Besides searching online relentlessly and talking to travel agents, there is one other, *alternative* method of getting cheap airline tickets.

This alternative is becoming a courier. A courier, in the airline travel sense, is someone who is needed to transfer time sensitive documents to a country internationally. In exchange for delivering a bundle of documents to another country, the courier receives discounted airfares.

So how much do airline tickets cost as a courier?
This varies greatly. Usually it’s a pretty good discount.

Why do companies send documents through couriers?
Usually the documents that couriers carry are very time sensitive, and must be delivered immediately. It is a lot quicker for someone to take documents through customs at an airport than to have the documents go through customs as a shipment.

What are drawbacks of being a courier?
Usually couriers will have to give up one of their personal bags, since they will be required to take a bag of documents to deliver. So couriers may only have their carry one bag for their piece of luggage.

Another potential drawback is that you need to be flexible. As a traveler, not a tourist, it should not affect you too much. Your departure times and destination cities need to be fairly flexible.

Ok, so now that you have the basics, how do you become a courier?

There are online sites that advertise courier rates, and these are Courier.org, CourierList.com, CourierTravel.org, AirCourier.org. These sites require a membership, and in exchange they will provide you with courier deals.

I am a bit skeptical, because I found a negative review of AirCourier over at Amazon. Check out the review. It pretty much calls it a scam, so I would be careful signing up online.
The other way is to contact courier booking agencies. These agencies are usually located in major US airport cities, like Chicago, New York, and LA. It is a good idea to contact them a few months in advance, but even procrastinators can still get tickets.

For a list of Air Courier Booking agencies, check out the bottom of this article at websciences.org. It has a list of couriers in Denver, LA, Hong Kong, and Thailand.

As information became more accessible in the past ten years, it seems that more people heard about the deals in being an air courier. I think this could have greatly reduced the good deals available because of the supply/demand. So if you are still interested in becoming a courier, I would recommend going through a booking agency.

So, there is your unofficial guide to becoming an air courier, so now you might be able to travel no frills cheaply.

A new study states that 85% of international traveler’s have purchased at least one foreign made beer. Really? No not really, but personally, I think that atleast that many people will experiment with international beverages, including beer.

From what I hear, there’s nothing better than ordering a pint of the finest lager in the world from a bar in Belgium. As tempting as that sounds, I have a feeling that a a couple pints would break my daily budget in Belgium.

So, out of curiousity, I went on a search online for the world’s finest, and cheapest, beers. Luckily, I landed upon the TheBackpacker.com’s Global Beer Index which is all an international beer drinker needs.

This guide is amazing. It is huge. And it is honest. The beer guide has 82 pages of honest drinker reviews assorted by country. Most importantly, they also have a local price for each beer, which can put you in the ballpark of how much you will spend.

A japanese beer Kirin and German beer Licher, a few of the many beers included in the international beer guide.

TheBackpacker also offers a World Bar guide which has user reviews just like the beer guide does. They distinguish between party bars, clubs, pubs, and lounges, which is very helpful.
So thank you thebackpacker.com for hosting honest beer reviews. Now no traveler will ever have to waste away their money while experimenting with local beers.

[tags] beer, international beer, travel, beer guide, bar guide, german beer[/tags]

So you want to backpack internationally, but do not know what backpack to get. Hopefully this guide will give you guidance to what type of backpack you should choose.

First, you have to decide whether you will be using your backpack as a daypack, or as your luggage. It’s a better idea to just pack very light, and to use it as your luggage. So assumming it’s your luggage, continue reading.

Since the only thing you will have is your backpack, it will have to be a pretty decent size. Check out a recommended packing list to see what you will all need.

For backpacking through europe, the industry leaders for bags are High Sierra and Eagle Creek. They make the high quality bags most often chos by backpackers. Here are some of the bags that can be purchased through Worldtravler.com (aff.)

All Eagle Creek bags come with a lifetime warranty.

Eagle Creek Voyage 65 Carry-on legal for most airlines14″ x 23″ x 9″ 4.4 lbs 1200 Cubic Inches

Eagle Creek Grand Voyage 90LFully-featured, internal-frame travel pack - AKA the beast in the Eagle Creek Backpacking line 15″ x 29″ x 12″ 6.4 lbs 5600 cu. Inches

Eagle Creek Ultimate Explorer LT Fully Independent Suspension System designed for maximum carrying comfort.15″ x 29″ x 9″ 5.6 lbs 5400 cu. Inches

High Sierra Naja 70+1070-liter top-load main compartment

Travelocity has a new promotion going on for booking vacations online. If you book a flight and hotel, for six nights in Europe, Mexico, Hawaii, or the Carribbean, you get $200 off. To claim your discount, all you need to do is enter the promotional code “Great200″ at the checkout

This offer ends on July 27, 2006, and the vacation must take place by January 1, 2007.

It seems like a fair enough deal for those travelers looking to book vacations during the holiday and Christmas season in December. It is refreshing to see a travel deal that really does not have an excessive ammount of strings attached.

[tags] travelocity, travel, vacations, Christmas season [/tags]

I ran across an excellent packing list from Nina over at justwandering.org. She revisits her packing list that she made when she traveled to Thailand, and she comments on how valuable each of her items was through bolding and italics.
It’s a great post, and a helpful list for anyone planning to pack their bag for a backpacking trip overseas.

Other packing lists are over at Onebag.com and the Universal Packing List. Pretty neat.
[tags] packing list, backpacking, backpack, travel, packing [/tags]

The Taipei Times has an article on a Tawain hostel officially becoming part of the International Youth Hostel Federation (IYHF). The new hostel association is named Chinese Taipei Youth Hostel Association of Taiwan. Along with Taiwan, 5 other country organizations joined the group.
At a conference in Switzerland, the hostel was unanimously accepted. The IYHF manages 4,000 hostels in 85 countries, including eight hostels in Taiwan. Cool.

[tags] hostel, travel, taiwan, IYHF, taipei[/tags]