Online travel site and travel insurance extraordinaire World Nomads has travel promotions out there now offering free travel opportunities to qualified, interested, and adventurous applicants. The first is a potentially prestigious opportunity to work on a travel documentary with National Geographic in Vietnam, and the other is a ‘Vantastic’ filmed road trip down under in Australia.

National Geographic (free) Travel Documentary Scholarship

First, World Nomads along with National Geographic are offering a very valuable and extraordinary for blossoming world travelers, film makers, and lovers. This unique and valuable opportunity for free travel is a travel scholarship that gives the lucky applicant the ability to travel on assignment to Vietnam (my future neck of the woods) to aid in the making of documentary which will be under consideration for a TV broadcast on National Geographic itself.

The lucky winner will get flown on behalf of World Nomads to Vietnam to meet up with Buffalo Tours . before continuing onward to the scenic Mai Chau Valley where doctors will spend their time setting up temporary health clinics to treat the hill tribes. (more…)

Now that my itinerary is set for my living and traveling abroad experience in Thailand starting in July, I have finally started consolidating my lengthy to-do lists so I have no excuse not to get a moving on my preparations.

Particularly, packing and choosing clothing to bring to Thailand is somewhat tricky.  Nearly every source I’ve read says ‘don’t pack a lot of clothes for Asia and Thailand‘ Good quality clothing that will fit your needs is plentiful and very affordable in Thailand, so in reality it’s easier and best to pack lightly on clothing and just buy your clothes in Thailand.

Then, however, disclaimer time comes along: Be aware that Asian and Thai clothing and footwear is obviously smaller due to the physical difference between Thais and Westerners… (more…)

The competition between European budget airlines has been fierce for the last several years as the no frills airlines like RyanAir, EasyJet, and bmiBaby have slashed prices with huge promotions (often misleading) to fill seats and gain ridership.  As times have gotten tougher for the airlines from less air travel, it’s interesting to look at the most competitive European Budget Airline routes that are still alive and kicking for the upcoming travel season this summer.

I performed the searches and due dilligence mostly using the Low Cost Airline Guide, a very comprehensive guide to budget airlines in Europe (with some help from Martin the site’s owner).

Through the research, not surprisingly the most popular and competitive airline routes are those (more…)

A while ago I received news that I was accepted to study abroad in Bangkok, Thailand (application covered here) for the upcoming fall academic session starting sometime in August 2009 - December 2009.  I will be studying at Thammasat University and traveling all around Southeast Asia in my spare time, which should be plentiful.

Thammasat University is set in the heart of Bangkok, nearby the famous backpacker’s haven Khao San Road, the recent Red Shirt riots, and the Grand Palace. All, I’m sure, will be covered in greater detail in my upcoming travels.

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My favorite online flight search tool - Kayak.com - highlighted some of its flight search features in a recent newsletter that can help you save some money.  On the surface alone, searching kayak to find great flights is great, but there are a host of tools and features that can save even more money for you.

Best fare calendar

Self explanatory - a calendar of the best fares so it’s easy to plan and see if departing and returning on a Thursday is better than a Tuesday.

Better Fare Alerts

Kayak will email you when they find the cheapest fares on your inputed itinerary, and now the alerts include more options like non-stop flights, one way, or cabin preference.  So if you’re not ready to purchase, kayak will track fares and do your due dilligence for your.

Other tools in the Toolbox

In addition to the calendar of fares, an even better feature is the graphs that depict the fares found by searchers for every day of the month, which is good for us visual learners who <3 pictures.

Another very helpful graph is one that helps travelers find out if it’s time to buy.  This image shows the price for the same flight over the last 90 days, so you can interpret the trend and what not to see if waiting is better or worse than purchasing NOW.

Anywho, I still stand by kayak and love its great service to travelers. If you’re looking for more flight search tools, check out my previous Guide to Finding Cheap Flights.

The US State Department funds a lot of travel programs to foster harmony amongst foreigners with Americans and what not, and most scholarships at first glance seem to be targeting foreigners. There, is, however, one really valuable scholarship that I just found. It includes full travel, board, education, etc. for those willing to study ‘critical languages’ intensively during the summer months.  Again, I said free travel, not to mention the free career development and skills. 

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