Looking for something great to read? Check out our ‘Best of the Month’!

With no further delay, we’re happy to introduce our monthly update, which includes our ‘Best of the Month’! In it we feature our fabulous five: our five most-read posts, our five busiest comment contributors and our five top referring sites. What makes them fabulous? Our readers do! We’ll take stock of our fabulous five once a month in order to celebrate and thank those that make this site special, offering a link back to the sites that have helped our light on the web burn a little brighter. Once a month, we also check out the state of our savings, as well!   

Top Five Articles from Two Go Round-The-World

1. Cheap Trick: A review of Tim Leffel’s ‘World’s Cheapest Destinations’: Bargaining is deeply ingrained in the culture of many destinations—and is something that you are expected to do. And for backpackers on the road, driving a hard bargain can even become a kind of status symbol
2. Hackpacking: Vodka’s many uses:  When faced with a lack of laundry facilities—or a prohibitively expensive laundry service—Kathryn and I have learned to do what many backpackers have before us—we turn to the bottle for relief. Vodka, of course!
3. A Checklist for Planning and Preparing for Your RTW Trip: An international study—published in January 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine—found using a checklist when performing surgery reduced the rate of complications by four per cent. It follows that planning for a long-term or round-the-world trip is not unlike performing surgery—on your life, no less! So a checklist should be mandatory!
4. In Defence of Long-Term Travel: We’re all here for the travel—and it’s a rare occurrence when the medium becomes more interesting than the message. But that’s what happened over the past few weeks in the travel blogosphere with a few classic posts. And we’re here to help you catch up—if only to apprise ourselves of the situation in so doing.
5. Looking Back: Elizabeth J Cottages, Bonavista: The butterflies ride the breeze, their wings like fine parchment pierced with windows of mica and sturdier than one might think. We close our eyes on exhale and confuse these moments into lifetimes.

Top Five Comment Contributors

1. Soultravelers3 (6)
2. Adventurous Kate (3)
3. Ayngelina (3)
4. Candice (2)
5. Corbin (1)

Top Five Referring Sites

1. Married with Luggage: On a mission to redesign their lives to travel full-time. Whether your dream is halfway around the world or in your own backyard, you’ll find information on goal-setting, living well, managing your money, and simplifying your life every week on this blog. 
2. Adventurous Kate: Adventurous Kate is an independent global travel site—here you’ll find travel advice, destination reviews, travel photography and dispatches from the road, all catering to the smart, fiery and independent traveler. Plus Vegas. There’s always room for Vegas. Join Kate in taking the unconventional route!
3. Johnny Vagabond: Join Wes on his 1+ year trip around the world. Currently in Vietnam, he’s traveling cheap, sharing tips, taking pics, and telling lies.
4. A Travel Around The World: Fed up with the 9-5 London routine? Just quit ‘n go! They did it. Follow this couple on a trip of a lifetime as they travel around the world through Asia, Australia, New Zealand and USA.
5. Do It While You’re Young: A website for young women from the ages of 18-35 designed to inspire and guide readers to travel, study, work and volunteer abroad.

Round-the-World Savings Update

This past month our savings climbed just 1% toward our goal—we now sit at 65%. It was a tough month for our savings; we encountered some one-time expenses that shaved a solid 2% off our monthly pace. No worries—we’ve been down this path before and know that there’s no reason to get discouraged; we’ll make up the difference down the road!

Saving for such a substantial investment in one’s self usually means making significant changes in the way one thinks about savings and the areas where one spends the most. Interested in our thoughts on saving for a round-the-world trip? Check out our series of articles focusing on personal finances for a round-the-world trip. The series comprises the following articles: Constructing a savings plan for your travel fund, Saving For a Round-the-World Trip and Budgeting for the return home. Have any budgeting or savings tips that didn’t make the lists herein? Please contact us!

"Best of Two Go RTW: August 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

In defence of long-term travel

We’re all here for the travel—and it’s a rare occurrence when the medium becomes more interesting than the message. But that’s what happened over the past few weeks in the travel blogosphere with a few classic posts. And we’re here to help you catch up—if only to apprise ourselves of the situation in so doing.

After chumming the water post-Travel Blog Exchange 2010 with some inflammatory hashtags, Alisha Miranda posted a rant over on SoSauce that was on its way to some interesting points before being quickly obscured by an ad hominem attack on Nomadic Matt. Referring ostensibly to Nomadic Matt, Alisha writes:

“…don’t tell me the right and wrong way to travel. I don’t want to hear it. I’m doing fine on my two passport stamps and don’t need your worldly views dragging me down for whatever reason you feel necessary… The lifestyle I choose as a traveler is entirely my decision… It seems like travel writers these days won’t tolerate anything less than a full-time backpacking lifestyle.”

While smacking of classic link bait (hey guess what—that stuff works), the ensuing interweb pile-on was interesting—and revealing—in its own right. Check out the comment stream following Alisha’s rant here.

In a more balanced but no less inflammatory post on Gadling, Mike Barish took issue with Nomadic Matt’s piece in the Huffington Post, owing to Matt’s “very firm opinions” on why his lifestyle is superior to the alternative that the vast majority of Americans call “normal”. Mike writes:

What someone at the age of 29 who has been traveling for much of his adult existence could possibly understand about the life that he rails against is actually less perplexing than his broad generalizations about those of us who do not abide by his philosophies. While there are certainly countless people who are lost in a sea of TPS reports and hollow pursuits, to write off all people with stable, non-travel lives as working stiffs is condescending at best and offensive at worst.

Mike goes on to write: “For the people who do stay home or perhaps only occasionally take traditional vacations, if they are happy, why is that bad?” Check out the rest of his post—and the comment stream—by clicking here.

We here at Two Go Round-The-World would certainly never begrudge someone the happiness they find in a traditional vacation—or the two stamps in their passport—but we see long-term travel as a worthwhile pursuit in its own right, as well. And in many ways, long-term travel is superior to traditional holidays. There. We said it. What we believe Nomadic Matt was getting at in his Huffington Post piece was that a lot of us fall prey to the North American belief that a vacation is a brief respite bookended by work.

Opinions, as the saying goes, are like asses— everyone’s got one and as human beings, we’re predisposed to believe that ours stinks less than everybody else’s. And now’s your chance to catch a gentle whiff of ours (we’re talking opinions here, of course).

There’s no doubt we see value in long-term travel—otherwise we wouldn’t have made it one of our ambitions and we’d certainly not be here wasting your time blogging about it. We believe it provides the opportunity for rejuvenation and relaxation, not unlike a “traditional vacation”. However, we view it as a chance for the traveller to hop off the treadmill and refocus one’s energy and vision. It’s an excellent way to recharge, take some time for yourself and see life from a different perspective.

Ultimately, Nomadic Matt’s idea of long-term travel is a protest against the traditional style of vacation that Mike Barish defends in his post. In the same way that we prefer regional cuisine, local farming and traditional food to a Big Mac combo, we are attracted to reflective travel that emphasizes a connection to local peoples and cultures.

But we’re known to chow down on a Big Mac occasionally—especially when hungover. And hey, we’ve hit a resort or two in our lives, too. She might be only twenty-something, but we believe that Stephanie Yoder’s got it right when, in response to some of the criticisms of Nomadic Matt’s lifestyle, she wrote: “My happiness is different from your happiness. More importantly: it’s not a threat to your happiness.” Check out her thoughts on the debate here.

In the interest of full disclosure—we don’t know Matt personally but our correspondence predates the launch of Two Go Round-The-World. In fact, his was the first blog to provide us a link back when we had just a post or two populating our archives. Last week, we had the chance to meet him at a post-work function—it was nice to finally meet him in person. Just in case you were wondering, he’s shorter in real life!

Over the last couple of years that we’ve been reading and participating in the travel blogosphere, we’ve noticed a growing  movement that’s finding new ways to proselytize about long-term travel—and some of them are indeed evangelical. Where once Rolf Potts was one of the only voices championing a vagabond lifestyle, a chorus has joined him. If anything, the dialogue surrounding Nomadic Matt’s piece in the Huffington Post proves that long-term travel is no longer of limited interest to travellers. Nomadic Matt bears some of this backlash because he promotes a blog that commands a large following and is very verbal in defence of his lifestyle—which in the time since his blog’s inception has moved into the mainstream. Long-term travel just doesn’t need to be defended anymore—at least not among those in the travel blogging community.

Instinctively, we’ve  know what a big market it has grown into—it’s so big that we should no longer consider it a niche  but instead regard it as part of mainstream—just another market segment along with baby boomers or empty-nesters, etc. And that’s a good thing, right?

Further Reading

• Miranda, Alisha. “Travel Geeks, BFDs, and Ego Checks 101: Working in the Travel Biz“, SoSauce.
• Miranda, Alisha. “Furthermore… A Follow Up to Pet Peeves of the Travel Biz“, SoSauce.
• Barish, Mike “On long-term travel, snobbery & judgmental blogging“, Gadling.
• Kepnes, Matt “Why We Travel“, Huffington Post.
• Yoder, Stephanie. “Haters Gonna Hate“, Twenty-something Travel.

"In Defence of Long-Term Travel" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The Salt Box cottage began to appear around 1870. The name Salt Box came from the design derived from an actual box of salt with the cedar roof short in the front and very long in the back. It was a typical house of the era, quick and easy to build. It was either a two story or a story and one-half, as pictured above.

Elizabeth J Cottages, Bonavista, Newfoundland (July 5, 2008) — The cottage, shot through with sun, beckons us awake. Where there was one are now two icebergs—the night having grown a twin, imperceptibly spinning in the light gravity of morning. The thin form of Kate moves behind the windows, each a mouth set in a square jaw. Planter boxes like curled lips sprout thin beards of hearty flowers, their thin tendrils reaching toward the sky. The smell of bacon rides the back of the wind rolling in from the sea—thick, but sharp. On the rocky shore, ancient rocks crawl in millennial advance from the bay, reptilian bellies flat in the silt. The tall grass, punctuated by butterflies, rolls in the breeze and genuflects in the sun’s slow arc. The butterflies ride the breeze, their wings like fine parchment pierced with windows of mica and sturdier than one might think. We close our eyes on exhale and confuse these moments into lifetimes.

This is an post from our collection entitled ‘Looking Back’. It includes an occasional entry from our journals that date back to 2001 when we first began writing about living and travelling abroad. We’ll present these paired with a photo in the form of a verbal postcard. Together, these postcards provide an (in)formal and often (in)coherent narrative of the trips we’ve taken!

"Looking Back: Elizabeth J Cottages, Bonavista" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Vote and name our newsletter!

Two Go Round-The-World’s newsletter may not launch until we’ve reached our goal of 50 subscribers (we’re currently sitting at 42 thanks to Phil, our newest subscriber) but that has not stopped Kathryn and I from getting the vote out to name our  newsletter.

Last month, we announced the “Name Our Newsletter and Win Contest!” which generated over thirty excellent entries. After sifting through the suggestions, we’ve narrowed the list of potential newsletter names down from just over thirty to ten of our favourite choices. As we think all of these suggestions would serve as excellent names for our newsletter, our work is done and we’re ready to turn things over to you. We need you to name our newsletter!

Readers can now rank by preference the ten finalist names submitted. The naming poll will remain open until August 31, 2010 and results of the poll will be announced in early September.

So what are you waiting for? Vote in our official poll and see which name(s) our readers prefer! Please choose your three favourite names from the selection below. Unfortunately, if you’re reading this through RSS, you’ll have to jump to our site to vote—our WordPress polling plugin doesn’t work through RSS, so please click here.

Remember, the winner will receive a credit for naming our newsletter, a twenty-five dollar ($25.00) gift certificate from Amazon and that general glowing feeling when you find out that you’ve won something. Regardless, everyone who has submitted a name has been entered into a drawing to receive a gift certificate.

Have you signed up for our newsletter?

Looking for exclusive travel deals, news and tips to help smooth the process of planning the ultimate journey? You’ll get all hidden gems we can’t pack into our blog! Sign up to receive even more travel inspiration from Kathryn and Daniel in our bi-weekly newsletter!

It’s free—subscribe to the travel newsletter today. No spam. Ever. You can unsubscribe anytime.

What’s this about a newsletter?

As part of our one-year blogiversary, Kathryn and I have decided to produce a twice-monthly newsletter that will run parallel to this blog. We’re doing this as a way for readers to keep in touch with the latest information about our blog, get a little exclusive inside information on what we’ve been doing and to make advance announcements.

What about content?

It will contain news, exclusive travel deals and tips to help smooth the process of planning the ultimate journey around the world. You’ll get all hidden gems we can’t pack into our blog:

• Recaps on the hot threads of conversation on Two Go Round-The-World from the last week
• Pointing out tools and services that you might find useful in planning your own RTW trip
• Exclusive newsletter-only tips from time to time that won’t go up on the blog (or at least won’t appear on the blog for a few weeks).

Why are we starting a newsletter now?

It’s an opportunity to increase trust and communication with our readers and gives us a chance to interact with them to an even greater degree.

When can we expect the first newsletter?

You can expect the first newsletter within the next few months. However, we won’t send out the first issue until we reach a milestone of 50 subscribers! Help get us there!

Will you spam me?

If at any point you wish to stop receiving the Two Go Round-the-World newsletter simply click the unsubscribe link in every email we send. Your emails will always be kept private and unsubscriptions will always be honoured. Looking forward to connecting with you via the newsletter in the weeks and months ahead. Your privacy will be valued and your email address will not be used for any other purpose than to send this newsletter. You may unsubscribe at any time.

"Vote to Name Our Newsletter!" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

We share some of our favourite hacks for backpackers and vagabonds...

Occasionally, Kathryn and I come across some great travel ‘hacks’—tips and shortcuts that help backpackers, vagabonds and long-term travellers get things done smarter, cheaper and more efficiently. So, with no further ado, here’s an inexpensive solution that might be deserving of a place in (or on) your backpack.

Backpackers have become quite adept at stretching a few things as far as humanly possible while on the road—money, for instance, and, of course, the days between loads of laundry. When faced with a lack of laundry facilities—or a prohibitively expensive laundry service—Kathryn and I have learned to do what many backpackers have before us—we turn to the bottle for relief. Vodka, of course!

Unlike the beverage itself, the origins of vodka are a bit cloudy—more than a few nations lay claim to vodka’s birthplace; although, according to recent research, the two countries likely to lay legitimate claim to one of the world’s most popular liquors are Poland and, of course, Russia. The drink is so ubiquitous that the Russian word ‘voda’—believed to be the root from which vodka originated—means ‘water’. Regardless, vodka is just as popular in Poland.

Originally produced for medicinal purposes, this crude anaesthetic and disinfectant was distilled from rye. However, it was not until the middle fourteenth century that vodka was distilled to sufficient potency to cause intoxication. Shortly thereafter, communities were producing the drink—to serve as both medicine and beverage!

For the purposes of this post, however, Kathryn and I aren’t interested in either of the more common applications for everybody’s favourite alcohol. In fact, vodka has a great many uses besides imbibing.

If you have clothing that is starting to get a little ripe, you can keep your clothes smelling fresher with vodka. Really! Simply spritz your duds with the stuff, then hang to dry in a well-ventilated area. Pick up a spray bottle from the dollar store and make a solution of water and vodka—then spray your clothes with the solution. Vodka kills odour-causing bacteria but, amazingly, doesn’t stain or leave a scent when dry. The alcohol in the vodka evaporates, killing odours while disinfecting!

If you turn to vodka on a regular basis, you also help your clothes last a little longer as they will not be washed as many times. In fact, vodka works better than commercial fabric sprays such as Febreeze since vodka kills smells on clothing but commercial alternatives only serve to mask odours. Also, vodka costs less and you need to use less on clothing when eliminating smells.

It’s an elegant, cheap and widely available alternative—the perfect hack!

More vodka hacks for the backpacker

• Try this remedy for healthier, lush hair—add a jigger of vodka to a 12-oz bottle of shampoo.
• To remove a bandage painlessly, saturate the bandage with vodka. The solvent dissolves the adhesive.
• If you have a blister that has opened, pour vodka over the raw skin as a local anaesthetic that also disinfects the exposed dermis.
• To cure foot odour, wash your feet with vodka. Comparison of a commercial foot powder wash vs a vodka wash showed that the odour was eliminated on both feet.
• Vodka will disinfect and alleviate a jellyfish sting.
• If all else fails, just turn the bottle upside-down and enjoy.

In the comment stream below, Uncornered Market’s Audrey Noll offers up a few additional uses for vodka, writing: “When I lived in Estonia as a Peace Corps volunteer, vodka seemed to be an important ingredient in every remedy.” Here are a few more of Audrey’s tips to add to the list—thanks Audrey!

• If you can’t break a fever, soak your socks in vodka and put them on.
• Vodka mixed with pepper is good for stomach issues.
• Vodka rubbed on mosquito bites help takes the itch away.

Have your own creative backpacking hacks to share—tips which may help someone to overcome a problem or limitation quickly and cheaply? Leave ‘em here. Or sound off in the comments below! Check out our collection of travel hacks by clicking here.

"Hackpacking: Vodka’s many uses" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Keep up with what we’re reading!

Each Friday, we share those sites and articles—those interesting links—that we are currently reading or have recently read. Enjoy these great posts that you may have missed this past week. If you have any suggestions for next Friday’s round-up, please contact us!

British told how to treat visitors. Britain’s tourism agency has released guidelines for how residents should treat visitors to the 2012 Olympics in London. Among the tips: Canadians get angry when people jump the queue and they don’t smoke, although “This may be different in Quebec,” and, what’s more, Canadians hate being confused with Americans. Check out Cathal Kelly’s piece in the Toronto Star here.

Win! Travel writers Lara Dunston and Terence Carter are excited to be announcing the sixth travel blogging contest in their year-long series. This time they want you to create an inspiring blog post comprised of one portrait photograph of a person you’ve met on your travels who touched you in some way and 250 words describing the moment you took the photo and how it affected you. For details, click here.

Is Ecotourism Sustainable? Writes Matt Long: “Ecotourism and sustainable travel are oft used and very trendy travel buzz words, but most… do little to protect designated areas.  I have encountered organizations, companies and properties that truly “get it” and do offer a sustainable experience. However, I fear that there are many more bad actors who are ruining [it] for everyone else. Check his piece out here.

Nomadic Matt settles down? Writes Matt: “Going from being always on the move to staying put has been a harder adjustment than I thought. When you are used to changing locations every few days or weeks, suddenly putting the brakes on that can send you through the proverbial windshield.” Check out Matt’s reflections from the other side of the glass here.

BootsnAll Threads

BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher, an online travel community and provider of services and information that travelers need and want. We frequent their forum—and bring to you our favourite threads from the past week!

How did you raise the $$$? Epic thread on Bootsnall now in its fifth year! Over 30 pages of posts on how to get money together for that trip of a lifetime. Check it out here. Could always consider nude modelling, of course.

Which pack is right? Bootie KatieG writes: “I’m taking a 2 month trip to Costa Rica starting in August. I’ve found tons of information about what to pack, but no great information on how to pack it.” The Booties weigh in — with a particularly in-depth reply from Mark Feenstra.

Keeping gear dry. Lindsey from Backpacker Daily (and also a Bootie) asks “Are netbooks affected by weather conditions?” Markus suggests stocking up on silica packs. Good advice here.

Newsletter contest. Our newsletter contest is entering its seventh week! However, we won’t send out the first issue until we reach a milestone of 50 subscribers! And we just need ~6 more subscribers to get us there! For a limited time, when you subscribe, you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. For more information—and to subscribe—click here.

Name our newsletter. How would you like to go down in history as the person who named Two Go Round-The-World’s newsletter? Well, here’s your chance. We’re looking for a new name for our newsletter and we need your help. Check out our post here—and there’s another prize!

"What We’re Reading: August 13, 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune
Author: Tim Leffel
Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591139368
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces

Bargaining is deeply ingrained in the culture of many destinations—and is something that you are expected to do. And for backpackers on the road, driving a hard bargain can even become a kind of status symbol.

It’s not normal practice in Western culture to haggle—so travellers often have misconceptions about how it’s done. Not wanting to get ripped off can sometimes motivate some to haggle too aggressively and cause offence. We once watched a fellow backpacker argue with the proprietor of a food stall in one of Beijing’s hutongs over the cost of a dumpling. The amount in question? About two yuan—just over US$0.30. Fed up, we called him away from the stall and offered to buy the dumpling for him. “That’s not the point” he argued—but what was the point then?

In some cases, the equivalent of US$0.30 may mean the difference between a meal for a family or not—and this is not an exaggeration. In China, (circa 2004), the average monthly income for a street vendor was ~676 yuan—the equivalent of about US$3.25/day. Out of this total, a Pekinese has to find food, rent, clothes and pay bills—the thought of saving for her own holiday is probably totally out of the question. As a Westerner, it’s good to remember how wealthy—and lucky—you are compared with the local population.

Nonetheless, haggling is an important skill for backpackers—as long as you don’t lose sight of the big picture. Accept that you’re going to lose. The trick is, however, making sure you don’t lose by too much. That’s why I dug Tim Leffel’s book—his insight arms your with enough knowledge that you’ll be prepared to lose—but do it shrewdly.

In The World’s Cheapest Destinations, Leffel provides a primer on the costs and value of round-the-world travel. He describes the book as “an overview and a jumping-off point. It can’t possibly take the place of a thick, general travel advice guide—or a guidebook for a specific destination or region.”

Leffel’s book certainly isn’t a guidebook, which might prepare you for how much a certain country or region can cost. Indeed, a guidebook rarely compares the cheapest countries and which regions offer the best value. Enter Leffel and his book, which fills just such a gap.

Leffel’s World’s Cheapest Destinations provides a capsule overview of 21 great travel bargains, with cost information for lodging, restaurant meals, local transportation and attractions. The book comprises seven destinations each from Asia and Latin America, the two regions of greatest interest to Kathryn and me. He also includes four European countries and three from Africa and the Middle East. Some might complain that some regions are given short shrift, but overall we feel that Leffel has done an admirable job of including destinations where travel is relatively good value—and even more importantly—of interest to the backpacker.

Our favourite feature—and one which sets it apart from other books on offer—is the section “what you can get for a buck or less” in each country at the close of each chapter. For example, a good ol’ US greenback will get you a 100-mile train ride in India while it might only win you five or six subway rides in Cairo.

Of particular interest to us was Leffel’s habit of outlining prices for those travelling alone, as well as those travelling as a couple. Leffel notes that a person travelling alone will spend more than two persons (naturally), writing: “A couple can usually travel on roughly 1.5x what a single person can, due to room shares, taxi shares and splitting some meal items”. He addresses the cost of travel from several angles and discusses value for backpackers and mid-range travellers alike. Where he feels splurging represents good value, he doesn’t hesitate to encourage his readers to spend a little extra. For example, when discussing accommodation in India, he writes: “Above all, this is a place to keep your finances in perspective; sometimes an extra dollar or two per night can mean the difference between a dark, grubby cubicle with peeling paint and a big, bright room with a great view.”

For the round-the-world traveller who is planning an adventure, Leffel’s book will prove to be a good tool and a good jumping-off point that will quickly provide an indication of where one might find great value in some of the most exotic regions in the world. In any case, we consider this book highly recommended for adventurous round-the-world travellers who are looking to travel on a shoestring.

Click here to purchase The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money Is Worth a Fortune from Amazon.com.

"Cheap Trick: A review of Tim Leffel’s ‘World’s Cheapest Destinations’" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Keep up with what we’re reading!

Each Friday, we share those sites and articles—those interesting links—that we are currently reading or have recently read. Enjoy these great posts that you may have missed this past week. If you have any suggestions for next Friday’s round-up, please contact us! 

[Editors' note: Since publishing this piece Teresa Keller has contacted us and asked us to correct our link. She maintains, as per her website, that donations go toward the humanitarian projects and to the cost of generating educational content and raising awareness of world affairs issues. She doesn't explain exactly what 'content cost' entails but maintains it will be low as the family will produce most of it themselves as they travel.] 

Get out o’ yer comfort zone. “Does travel always equal going outside your comfort zone?” ask Audrey Scott and Daniel Noll from Uncornered Market. The quick answer? Not necessarily. They continue: “It’s about getting lost—sometimes physically, often times emotionally—and placing yourself in situations [that challenge].” Check out some of their hints for escaping your comfort zone here. 

 Essential tips for the laid-back traveller. It’s easy to leave things behind when you’re frequently moving—so you’ll need a good system to keep good track of what you and have where it goes. A Little Adrift’s Shannon O’Donnell shares her top tips for staying organized on the road. One trait we all share? A methodical packing system. Packing cubes are a godsend. 

Travelling couples! Gap Year Escape’s Amar shares a great collection of couples who travel—and blog about it. He writes: “Relationships and travelling can sometimes be a cause of concern for some people. It is true though, travelling can make or break a relationship.” There’s no shortage of couples blogging about travel at the moment—check Amar’s list here. 

BootsnAll Threads

BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher, an online travel community and provider of services and information that travelers need and want. We frequent their forum—and bring to you our favourite threads from the past week!  

Couple finances. Bootie Flackattack asks: “My girlfriend and I are getting ready to go to South and Central America for a year or more. We’ve both been saving well and are in good enough financial shape”. He continues: “Since so many trip expenses are shared—and we don’t want the ‘my turn/your turn’ or ‘I owe you/you owe me’ hassles—how have you gone about equaling the bottom line while on a trip?”. The Booties weigh in here. 

Time to move on? Bootie Jeannie99 writes: “On our 12-month round-the-world trip we rarely stayed in any one spot for more than five days. The excitement of moving on to the next location became addictive—although it could be tiring at times.” Asks Jeannie99: “How do other members manage their trips?” Check out the answers here. How long do you stay in any one place? 

RTW or not? “If I decide that an around-the-world is the way to go, I will be over 40 at the time of my trip; I will spend the next six years saving and planning, etc.” writes Nickers76. She continues: “However, I could take shorter trips to different regions and start doing them sooner. Any ideas on my plans pros and cons of the two ways?” Booties offer up their takes on different style of long-term travel here. 

Name our newsletter. How would you like to go down in history as the person who named Two Go Round-The-World’s newsletter? Well, here’s your chance. We’re looking for a new name for our newsletter and we need your help. Check out our post here—and there’s another prize!

"What We’re Reading: August 6, 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The 'key' to success—get it? We've always wanted one of these silly visual metaphors to grace one of our posts!

In the comment stream of last month’s article on our one-year anniversary—“Four Mistakes We Made in Our First Year of Travel Blogging”—Andy Hayes of Sharing Travel Experiences asked: “What four things did you do really well in your first year of travel blogging?”. In the same set of comments, we promised Shannon O’Donnell (she of A Little Adrift) that we would reveal things that worked for us in our first year. While it was fun (and useful) to share our defeats—it’s also important and helpful to recognize our successes.

Like we touched on in our earlier post, creating a travel blog is not an easy thing to accomplish. In fact, we’re still perfecting our recipe for success and striving to better ourselves while fine tuning our methods. During our first year, we made a lot of mistakes—but we did get a few things right. Here are the four most important elements that contributed to our success in our first year of travel blogging.

1. We had fun

Early on, we made sure that our blog and the topic on which it pivoted was something into which we could really sink our teeth. We love blogging—and we love to travel. Even when we’re not doing it, we’re dreaming of it—and we feel that our readers sense this joy, enthusiasm and enjoyment. Just like Malcolm Gladwell writes in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking—and we paraphrase—your readers will begin to form an opinion of you almost immediately after discovering your blog. Moreover, they’ll read between your lines. The best way to engage your readership is by believing in the story that you are conveying to them.

Do you really want to have a hugely ‘successful’ travel blog that you hate running? Early on, we made sure that our blog and the topic on which it was based was something that we loved to do. That way, success was ours from day one. If you love what you’re doing, success will be automatic.

2. We chose quality over quantity

All over the blogosphere, so-called experts proffer tips and techniques for succeeding in the world of blogging. A lot of what you come across is good advice, but often it’s crap. Take, for example, the rule of being consistent with posting frequency. The theory behind posting frequency holds that blogs do better over time if they adhere to a consistent publishing schedule. Some prominent bloggers suggest that bloggers who publish less than two to three times per week have no strategic plans for growth. Complete bull.

This, of course, has not been our experience. We were thrilled if we got more than a post done every few days. In the beginning, however, we drank the kool-aid. Our experience told us that we were not only lying to ourselves, but also setting our blog up for failure. It was clear to us that mediocrity comes a dime a dozen. Therefore, early on in the life of our blog, we decided that we would prefer to write quality posts in lieu of greater numbers. Do we knock it out of the park with every post? Certainly not. But we do feel that the blog is better off for it.

As a reader, what would you prefer: a blogger that produced average posts consistently or great posts with less frequency? We subscribe to over 200 travel blogs in Google Reader—and nothing irks us more than a blogger who has churned out a substandard post just to meet an arbitrary count for the week. It’s a waste of time for both blogger and reader.

3.  We chose to host our blog under our own steam and on our own domain

So you’ve decided to start a travel blog, but aren’t sure whether you should host the blog yourself or sign up for a free service like blogger.com. It’s a dilemma that many bloggers face. There are pros and cons to both, which makes the decision difficult for many. That being said, Kathryn and I are very happy that we chose to host our blog under our own steam and on our own domain right out of the gate. You’ll see that Two Go Round-The-World is hosted at twortw.com and is powered by WordPress.

Our decision to host our own blog was motivated by a desire to enjoy a greater amount control and flexibility with our blogging. Standalone blogs can be configured to look and run very professionally and to be adapted into configurations that are limited only by one’s imagination—not so with free solutions. Free blog publishing tools are a great way to introduce yourself to blogging but, if you decide that you want to turn blogging into something more than a hobby—or just want more control over your work—you’ll need to consider a self-hosted option.

4. We took care of some basic SEO early

For the most part, WordPress comes ready to embrace search engines—in other words, the Mighty Google. WordPress does a far better job at allowing your pages to be indexed than every other blog platform or CMS we have used. But there’s a few things you should do to make your blog more appealing to the search gods. Check out some of the suggestions here.

Firstly, it’s imperative that you create SEO friendly WordPress URLs. By default, WordPress uses dynamic web URLs that may hinder some of your search engine optimization efforts. Thankfully, the WordPress admin panel is set up so that you can set up friendlier permalinks in a matter of minutes. If you’re interested in learning how to create SEO friendly URLs, read more at WordPress Beginner here.

Secondly, if you have checked out the most popular WordPress plugins, you will invariably see a reference to All in One SEO Pack. This plugin helps to optimize your WordPress blog for search engines. In fact, the All in One SEO Pack for WordPress has proven to be one of the most essential plugins we’ve downloaded. Since we first stumbled on it, we’ve recommended it to our colleagues as a simple way to convince popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN to crawl their blog. More importantly, this plugin boasts features that can otherwise be found in a dozen or so separate plugins, making it a convenient and powerful option. Learn more about  the All in One SEO Pack at WordPress Beginner here.

Conclusion

Are you a travel blogger? What have you learned from creating your own travel blog? Share some of the lessons you’ve learned from while setting out! And for those travel bloggers just starting out—you might want to check out our posts focused on our experiences running a travel blog:

• “Building a better travel blog“: Posted way back in July of 2009—when we ourselves were just setting out!  In this post we identify some areas in the blog that we felt could be tweaked to better support and communicate our vision.
• “Four Mistakes We Made in Our First Year of Travel Blogging“: During our first year, we made a lot of mistakes. Here are four of our biggest, in hopes they will help bloggers starting out.
• “Travel bloggers—you’re doing RSS wrong!“: If you only offer an excerpt of your content through an RSS feed, you’re doing it wrong (in our humble opinion, of course).

This posting was inspired in part by Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog—a downloadable e-book designed to help you revitalize your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will all help to improve! Darren’s book essentially provides one action or activity to do per day for a 31 day period—and a lesson around why it should be done. Today’s ‘list post’ was the second activity from the work book, the first was our post on building a better travel blog. We’ve been working through the activities that Darren has suggested and will include a note whenever a post is inspired by his program. For anyone who hasn’t checked out Darren Rowse’s eBook already, we highly recommend it. In addition to providing substantive recommendations on how to improve your blog, there is an excellent community built around his methods.

"Four things we did right in our first year of travel blogging" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The importance of planning!

An international study—published in January 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine—found using a checklist when performing surgery reduced the rate of complications by four per cent. It follows that planning for a long-term or round-the-world trip is not unlike performing surgery—on your life, no less! So a checklist should be mandatory!

That’s why we’ve drawn together this ever-evolving pre-departure checklist from a number of sources around the web and in print and are sharing it with our readers. You can view our ‘Round-The-World Pre-Departure Travel Checklist’ by clicking here. Designed to help you make your transition to round-the-world traveller as smooth and effective as possible, this checklist will ensure you manage the transition to vagabond with ease.

Print the the page locally and cross stuff off as you go, or just bookmark it and return to is as often as you need. The list is meant to provide a starting point to guide you in creating your own round-the-world checklist—remember, really great checklists are usable because they’re tailored to suit your own situation.

We are big time believers in checklists.  If it it’s so easy for an otherwise competent doctor to miss a step (to return to our earlier analogy) or, in the stress and pressure of the moment, to fail to plan properly for every eventuality, then why do we believe that we’re immune to the same pressures ?

If you can negotiate the complex process of preparing to go, the complications you encounter during your round-the-world trip should prove to be a piece of cake. Ready to go and unsure if you have thought of everything? Look at our handy checklist for an outline of some of the most important things to consider before you hit the road. Click here.

"A Checklist for Planning and Preparing for Your RTW Trip" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Deciding between using full posts and excerpts isn’t limited to just your RSS feed.

Travel bloggers, if you only offer an excerpt of your content through an RSS feed, you’re doing it wrong! As a reader, I prefer to subscribe to feeds that display full posts. In my opinion, the whole point of an RSS reader is to aggregate everything you want to read, saving time and bandwidth by not having to visit every travel blogger’s website. I personally believe that using excerpts in feeds takes away from the convenience of RSS. For our blog, we use full posts in the RSS feeds because we think that is what our readers prefer—and deserve.

No idea what RSS is? No worries. Read on!

What is RSS?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)  has become a valuable technology for everything from casual web users to webmasters. According to a recent Yahoo survey, however, only 28% of internet users were aware of RSS and a mere 12% have knowingly used the technolofy. Still not sure what RSS is? No worries! RSS exists as a means to gather and display information quickly and easily.  

You have probably seen small, often orange, RSS or XML icons on websites. These icons link to that website’s ‘feed’—a consistently formatted selecton of content. RSS feeds often include the title of the article and a small excerpt or even the whole article. You read these ‘feeds’ in a program called an aggregator (like Google Reader), which collects news from various websites and provides it to you in a simple form. 

 A lot of our readers read Two Go Round-The-World through our RSS feed. In fact, our RSS subscribers almost outstrip our daily visitors—not by much mind you, but enough to significantly affect our overall traffic. Check out the growth curve!

Great growth! Our RSS subscribers almost outstrip our daily visitors.

Why do so many of our readers use RSS? We believe it’s because travelers are a technically savvy demographic. They’re generally quick to adopt new forms of technology that can save them time—and money. They’ve been exposed to RSS through marketing initiatives by big travel industry players such as Expedia—who offer personalized travel deals delivered directly to their customers by RSS—when and where they want them. It’s easy and free.

If you use an RSS reader, you’ll notice two different methods travel bloggers use for displaying their RSS feeds. Some bloggers choose to show readers the full post directly in the RSS reader, while others choose to only use short excerpts that contain a link to the blog post on their site. 

It’s clear that RSS readers are a very targeted audience since they’ve chosen to read your feed—so why punish them by only offering a portion of your post?

Excerpts

That being said, each method has its pros and cons. From the perspective of a travel blogger, using an excerpt might appear to be the best solution. Excerpting a post will ultimately increase page views as readers will have to visit your site to read the full post. Of course, this will affect your overall traffic ranking and possibly advertising revenue. On the other hand, less people overall read your post, as it requires clicking through your link and visiting your blog. As a result, your RSS subscribers can become frustrated with not being able to see the full post and they may ultimately unsubscribe from your site.

Full Posts

In our opionion, full posts will be read by a higher percentage of subscribers. And, moreover, your RSS subscribers will increase. On the other hand, you drive less traffic to your blog, resulting in decreased page views, lower traffic rankings and reduced advertising revenue.

What’s a travel blogger to do?

You may have noticed that many popular news sites like CBC, BBC and CNN prefer using excerpts. These news sites only display the headlines in their RSS feed—and do not show any of the story until you visit the actual website. So which method is the right method for your travel blog? For our blog, we use full posts in the RSS feeds because we think that is what our readers prefer—and deserve.

One of the number one goals for most travel bloggers is to gain the trust of the largest possible audience. Readers aren’t just ‘traffic’, they are also your supporters. Because it is so difficult to increase your readership, doesn’t it make sense to try to retain your readers at any cost? If you make reading easier for your readers, they will appreciate it more than you realize.

You should not hold anything back from your readers, so give them everything that you can in your RSS feed. If you give your readers exactly what they subscribed to, you will benefit from an increase in RSS subscribers, a greater number of posts getting bookmarked on sites like StumbleUpon, more viewer comments, and more travel bloggers—and others—referencing about your blog in theirs.

Blog front pages—an ‘excerption’ to the rule

Deciding between using full posts and excerpts isn’t limited to just your RSS feed. Excerpts can also be used on the blog homepage. Although we use full posts in the RSS feed, we use excerpts on the blog’s front page. Our reason for doing so is the same—we believe it is what my readers would prefer.

Using excerpts on the blog front page can help increase your page views, but I think that is a secondary—and better—reason for using them. When we visit blogs, we like to be able to quickly and easily review titles and excerpts of several posts all at once, rather than needing to scroll down through an entire post. We believe it gives the reader a chance to quickly assess what type of content is available on the blog.

Conclusion

Ironically, we wrote this post because we’ve seriously been considering switching our RSS feed to use excerpts instead of full posts. We hate excerpting—we really do. But we need to try something to improve the meagre ad revenue we generate. Given the choice between pissing off every Two Go Round-The-World subscriber and making a few extra bucks, we’ll opt for keeping our subscribers happy.

Readers—we would now like to throw the question out to you. When reading RSS feeds, do you prefer to see the full post inside your RSS reader or do you just want to see an excerpt? Let us know in the comments what you prefer!

Travel bloggers—have you tested the difference between full-text and excerpt RSS feeds? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Please share your comments below.

"Travel bloggers—you’re doing RSS wrong!" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Looking for something great to read? Check out our ‘Best of the Month’!

 With no further delay, we’re happy to introduce our monthly update, which includes our ‘Best of the Month’! In it we feature our fabulous five: our five most-read posts, our five busiest comment contributors and our five top referring sites. What makes them fabulous? Our readers do! We’ll take stock of our fabulous five once a month in order to celebrate and thank those that make this site special, offering a link back to the sites that have helped our light on the web burn a little brighter. Once a month, we also check out the state of our savings, as well!   

Top Five Articles from Two Go Round-The-World

1. Four Mistakes We Made in Our First Year of Travel Blogging: We’re not going to mince words—creating a travel blog is not an easy thing to accomplish. We’re still perfecting our recipe for success and striving to better ourselves while fine tuning our methods. During our first year, we made a lot of mistakes. Here are four of our biggest, in hopes they will help bloggers starting out.
2. Managing day-to-day spending on the road: In most regions of the world, international ATMs are the best way to manage money while abroad. They are convenient, safe and often provide the best exchange rate—discounting, of course, their sometimes exorbitant service charges. This is generally the cheapest and most convenient way to get cash in the local currency.
3. Introducing our new online newsletter! The community at Two Go Round-The-World is growing in size and involvement so today we’re happy to announce a very special way in which readers can become a little more involved in the blog—by subscribing to a special free newsletter!
4. Snap de la semaine: Ha Long Bay, Vietnam: The grounds of Bangkok’s Grand Palace are large enough to spend an afternoon if you really want to see it all, totalling over 200 acres and more than 100 buildings. That’s a lot of photographs—so make sure your camera’s fully charged! The buildings and grounds are beautifully manicured and the temples within the complex are some of the most stunning in the Kingdom.
5. Name Our Newsletter and Win Contest! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! We would like to announce the name of our new online newsletter… um… oh wait… we don’t have one. Wow, that’s awkward. Well, then, we would like to announce our ‘Name our Newsletter and Win’ contest! Hot on the heels of our first-ever contest to celebrate the introduction of our twice-monthly newsletter, we’ll be awarding yet another $25 gift certificate from Amazon to a lucky winner!

Top Five Comment Contributors

1. JoAnna (4)
2. Michael (3)
3. Akila (2)
4. Ayngelina (2)
5. Dave and Deb (2)

Top Five Referring Sites

1. Johnny Vagabond: Join Wes on his 1+ year trip around the world. Currently in Vietnam, he’s traveling cheap, sharing tips, taking pics, and telling lies.
2. Married with Luggage: On a mission to redesign their lives to travel full-time. Whether your dream is halfway around the world or in your own backyard, you’ll find information on goal-setting, living well, managing your money, and simplifying your life every week on this blog. 
3. Adventurous Kate: Adventurous Kate is an independent global travel site—here you’ll find travel advice, destination reviews, travel photography and dispatches from the road, all catering to the smart, fiery and independent traveler. Plus Vegas. There’s always room for Vegas. Join Kate in taking the unconventional route!
4. Nerdy Nomad: Nerdy Nomad is Kirsty Henderson, an international volunteer who originally hails from Canada but who has lived abroad since 2002.
5. Twenty-Something Travel: A blog about travel for young people—the why, the where and the how. Updated every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Round-the-World Savings Update

This past month our savings climbed a further 3% toward our goal. We now sit at 64% of our goal. Staying interested and motivated to save is directly related to your success. Set yourself up for more success than failure by being realistic when setting savings goals. Start with small, bite-sized saving targets at first. As you get better and more successful in cutting back, make your savings targets more ambitious. 

Saving for such a substantial investment in one’s self usually means making significant changes in the way one thinks about savings and the areas where one spends the most. Interested in our thoughts on saving for a round-the-world trip? Check out our series of articles focusing on personal finances for a round-the-world trip. The series comprises the following articles: Constructing a savings plan for your travel fund, Saving For a Round-the-World Trip and Budgeting for the return home. Have any budgeting or savings tips that didn’t make the lists herein? Please contact us!

"Best of Two Go RTW: July 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Keep up with what we’re reading!

Each Friday, we share those sites and articles—those interesting links—that we are currently reading or have recently read. This week, we’ve got a special treat—a number of posts grouped around a theme: the costs of travelling round-the-world!  If you have any suggestions for next Friday’s round-up, please contact us!

It’s not easy to estimate the cost of a round-the-world trip—there are just so many moving parts. At the same time, the phrase “How much does a round-the-world trip cost?” is one of the more frequent queries people Google before arriving here at Two Go Round-The-World. This week, we take a quick look at the per day costs for a sample of travel bloggers who’ve gone on record and shared their per-day costs. One day soon, we’ll increase the sample size and take a more methodical approach—but for those in the planning stages, or those who are simply curious, here’s a few round-the-world trips by the numbers!

The Bottom Line(s)

Susan and Grace from 13 months (~US$135/day). Back in 2006, Susan and Grace, a recently married couple embarked on thirteen months of around-the-world travel. In a nutshell, they averaged somewhere under ~US$4,000/month (their costs fluctuated greatly, of course, depending on their location). Their daily totals included airfare, accommodation, food and everything else they needed along the way. For more info, check out their itinerary and round-the-world cost breakdown here.

Jason  and Sharon from Life After Cubes (~US$75/day). Jason Demant and Sharon Duckworth left their Silicon Valley jobs in 2009 to pursue a Life After Cubes. They saved US$50,000 for a year-long trip, initially thinking they would require ~US$125/day to live their dream. However, it took them just a few weeks to realize that this was far beyond what they would actually need. See their itinerary and spending here.

Jillian and Danny from I Should Log off… and Live (~US$100/day). Jillian and Danny are just your average 20-something couple looking to explore the world—and they keep a great handle on their spending, updating it each time they leave a country for a new one. Check out their itinerary and their spending here.

Dave Lee from Go Backpacking (~US$77/day). Dave Lee blogged his way around the world from 2007–09, during which he tried to strike a balance between providing current and useful data with not being too nerdy and spending all his time calculating exchange rates and accounting for every penny. Ultimately, he believes his record keeping was fairly accurate. Total cost of his 15-month trip around the world? US$35,029. Check out his itinerary and cost breakdown here.

Michael Tieso from Art of Backbacking (~US$60/day). Michael Tieso writes: “I spent a grand total of US$19,568 from May 2009 until April 2010—that’s US$1,778/month for an average of US$60/day—more than I expected for the destinations to which I travelled”. Check out his post entitled “Cost summary of 11 months round-the-world” here for his itinerary and spending totals.

Budgeting Tools

Anil Polat points to a number of good online budgeting tools that can help give you an idea of what you’ll need to save up and set aside for your simple travel budget. Here’s a sampling:

• Budget Your Trip: Provides cost estimates for cities around the world based on other travelers’ experiences.
• cost4travel: Provides a way for travelers to record and reference their travel costs, so that other travelers can budget realistically for their future trips.

BootsnAll Threads

BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher, an online travel community and provider of services and information that travelers need and want. We frequent their forum—and bring to you our favourite threads from the past week!

Itinerary and budget advice. Over on the boards, fellow Bootie Ozzie Traveller writes: “Overall, I think my itinerary averages out at ~US$40/day if I am to visit all the places listed over the timeframe given. Obviously this is open to change”. Fellow Booties offer advice up here.

Lonely Planet costs per day. Fellow Bootie yanks26dmb writes: “I’m having a terribly hard time budgeting for my round-the-world trip because I am getting so much different info on costs per day around the world.” He continues: “Lonely Planet is very in depth, but seems to be a bit higher than other sources I’ve looked at”. Booties weigh in on costs.

The cost of going round-the-world. Jeanie99 writes: “I’d be interested to know if the cost of your round-the-world trip was more than you had expected or less than you had thought.” Of course, the Booties’ answers are quit diverse! Check it out here.

Newsletter contest. Our newsletter contest is entering its fifth week. However, we won’t send out the first issue until we reach a milestone of 50 subscribers! And we just need about a dozen more subscribers to get us there! For a limited time, when you subscribe, you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. For more information—and to subscribe—click here.

Name our newsletter. How would you like to go down in history as the person who named Two Go Round-The-World’s newsletter? Well, here’s your chance. We’re looking for a new name for our newsletter and we need your help. Check out our post here—and there’s another prize!

"What We’re Reading: ‘By the numbers’ edition" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Pantai Cenang is one of Langkawi's most popular beaches among tourists and locals. It's well known not for its postcard sunsets and a long soft sand beach great for swimming.

Kathryn and Daniel will post a ‘Snap de la semaine’ irregulary, but at a rate of one per week. It is an original photo not otherwise on the site—it might be fresh from our camera, a new scan of some old film, a product of our fooling around with Photoshop, or a file from the archive that we haven’t posted yet.

"Snap de la semaine: Pantai Cenang, Langkawi" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Few images created in the last century are as instantly recognizable as the official portrait of Mao that hangs over Tiananmen Square. For decades, the 15-by-20-foot oil painting has served as a national icon. This is the same image that, in the 60s and 70s, was widely reproduced and displayed in thousands of homes, schools, factories and government buildings.

Beijing, People’s Republic of China (April 26, 2002) — As I sit in Tian’anmen Square eating a Big Mac and drinking a Coke over the nucleus of a country’s rupture, I enter the world as a tourist; am become invisible like the dead son of an Inuit tribe that welcomes its children into the source of meaning by naming them through their environment. Snow, Sun, River—names in which are conjoined and condensed a person whose past and continuity coincide with the word until the child dies or is married off and the word is never to be repeated or refound. What word did you stop repeating when you learned of my absence?

This is an post from our collection entitled ‘Looking Back’. It includes an occasional entry from our journals that date back to 2001 when we first began writing about living and travelling abroad. We’ll present these paired with a photo in the form of a verbal postcard. Together, these postcards provide an (in)formal and often (in)coherent narrative of the trips we’ve taken!

"Looking Back: Tiananmen Square" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Keep up with what we’re reading!

Each Friday, we share those sites and articles—those interesting links—that we are currently reading or have recently read. Enjoy these great posts that you may have missed this past week. If you have any suggestions for next Friday’s round-up, please contact us!

Tainted travel bloggers. Monica Wong’s thought-provoking post spawned a plethora of comments. Recently, Monica came across—but hasn’t revealed—a number of travel bloggers who aren’t disclosing  sponsored posts. She writes: “I’m not going to name names but what bothered me the most was that these travel bloggers are relatively prominent in the travel blogging community. My impression of them has been tainted. Which leaves me to question, how many top travel bloggers out there do the same thing while working under the guise that they uphold what they say in their disclosure policy?”. Check out here post — and the ensuing discussion here. There’s also some good dicussion in her follow-up piece entitle: “Undisclosed Sponsored Posts“.

Comparison shots. Dave and Deb from The Planet D thought it would be fun for this to compare some of their photos to those of National Geographic. They tried to choose photos that had a similar subject. Interesting comparisons—it doesn’t hurt that Dave takes nice photos!

Reasons you should write a travel blog. Are you a would-be blogger? “Are you planning a trip around the world?” asks Matt of Backpackingmatt. He continues: “Travel blogs are an option for all kinds of travelers, backpackers, or soon-to-be travelers or backpackers.” See if you fit the travel blogger profile here.

Pick a pic. Erica from Yonderlust (great blog name—love the puns) shares the favorite picture she’s taken while abroad. We like it, too.

Newsletter contest. Our newsletter contest is entering its fourth week. However, we won’t send out the first issue until we reach a milestone of 50 subscribers! And we just need about a dozen more subscribers to get us there! For a limited time, when you subscribe, you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. For more information—and to subscribe—click here.

Name our newsletter. How would you like to go down in history as the person who named Two Go Round-The-World’s newsletter? Well, here’s your chance. We’re looking for a new name for our newsletter and we need your help. Check out our post here—and there’s another prize!

BootsnAll Threads

BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher, an online travel community and provider of services and information that travelers need and want. We frequent their forum—and bring to you our favourite threads from the past week!

Volunteering in Africa on the cheap. Josepha24 and his girlfriend and are on month eight of their one-year RTW and are heading to East Africa in a few weeks. He writes: “Since money is starting to run low we wanted to find a place where we could volunteer for 2-3 weeks. Most places I found on the internet are “volunteer vacations” that cost thousands of dollars. I’m looking for something cheap or free.” Booties give some good suggestions here.

From Turkey to Iraq. An oldie but a goodie—John Hughes relates travelling through Turkey and into Northern Iraq in 2007. Really interesting post.

Travel insurance. Good independent information here on World Nomads travel insurance. We recommend it, as well.

"What We’re Reading: July 23, 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! We would like to announce the name of our new online newsletter… um… oh wait… we don’t have one. Wow, that’s awkward. Well, then, we would like to announce our ‘Name our Newsletter and Win’ contest! Hot on the heels of our first-ever contest to celebrate the introduction of our twice-monthly newsletter, we’ll be awarding yet another $25 gift certificate from Amazon to a lucky winner!

How would you like to go down in history as the person who named Two Go Round-The-World’s newsletter? Well, here’s your chance. We’re looking for a new name for our newsletter and we need your help. We’d love to hear your suggestions.  Aside from guaranteed fame, you’ll be rewarded with the aforementioned gift—a $25 gift certificate from Amazon.

We’d like a name that reflects our focus on helping to uncover and record some of the trails and tribulations of planning a round-the-world trip and our commitment to smoothing the process of planning the ultimate journey! And, if at all possible, the title should be inspirational!

Come up with your own unique idea and forward all responses to us through our contact form. Everyone who submits a name will be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. After the contest closes, we’ll select the best entries and put them up to a vote right here on the blog! Democracy rules!

Name Our Newsletter Contest Rules

How to Enter. You may enter the Name Our Newsletter Contest by sending us an email here. Your entry must include your name, your city and country of residence—and your suggestion of a name for our newsletter, of course!

Eligibility. You may submit as many newsletter name entries as you wish. We are looking for a short, catchy name for the newsletter, which should not be too long, not be registered or be a trademark or brand for any other person or entity or be the name of any other business or company..

Draw Date. The contest begins on July 17, 2010. Entries must be received before midnight on August 17, 2010 (Eastern Standard Time). By submitting an entry, you have irrevocably agreed that we may display, use, or transfer the winning entry, in its sole discretion, on any websites and for any purpose throughout the world in perpetuity without further consideration.

Prize. One twenty-five dollar ($25.00) gift certificate from Amazon will be awarded on September 1, 2010.

Have you subscribed to our newsletter?

If not, it’s time to sign up below to double your chances of winning an Amazon gift certificate. If you’ve subscribed in the past—you’re already in the running.

To subscribe to our newsletter all you have to do is enter your email address below. You’ll then get sent an email asking you to confirm your subscription—once you have done that you’re subscribed and will be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon.

It’s free—subscribe to the travel newsletter today. No spam. Ever. You can unsubscribe anytime.

"Name Our Newsletter and Win Contest!" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

The grounds of Bangkok's Grand Palace are large enough to spend an afternoon if you really want to see it all, totalling over 200 acres and more than 100 buildings. That's a lot of photographs—so make sure your camera's fully charged! The buildings and grounds are beautifully manicured and the temples within the complex are some of the most stunning in the Kingdom.

Kathryn and Daniel will post a ‘Snap de la semaine’ irregulary, but at a rate of one per week. It is an original photo not otherwise on the site—it might be fresh from our camera, a new scan of some old film, a product of our fooling around with Photoshop, or a file from the archive that we haven’t posted yet.

"Snap de la semaine: Grand Palace, Bangkok" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Keep up with what we’re reading!

Each Friday, we share those sites and articles—those interesting links—that we are currently reading or have recently read. Enjoy these great posts that you may have missed this past week. If you have any suggestions for next Friday’s round-up, please contact us!

Newsletter contest. Our newsletter contest is entering its third week. However, we won’t send out the first issue until we reach a milestone of 50 subscribers! And we need some help getting there. For a limited time, when you subscribe, you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. For more information—and to subscribe—click here.

Child Labour. According to the U.N. Children’s Fund report, more than 6.3 million children under 14 are working in Bangladesh. Many of them work under very poor conditions; some of them even risk their life. Factory owners pay them about 400 to 700 taka (10 USD) a month, while an adult worker earns up to 5,000 taka per month. Check out nmvsite.com for sobering images of child labor in Bangladesh.

Travel without  crowds in high season! “I hate crowds, don’t you?” asks Jeanne d’Arc on Soultravelers3. She continues: “We have been traveling non-stop since 2006 and we do travel off season and shoulder season as much as we can, but we also have gained great experience on the tricks of how to avoid crowds even in the highest of seasons in the most popular places.” For her hints and tips, check out her post.

Managing finances securely while traveling. With a background in financial planning and a current full-time travel lifestyle, Nora Dunn is a stickler for managing finances—and doing it wisely and securely. Check out her recent article for a few tips on how to manage your own finances securely while you travel. Afterwards check out our take in our article: “Managing day-to-day spending on the road“.

Funding Your Travels. eBay, Craigslist & Amazon, Oh My! Kristina Wegscheider over at Do It While You’re Young offers up some great advice to make a few extra bucks for your travels. Sell stuff that is collecting dust for a decent return on websites like eBay, Half.com,  Amazon.com and Craigslist! Kristina. Kristina honed her listing skills while working at an eBay consignment store in college. Check out her post here.

BootsnAll Threads

BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher, an online travel community and provider of services and information that travelers need and want. We frequent their forum—and bring to you our favourite threads from the past week!

Rolling solo. “How does anyone ‘go it alone’?” writes Bootie Counterfugue.  They continue: “I’d like to know how you all meet up with fellow travelers, and how you determine what to do and where to go?”. On a six-month solo stint through Asia, we quickly learned that the majority of solo travellers are on the lookout for other travellers to socialize with. Check out the thread here. We compiled some hints and tips in an article entitled “How to meet backpackers and influence people“.

Travelling with bling. “Should my wife and I wear our wedding bands on our 1 year RTW trip?” asks fellow Bootie NSJ. ”Hers is a simple narrow white gold band and mine is a darker metal (Tungsten Carbide). Will this attract unwanted attention?” The Booties weigh in with there experiences here.

Malaria meds. “On my one-year RTW trip, I’ll be traveling to a few countries that require preventative malaria meds.” writes NSJ. “19 weeks is a long time to be on malaria pills, and I’m worried about the costs and effects of these pills.” In our opinion, if you’re planning on visiting mostly tourist trail hotspots, using repellent, and dressing sensibly, then chances are you probably don’t need to take malarials. On the other hand, if you’re planning on spending a lot of time trekking in remote areas and don’t plan on using repellent, then availing yourself of a course of malarials would be a prudent decision. Check out the thread here.

"What We’re Reading: July 16, 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!

Keep up with what we’re reading!

Each Friday, we share those sites and articles—those interesting links—that we are currently reading or have recently read. Although we’ve been negligent these past few weeks. Enjoy these great posts that you may have missed this past little while. If you have any suggestions for next Friday’s round-up, please contact us!

Newsletter contest. The community at Two Go Round-The-World is growing in size and involvement so this week we’re very pleased to announce another way in which readers can become a little more involved in the blog—by subscribing to a special free newsletter!  And for a limited time, when you subscribe, you’ll be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate from Amazon. More information—and to subscribe—click here.

New York’s Highline. Travel writer and freelance wardrobe stylist Gina Gorelik offers up an interesting post on Keith Jenkins’ Velvet Escape on New York City’s highline. The city decided to turn an abandoned rail line into an elevated park. Writes Goreli: ”These days, the Highline is considered one of the most unique urban parks in the world”. Check out her post here.

Writing contest. Hey—all of you Travel Bloggers out there! Globetrotting travel writers Lara Dunston and Terence Carter, in partnership with HomeAway Holiday-Rentals, are excited to be announcing the fifth contest in their year-long series of monthly Grantourismo travel blogging competitions. This month, they’re inviting their reader to produce an inspiring blog post comprised of one stunning photograph that captures the spirit and colour of a local festival and 250 words that describe the events effect on you. Check out the contest here.

Cuba is so very Cuban. Shawn takes a break from his work in Haiti to post to his blog Rerunaround, writing: “All those stereotypes you hear when folks talk about Cuba turned out to be true. Loads of classic cars and cigar shops just like you would expect. Sprinkle in some Che Guevara and Castro imagery and you pretty much have it.” Check out his post here.

Don’t let the bed bugs bite! “Bed bugs are easy to transport in luggage and very hard to get rid of” writes Kevin Visser from Travelonly, “The Bedbug Registry exists to give travelers and renters a reliable and neutral platform for reporting their encounters with bedbugs. These retro pests are spreading extremely quickly across several North American cities!” An interesting link—check out Kevin’s post here.

More blogs! Looking for something great to read? Check out Brendan’s Top 100 Independent Websites.

BootsnAll Threads

BootsnAll is a web-based travel publisher, an online travel community and provider of services and information that travelers need and want. We frequent their forum—and bring to you our favourite threads from the past week!

Do it for cheap. Bootie yanks26dmb is putting together a list of countries that can be done on 35 USD or less per day.  They write: “There’s so much contradictory information on the web, its hard to really know true costs”. The Booties offer up some keen insight here.  We suggest reading Tim Leffel’s The World’s Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Dollars Are Worth a Fortune.  We’ll offer up a full review when we’re through — but until then, check out Amazon’s reviews.

If you only knew. Fellow Bootie Ozzie Traveller asks: “If you where doing it all again for the first time, what would you have loved to know back before your first round-the-world or major long-term trip?”. As always there’s an eclectic mix of opinions and answers.

Travelling with phones. “I have traveled before using an unlocked phone and bought sim cards along the way”, writes a Bootie looking for some insight from the road “It was three years ago, though, and things may have changed considerably in that period of time… looking for suggestions for communication devices in the areas of Morocco, Egypt, India, China and Thailand”. Check out the thread here.

"What We’re Reading: July 9, 2010" is a post from Two Go Round-The-World. Join Kathryn and Daniel as they plan, prepare and pack for a year-long RTW trip! Ready to dive in? Click here for a few easy ways to stay connected with us!