many things in my life that I would consider lucky; this trip is not one of them. Here are a few things I’m particularly lucky for: I was born to two awesome and supporting parents, Sharon finally decided to date me, I’ve got my health, I didn’t buy a house in 2007 when everyone seemed to be buying a house. That’s luck.

How did we make this trip happen?

Not luck. We prioritized the trip above all-else. We sacrificed going out. We didn’t buy new cars. We lived in a pretty small room with 2 (sometimes 3) other housemates. We automated our savings – creating a little stockpile of money for when we get back and then saved up as much as we could for the actual trip. Nothing in there is luck, we made that happen. Sure, you could argue that having jobs to support all of that was lucky, but if we didn’t have the jobs, I guarantee we would have found another way.

I’m tired of people saying how lucky we are, that we were lucky to quit our jobs and travel the world for a year and they can’t. I typically smile, nod my head, and agree with them how lucky we are, but deep down I know they can be “lucky” too. Of course you can, you can do anything you want. Admit it, it’s simply that you won’t do it. And why won’t you do it? Do you have a house? Sell or rent it. Kids? Bring them with you. Debt? Create a plan and pay it off. For every excuse out there, there’s a solution. As long as you first admit that you CAN do it and it’s only yourself that’s the barrier.

End of rant. Have a good day.

Possibly Related posts:

1. How we saved $50,000 and are now traveling for a year
2. The Attraction to a Life After Cubes
3. Getting Serious About Earning Money While Traveling

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

Fact: Jason and I have spent the last 2 and a half weeks in Padang, Indonesia and a surrounding city called Bukittinggi which are both cities of the island of Sumatra.

A vague “fact”: The population of Muslims in Padang, Indonesia is somewhere in the vicinity of 95%.

In a nutshell, being in West Sumatra, Indonesia (Sumatra is the biggest island in Indonesia) is like stepping into a different world, especially when you were just in Korea for 5 months.  According to Wikipedia, Indonesia has a Muslim population of over 86%.  That’s a huge demographic considering the fact that Indonesia consists of over 200 million people and over 17,000 islands.

That crazy demographic is especially evident in Padang.  Although this may seem obvious, coming from California, I have never seen so much traditional Islamic clothing in one area.  It’s a pretty humbling experience when it is that visually apparent how far from home you really are.  We have traveled to underdeveloped places on this trip that have been completely unfamiliar, but being here has really put our foreignness into perspective.

Of course, it probably doesn’t help that we happened to travel to the most Muslim-populated country in the world during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting from sunrise to sunset.  Whoops!  Try getting some lunch in Padang when 95% of the people here don’t eat lunch this month.  We have resorted to eating at a fast food restaurant called CFC for lunch twice (believe it or not it stands for California Fried Chicken, how ironic, right?).  Jason refuses to eat there again.

So this whole Ramadan thing in Indonesia has been a real experience.  The people here wake up at about 3am, 4am, 5am, etc. every morning to eat and pray before the sun comes up, then they go back to sleep (some of them do at least).  There are Muslim mosques everywhere you turn here, and can you guess what happens at these mosques every morning at 3am?  They scream at you.  Literally.  They actually have loudspeakers that not only play the same chant and music every morning, but they blast it up so loud that it wakes up everyone in the vicinity.  That’s its true purpose- to wake everyone up to eat and pray before sunrise.  I also notice that at one point, the recording sounds like someone screaming “WAAAAKE UPPPPPP!!!!!!  WAAAKKEE UPPPPP!!!!”  Can you imagine what this is like for us non-Muslim Americans?  Needless to say, we have gotten into an absolute habit of wearing earplugs to bed, even though the chanting is so loud that it still wakes us up every morning.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Goodbye Korea, Hello Indonesia!
2. My First World Cup
3. How to Consult From Anywhere in the World with eLance

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

As we were planning our trip, we knew China was going to be one of our first destinations. To prepare, I worked on my Chinese with Rosetta Stone a few times a week for a couple months to try and learn at least some Chinese. When we got to Vietnam, the first thing I did was memorize how to count. It was exciting and fun.

Now, we’ve been in Indonesia for a week and I still don’t even know how to say thank you. And the only reason I know how to say hello is because “hello” is also Indonesian. English is spoken everywhere, so it’s not truly hurting our travel experience, but I feel like a bad traveler. Part of the fun and enjoyment for me in travel is learning at least some of the local language and trying to have them understand me. Does this change mean I’m taking travel for granted? Has travel lost its excitement?

The odd thing is that I’m still happy being here and am having a great time, but this life of constant travel seems so normal now. Perhaps, too normal? Travel has always been that special thing you look forward to once a year–counting down the days until you finally get to take off. It was the ice cream sandwich you look forward to after dinner.

It seems odd that I’ve made travel my everyday life to the point where I am now taking it for granted. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that after over 10 months of being on the road it’s not as exciting as it was at the beginning. Nonetheless, it’s a strange feeling.

Image credit: Morgan Leichter-Saxby

Possibly Related posts:

1. Top 10 Unexpected Changes Due to Long-Term Travel
2. Financial Update – 9 Months of Travel
3. Top 10 Unexpected Personal Changes Part II

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

One of the main reasons for traveling Asia for a year was to experience Korean life.  We had our expectations coming in to the country, and I can safely say that most of mine were wrong.  Here is a list of some of those changes :

• Koreans did not discriminate against me for being a Korean-American who doesn’t speak Korean.  This was such a relief for me because I didn’t want my first experience in Korea to be a bad one based on something so trivial.  They love Americans and American culture, so they were always happy to speak to us in their broken English or help us if we needed it.
• I initially had never planned to live in Korea for any permanent amount of time, but after living there for 5 months, I have decided that I would love to go back and teach for a year.  Korea was a great combination of home familiarity as well as foreign culture, so Jason and I really enjoyed having both.  It helped prevent us from getting homesick and we also had the chance to immerse ourselves into a different culture at the same time.
• I am even more motivated to learn the Korean language after having only taken less than 4 months of lessons.  When we come back home we will have undoubtedly forgotten 50% of what we learned, but at least I have gained even more interest in the language than ever before.  My ultimate goal is to one day make my parents uncomfortable when they want to talk about me in Korean; I will know what they’re saying one day!

Here is a list of some silly and random things we observed about Korea that we enjoyed:

• Jason and I have come to love the Korean drink called Makgeolli.  It is unrefined rice wine. So rather than being clear like Soju, it still has a milky white rice substance that settles on the bottom of the bottle.  You actually have to stir up the drink in order to mix the white substance with the clear part, but once you do, you are rewarded with a slightly carbonated and sweet taste of heaven.  The best part is that a bottle of Makgeolli is less than $1!  You can get hyphy on a beggar’s budget!
• Koreans love their English.  They love it on hats, in their K-pop music, on their extremely decorative stationary, on their baseball team names, and most importantly- on their clothing.  It was impossible for either one of us to find a t-shirt in Korea that did not have any silly English written in huge font.  I’ve written previous posts on Engrish, so I won’t delve into that, but the funny thing about the English being everywhere is that they don’t seem to know what their shirts mean.  If they do, then they have some really questionable taste in fashion.
• I have confirmed that all Korean women above the age of 40 chew gum the same way; by making an excessively loud popping sound every three chews (with their mouths open of course).  How do they do it?  I have no clue.  My Korean mother has chewed her gum this exact way since I can remember, and even after teaching me how to pop my gum as a little girl I was never able to achieve the right sound.  There must be something in Korean genetics that bestows this ability onto their women… an ability that either is slowly fading away through the generations or one that only seems to take effect once the women reach 40.

Random Thought of the Day: Food in Indonesia is dirt cheap and delicious!  At many restaurants you simply sit down and they bring you about 10-15 small plates of different dishes, along with a big bowl of rice.  You eat what you want and pay for what you eat.  It’s a fun way to experiment with new foods without having to blindly pick something that ends up being pig testicles.  Jason and I can eat an awesome meal complete with 6 dishes for $5, and that’s a bit expensive.  Fruit is also a small fraction of the price we all pay in America.

Makgeolli photo courtesy of worknplay

Possibly Related posts:

1. Update: Where are we now? South Korea!
2. Dating in Korea
3. Reactions From South Korea About The Recent Tension With North Korea

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

In a word, I would say things are going “okay”. While we were living in Busan, I spent most of my time building Keys To China, as well as writing my own Busan itinerary. Most of my focus on the site the past few months has been getting people to write itineraries.

Solving UnAnchor’s Chicken and Egg Problem

One of the largest challenges I face with making UnAnchor successful is solving the chicken and egg problem. Itinerary writers want users to be on UnAnchor, but users will not go on UnAnchor unless there are itineraries. My initial plan to solve this problem included reaching out to fellow travel bloggers and the Travel Blog Exchange community. I had good luck with finding places to guest post, as well as getting interviewed. Unfortunately, the traffic that resulted from these posts and interviews did not result in itineraries being created. After reflecting, I believe the traffic the blogs brought in was the wrong kind of traffic. These were people interested in travel in general, and reading good travel stories, not writing itineraries to make money. (However, I believe a lot of these people stuck around and now follow our blog instead.)

Trying Something New

I’m a big fan of test and measure. Try lots of things; drop the ones that don’t work, keep the ones that do. So, I’ve stopped trying to actively guest post and instead I’m now focusing my efforts on niche bloggers.

The niche blogger I’m specifically looking for are those who focus on a particular city or country. I realized niche bloggers are great candidates to write itineraries after meeting the author of Chris In South Korea. Chris has an awesome blog on South Korea, is an expert on Seoul, has a stream of visitors looking for information on Seoul, and is always looking for ways to monetize his blog. I’d love to help Chris and other niche bloggers like him monetize their blog traffic, while helping travelers find amazing things to do.

Now my goal is to find people like Chris who blog about a major city or area. So far, my search has been going well. I’ve emailed quite a few bloggers and gotten good overall response from them. Hopefully this will help push UnAnchor forward.

As always, if you know someone (or are someone) who is interested in writing an itinerary for UnAnchor, please let me know or just refer them to the site. For the first 50 itineraries, submitted, I’m going to be giving the writer 90% of what they charge, rather than the normal 75%. If you’re looking for an example itinerary, shoot me an email.

Finding a Co-Founder

I’ve long believed that my best chance of success with UnAnchor was to find someone equally passionate about travel and the idea as myself. I’ve been passively looking for a co-founder. Recently, I posted an ad (free) to CoFounderGoogleDocs.com. Someone contacted me through my post and after having a lengthy conversation with him, we’ve decided to do a trial run working together. After the trial run, I plan on writing a post to discuss how things went and how we approached the trial run.

Suggestions?

Lastly, I’d love to hear your thoughts or suggestions on solving my chicken and egg problem. How would you recommend I find qualified people interested in writing itineraries for UnAnchor? I can’t promise I’ll try out your suggestion immediately, but I do promise I’ll add it to my ongoing list of ideas. Send me an email (Jason.Demant [at] gmail [dot] com) or leave a comment below.

P.S.  Check out the new “I Love Travel Writing” Facebook Group

If you love travel writing or just want to find out more about it, check out my new “I Love Travel Writing” Facebook group. Internet permitting, I try and post something new to discuss about travel writing 5-times a week. Thanks to James for this suggestion!

Possibly Related posts:

1. Building A Web App – UnAnchor.com
2. Launching & Marketing UnAnchor.com with a $0 Budget
3. UnAnchor.Com Launch – Your Assistance Is Requested

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

Now that I’ve left Korea, what do I miss?  I miss the food, being able to speak at least some of the language, having our own tiny home, and not waking up to 44 new mosquito bites in the morning like I did today.  True story.  I look like I have chicken pox.

Jason and I had “settled” down in Korea for a little over 5 months, including some Korea and Japan travel in the middle.  After an exhausting 4-month streak of not-so-hygienic trains and buses throughout China and Southeast Asia, I was more than ready to have a place to call home.  I loved living in Korea.  But, after 5 and a half months, we were ready to move on to something new and start backpacking again.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten how much public bathrooms in Southeast Asia (and China) scare the crap out of me, no pun intended.  My first memorable experience was this: walking into a spider-web infested, smelly and dark restroom where I shared my stall with a huge spider and a huge bullfrog, among many other creepy crawlies.  There was absolutely no receptacle in the stall, just a drain on the ground and a bucket of brown water that I can only assume was not anywhere near clean.  What would you do if you walked into this stall and hadn’t peed in 8 hours?  That’s probably what I did.

What a wake-up call this was, realizing that we were no longer in our beloved, familiar and developed country of Korea.  The great thing about places where the bathrooms frighten me, however, is that these are usually the places where the people are the friendliest.  We encounter many stares, as usual, but also huge smiles and thousands of “hello mister!!!!”  It brings me back to Cambodia and Vietnam: not the richest places in the world but definitely the biggest smiles.

Padang is a city that is 98% Muslim.  It is amazing how coming to a place like Padang can completely feel like stepping into a different world.  In terms of city layout and aesthetics, Padang reminds me of Phnomh Penh, Cambodia.  It is very obvious the minute you enter the city that “98% Muslim” is not an over-exaggeration.  While most of the men are wearing average clothing, almost all of the women wear the Muslim headdress called “Hijab”.

Just the same as other SE Asian countries, despite the ungodly heat, the locals continue to astound me with their long-sleeved hoodie jackets and pants.  I guess when you live in this heat all your life you just get used to it.  I don’t know how.

An interesting obstacle we have had to face since the moment we entered Indonesia was the fact that most people here are observing Ramadan, the Islamic month of “fasting” where eating or drinking is not allowed from sunrise to sunset.  What this means for us is that finding a restaurant open for lunch or early dinner is almost impossible unless it’s KFC (which we unfortunately had to eat today).  It is also interesting to observe, on the other hand, because we found out that they wake up at 3 or 4am every morning in order to eat and pray before sunrise.  It’s pretty cool to see such a religiously dense city.

Possibly Related posts:

1. In a Muslim World
2. Reactions From South Korea About The Recent Tension With North Korea
3. Our Time in Korea Wrap-Up

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

A quick warning: Most of these cultural observations are vast generalities that certainly won’t apply to everyone, but we’ve heard most of these from multiple people or witnessed them ourselves.

Introductions

• When meeting someone or saying goodbye, it’s customary to bow your head to the person.
• When shaking hands, passing money or a business card, the most polite way to do so is using both hands. However, there are less formal ways as well, depending on the situation. Placing your left-hand on your right-elbow is less formal than using both hands. Placing your left-hand on your chest is even less formal (but still considered polite). It can be considered quite rude however if you pass something with your left-hand.

Restaurants

• There’s never a need to ask for the bill in a Korean restaurant. They typically don’t give them out.
• You don’t pay at the table in a Korean restaurant. You always pay at the front of the restaurant. (Because of this, it’s always fun to watch Korean people run to the front to pay; to have the honor to pay the entire bill for everyone.)
• No tipping in Korean restaurants (or taxis for that matter either). I’ve even heard stories of the restaurant workers being confused as to why you’ve left too much money and giving the money back to the customers.
• Credit cards are accepted everywhere (Visa and MasterCard). It’s extremely rare for a restaurant, shop, or whatever to not accept credit cards.

Drinking

• When drinking with others, it’s customary to not pour your own drink.
• When someone is pouring your drink, out of respect you should hold your glass with two hands.
• As Sharon has previously written about, drinking and being drunk is completely acceptable in Korean culture. If you’re drunk and loud in a quiet neighborhood, it’s typically excusable and no one will call the police.

Married Life

• After a husband and wife are married, it’s common for a man to spend more time with his friends than his family. In fact, his friends will typically come before his family.
• You’ll hardly ever see a woman smoking in public. But inside a bar or a club, they smoke like chimneys.
• Once married, it’s Korean a custom that the woman belongs to the man’s family. There’s even a Korean saying that says that if the wife dies, she will haunt her husband’s family.

Other

• Koreans count age differently than the western world counts age. When you’re born, you’re considered 1, rather than 0. Additionally, instead of adding a year on your birthday, everyone becomes one year older on New Year’s Day. An interesting example of this is Sharon. Her birthday is December 24^th. According to Korean age, 6 days after being born, she turned 2.
• A lot of Korean words are simply English words spelled out phonetically using Korean characters. Korean can be learned in a couple hours, making it a fun thing to try and learn on the airplane ride over.
• The Korean language can be spoken with a huge range of formality. A verb can be conjugated numerous ways, each way being a different level of formality. For example, you use the most polite form when speaking with your grandparents. If talking with someone that’s a few years older than you, at a store for example, you use a different type of conjugation. When talking with your friends you use a non-formal conjugation. The most interesting example of this is in a school setting. If you’re talking with someone that is one grade ahead of you, a 2^nd grader talking with a 3^rd grader, the 3^rd grader will expect you to use a certain formal way of speaking to them. They’ll even go so far to correct the younger student.
• Similar to the roman character transliteration of Chinese (Pinyin), Korean spelled out phonetically in English requires you to learn how to pronounce it correctly. Sounding out the English transliteration as you would assume it sounds intuitively is typically wrong.
• Sticking up your middle finger used to mean nothing in Korea. However, because of the pervasiveness of American movies, it is now considered a rude gesture. The true Korean equivalent of sticking up your middle finger, is to hold your hand in a fist, and then stick your thumb up, in-between your middle and ring finger.

Photo Credit: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Pettirojo, Stewils

Possibly Related posts:

1. Vietnam Culture 101 – What I Wish I Knew
2. Koreans Getting Crunk- The culture of drinking
3. Korean Food and YOU

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

I initially looked for traditional Korean dance classes, and I eventually found one when we were living in Seoul, but it was like forcing myself to order a Korean bulgogi burger when there was a mouthwatering Red Robin Turkey Burger sitting right next to it.  I can’t help it, I’m a creature of habit when it comes to food.  Anyways, (and now that I have made myself hungry) I was intrigued with learning Korean dance but I still really wanted to find a Modern or Contemporary dance class.  Dance is one of the very few activities that I have a passion for, and those of you who have developed a passion for a particular hobby can probably empathize with this logic.

Well, my stubbornness ended up paying off because I discovered the most amazing Contemporary dance class.  Yes, the class was conducted solely in Korean, so I did not benefit from any of the things the teacher said, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as one would think.  I have studied dance for many years and have learned enough choreography to be able to tell what the teacher is emphasizing while they are demonstrating; it’s all in the body language.  For someone who is learning something new, however, like Jason learning Tae Kwon Do, it’s a whole different story.  He often had a hard time learning the fundamentals of technique because there are things that you have to explain to a student, and when the student doesn’t speak the same language as the teacher, there’s a major problem.

For anyone thinking about taking up a hobby in a foreign country, my advice would be to question whether or not you would be able to pick up on the skills without a full explanation.  If it is something that you already have experience with, it won’t be as difficult as you think.  It will be quite enjoyable, in fact, as many locals will probably be thrilled that a foreigner has joined their class, thus giving you special attention if you need it.  If you are looking to try something completely new, on the other hand, just be aware that the communication barrier will require more patience.  There is no doubt you will learn, but always be aware of the fact that you may not get a complete understanding of the craft.

On a side note, I have noticed that Koreans are FLEXIBLE!  When I took the contemporary dance class in Seoul, I felt like “baby’s first dance class” compared to the rest of the students during the warm-up.  Not only were they insanely bendy, but this particular class really emphasized leg extensions because mine was a good foot or two below everyone else’s (in dance, “extensions” are the act of extending a limb, whether it be to the front, side or back).  Clearly, my least favorite part of the class was when we practiced these.

Random Thought of the Day: A few weeks ago Jason spotted something that makes me laugh out loud every time I think about it.  It was an old Korean grandma wearing a t-shirt that said (in English) “Who the fuck is Mick Jagger?” I guarantee she had no clue what her shirt meant.

Photos courtesy of : Sydney Atkins and Velocity Weekly

Possibly Related posts:

1. Learning Taekwondo in South Korea
2. I’m learning Japanese, I think I’m learning Japanese, I really think so…
3. Reactions From South Korea About The Recent Tension With North Korea

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

I’ve been a fan of Kirsty’s Nerdy Nomad blog since back in my cubicle days. I was drawn in by her perpetual travel and completely transparent reports of how she earns her living online. As I followed her story, I learned that she not only travels but also volunteers, helping those in a time of need. She most recently volunteered with Hands On Disaster Response (HODR) in Haiti after the massive earthquake. She has become an expert on international volunteering and is now sharing her knowledge in a new ebook. She is even donating half of all money made from the ebook to HODR. I was excited to have the opportunity to interview her and in the following post, she answers a few of my questions about how she makes a living, about her experience volunteering in Haiti and her new ebook.

I’m from a city called St. Catharines which is about 15 minutes from Niagara Falls, Canada. I studied business at university but, to be honest, I mostly scraped by while spending most of my time at the pub. Pre-travel I lived at home, studied (sometimes) and worked mostly in retail to pay for the university courses I wasn’t really going to as often as I should.

When did you start traveling full-time and why?

As soon as I graduated university in 2001 everyone I knew was lining up interviews, going to job fairs and fretting about finding a ‘real’ job. I, on the other hand, was on a one-way flight to Australia and I haven’t lived in Canada since. I was eager to travel after having spent the summer of 2000 living and working in Galway, Ireland with a bit of travel around Europe at the end of the summer. I was pretty much hooked after that.

What is your primary source of income?

I build travel websites and make money through advertising, selling products (including my volunteering ebook), and through pay-per-click advertising such as Google Adsense. You can get an idea of the sites I run by reading this post (http://www.nerdynomad.com/2009/11/03/499) on my blog.

Once you’ve built a site with interesting and quality content, how much additional work is typically required?

Building the site, for me, is the fun part. The hard work begins once the site is finished. A wonderful site with great content but no visitors won’t make a cent. With my model and the type of sites I make, in order to make money I need them to rank well with Google and get a lot of search engine traffic. To do this I need to build links and get the word out there. The building links part is what takes the most work in the form of emailing people to swap links, and writing guest posts and articles to get back links.

What advice would you give someone interested in getting started in niche marketing and having a passive income like yourself?

This is a tough one because I’ve been out of the niche marketing loop for a long time (because I’ve been travelling and not reading many websites or doing much work) and I’m not really sure what’s going on in the industry. In short, I kind of know what I’m doing but I mostly just stumble and bumble my way through. This guy is considered an expert so might be a good place to start: http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/ I haven’t read the site in ages but it gave me a lot of ideas and good advice back when I was starting out.

I would also say to research, research, research. There’s a load of free information out there. Don’t get caught up in ‘get rich quick’ schemes because there’s nothing quick about this process. It took me years to earn my first cent. But I do think that we’re still in the early days of making money from the internet so get busy, grab hold of a niche and stick with it. Hard work now will pay off later as long as you work smart, do your research and stick with it.

Okay, enough with your “day job”, let’s move on to volunteering. What was your first experience volunteering abroad?

My first experience was volunteering in Madrid teaching – no, speaking – English to a bunch of Spanish business people. I paid to get myself to Madrid and they bussed English speakers and 25 Spaniards to a resort where we spoke for five days, non-stop to people eager to improve their language skills. We got good food, accommodation and even red wine in exchange for our efforts. The Spaniards were paying big bucks for the privilege so it didn’t feel like a true volunteering opportunity but what I loved (and what got me hooked) was the opportunity to get to know people who I otherwise would have never spoken to and to learn about their lives in Spain. I never would have met so many interesting locals had I been staying at a backpacker’s hostel in Madrid. Volunteering there really gave me an insight into life in Madrid.

What were your most recent volunteer experiences?

I was in Haiti from March to May 2010 volunteering with Hands On Disaster Response (HODR) (http://www.hodr.org) after the January earthquake. I spent most of my time early on working in teams to clear the rubble from people’s foundations so they could pitch a tarp on their own property, rather than in one of the camps. This involved a lot of shoveling, wheelbarrowing, sledge hammering rubble in the hot sun. Towards the end of my time there I worked on a school. It was just coming to completion by the time I was leaving and it was great to be a part of rebuilding rather than removing fallen structures.

If there was such thing as an “average day”, what was an average day like in Haiti?

It’s pretty surprising how routine life gets, even in a place like Haiti. We started work at 7:30 each day (except Sunday) but I was often up a lot earlier due to the heat and rooster combination. Breakfast of oatmeal, cereal and bread and peanut butter was provided and I sat with over 100 bleary-eyed volunteers gearing up for the tough day ahead.

At 7:30am we were outside loading up tools onto a tap-tap (basically a pickup truck) before heading off in teams of around 10 or 15 people to our job site. We’d have a bunch of different job sites running at once with most teams working on rubble sites. We would spend the day hauling rubble from the foundation out into the street where the UN would eventually collect and remove it. We often ended up making mountains of rubble that we’d have to ascend with the wheelbarrow. It was was hard but really rewarding, especially considering the people you were working with. Then we’d head home for lunch at about 11:30am with a 2 hour break during the hottest hours before heading back out in the afternoon to do more of the same.

After work some people would play basketball or floor hockey, some would head to the bar on the corner for a beer, and others would shower straight away and chill out. At 6pm we would all assemble for the dreaded meeting that would sometimes take as long as an hour. It was necessary though to say hello to new volunteers, goodbye to leaving ones and to update on the day’s work. After the meeting people would do their own things. Some nights I would head to the bar next door, others I would go to bed early completely shattered, others I would have a Creole lesson and sometimes I would just sit around chatting with friends.

Then sleep and repeat, six days a week!

What do you typically receive in exchange for volunteering?

Most of my volunteering has been with HODR who give food and accommodation and even a t-shirt in exchange for your work. You get yourself there and they look after the rest. I feel like I get so much more out of the experience than I’m able to give back. Besides the free food and accommodation, the friendships you build and the experiences you have in the community are, for me, what makes volunteering with HODR an amazing thing.

Do you have to pay to join the volunteer programs? The little bit of research we’ve done into volunteering always resulted in us having to pay.

I would never pay to volunteer. I would happily pay to cover my food and accommodation costs within reason (I don’t want to be a burden on the organization I’m there to help) but paying thousands to a middleman type organization is not for me. The problem is that these middleman type companies have Google sewn up. Try to do a search for ‘international volunteering’ or ‘volunteering in x country’ and you will be bombarded with supposed opportunities, all of which charge a fortune to participate. It’s easy to see why some people don’t even realize it’s possible to volunteer for free. But rest assured that there are a lot of free and cheap volunteering opportunities out there… you just have to work a bit harder to find them.

What advice would you give to someone interested in getting started volunteering abroad?

Buy my ebook! Ok it’s kind of lame to launch into a sales pitch, but it really will help you out. There are a lot of tips and resources in there for finding free volunteering opportunities. It’s my passion and I have a bunch of first-hand advice to offer. Plus 50% of each sale ($7) goes to HODR in my effort to raise $10,000 for them and support the great work they do.

Finally, what’s next for the Nerdy Nomad?

I’m in Rwanda at the moment and the plan is to stay put for a few months and catch up with about a year’s worth of work I haven’t done. That means some website and ebook promotion, link building, design tweaking and writing. I’m also hoping to launch another blog. Travel-wise I can see myself staying in Africa and hunting out interesting (and affordable) volunteering opportunities but I always have Haiti at the back of my mind and I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up back there at some point in the next year.

==================================

Thanks again to Kirsty for the interview. Her new, awesome ebook is called The Underground Guide to International Volunteering and is only $14 — half of that goes to Hands On Disaster Response. Sharon and I can attest to the fact that finding a solid international volunteer opportunity is not easy. There are a lot of folks trying to take advantage of good intentioned people.

To read more about Kirsty, check out her blog, Nerdy Nomad or on Twitter @Travoholic.

If you have any questions for her about international volunteering or anything else, shoot me an email or leave it as a comment and I’ll make sure to get the questions to her.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Professional Hacker to Location Independent Blogger – Interview with Anil Polat Foxnomad
2. Sharing Some of My Favorite Links From Around the Web
3. Good Morning Vietnam! – An Itinerary Update

Enjoy this article? Help us share it:

One of our favorite travel bloggers recently took the 7 link challenge and after reading further about it, it sounded like a fun idea. So, both Jason and I have compiled and completed the 7 link challenge. Please join us on a trip down memory lane…

Our First Posts

Jason’s First Post – Random Thoughts From My Cube With 14 Weeks To Go

Sharon’s First Post – Cutting the Keyboard Cord

Posts We Enjoyed Writing

Jason - The Great Adventure of Lunch in Haikou – This experience was so ridiculous that as soon as I came back from lunch I started writing. I had so much fun writing this post that the initial draft was waaay too long!

Sharon - The Top 9 Things about China that Shocked Us – This was one of my first posts and also the first time I truly felt that what I was writing about needed to be written!  Mainland China was our first stop into culture shock, so I will forever read this post and remember that feeling.

A Post Which Had A Great Discussion

Sharon - Dating in Korea – This was one of my more recent posts and developed a nice discussion panel in the comments section.  I asserted many of my own opinions on dating in Korea, and although they were just observations, many people agreed/disagreed with me on them.  It’s great knowing that people take what I write seriously, even if some of my writing does drip with sarcasm.

A Post on Someone Else’s Blog I Wish I’d Written

Jason – Nomadic Matt – “Why Americans Still Don’t Travel Overseas” – There were actually two parts to this post, here’s part 1. This is a topic I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. Matt’s post summarized the arguments well.

Sharon - YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily – I recently discovered this blog while searching for information on Koreans and their insane drinking habits, only to find an entire website’s worth of fun stuff.  One of them being a link to the “6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World”.

Your Most Helpful Post

Jason – “Visa Requirements for Asian Countries” – This list took a long time to compile and I’m proud of how helpful it is. Visa requirements are an annoying aspect of travel and I hope this helped (and will help) people planning on traveling to Asia.

A Post With A Title You Are Proud Of

Sharon – “Rock the Cat Ba (Island), Vietnam” – It’s obvious that this title parodies the song “Rock the Casbah” (and is also extremely corny) but it just makes me smile each time I think about it.

Jason – “Geoarbritage – Holy &#!% that’s cheap” – It took me a long time to choose the symbols that looked right. I think it’s the exclamation mark that really makes it look right.

A Post That I Wish More People Had Read

Sharon – What is this, a trick question?  I guess if I were obligated to answer this, I would have to say “14 Engrish Signs to Make You Laugh” just because I think everyone in the world deserves to know how awesome these horrible translations are.

Now I ask you: what’s your favorite blog of ours?  Do you even read our blog?  If your name is Holly, you probably do.

Random Thought of the Day: How awesomely random is this?

Possibly Related posts:

1. Unemployed and on the Adventure of a Lifetime
2. Guest Post Round-Up
3. New Year’s Adventure Resolution

Enjoy this article? Help us share it: