Young, scruffy-haired lifeguards cruise past us in ATV’s with the day’s warnings written on a board bolted to the back.  Storms can blow through here and change as frequently with the tides, good thing they use an erasable marker.   “No Swimming” flags flap in the wind as the rip currents from far-off tropical storms make swimming and splashing about a bit more of a dangerous undertaking.

(more…)

Traveling can fill you with emotions.  The obvious ones: excitement, joy, exhilaration, wonder and so on.  I’ve tried to express here that, like life, it isn’t always roses. There are times of frustration, anxiety, loneliness, fear, and sadness. Traveling isn’t a ‘vacation’ and it becomes ‘life’ of a different sort.   But those of us that love it, love it all and know the benefits far outweigh any negatives.   These people tend to live their lives with the same positive outlook as well.

Through my travels I have directly and indirectly met dozens and dozens of people with this same attitude.  I have met them face-to-face all over the world from Hanoi to Ecuador to Egypt. But I also have met many people online through this blog.  Because of this little website – I’ve made contacts for jobs and made good friends that I’ve met in person and seen several times thereafter.

I answer just about every email I receive (except for those spammy ones – no, I won’t advertise your on-line gambling company).   About two years ago, I received a fun comment on a blog post about Ecuador from a girl named Reed in Hoboken, New Jersey (my home state!).   She had found me through a podcast I’d done with Chris Christensen on the Amateur Traveler about how I worked around the world.

We had some nice, easy emails back and forth and she told me she was working in New York City and at the same time ‘planning her escape into the world’.

Like I do with many of my new email friends, I saved her email as a reminder to try and meet up with her next time I was in New York.  I could tell that this was someone I wanted to know.   This was someone with whom I would most likely become friends and know for a long time.  I could tell she had the same attitude as me and was really living.  And this is what life is all about to me – making connections with people and sharing ideas and a lot of laughs.  A year later, I emailed her to let her know I’d actually be in Hoboken and hoped maybe she could meet up for drink prior to a dinner engagement I had.

The email I received back hit me like a ton of bricks:

(more…)

Nowadays there are said to be approximately 400 million people speaking Spanish as a native language and a total of 500 million speakersworldwide. Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.   Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations and there are more than 20 Spanish-speaking countries in the world.  Are you getting my point? Oye chicos y chicas! (Warning: Non PC/fun writing coming up) Spanish is the new black. Literally. For about a decade now, Latinos have been the largest minority group in the United States, surpassing African-Americans.

So learning Spanish is a no-brainer and literally can be with a download-able language-learning program I just tried out called Bueno, Entonces. If you’ve wanted to improve your Spanish or learn from scratch…now is really the time. Vamos!

To get a feel for the program, here is a clip for you (if you are reading this in email and the vid doesn’t come through, please go to my site to see full video clip):

Click here if video is not above:

(more…)

“The bathroom is in the back of the bus. Gentlemen, if you miss…you have to see me! Clean it up please!!”

‘Straight-to-the-point’ Douglas would be driving me and about 75 other passengers aboard a bus headed three hours southeast of Chicago to Indianapolis.

“Barring any traffic, we should be there on time, let’s just be safe. Indianapolis will be there,” he said during his slightly odd and slightly amusing pre-trip spiel.

(more…)

For several years I celebrated Christmas very far from home.  Sometimes I was alone and sometimes I was with wonderful new friends. From a fabulous oyster lunch in Sydney, to a gastropub dinner in London pulling ‘crackers’, to a free Natalie Cole Christmas concert in Milan, it was always different and always more than I ever expected.  It was a little strange not being home for so long, but honestly, in many ways, it was more exciting and touching not to be.

Wherever you are home or abroad, with family or new friends…have a Merry Christmas from LL World Tour.