Traveling abroad, while padding your bank account (a little), is possible by teaching English as a Second Language abroad. It is not a new phenomena in the budget travel world, however, it is a rewarding, interesting, and affordable way to live abroad.

Today, there is a large demand for ESL teachers is in Asia (China!!). ESL teachers can also find oppurtunities throughout Latin America and Europe, but the European oppurtunities are usually taken by those from the UK.

First, a brief vocab lesson.

• ESL: English as a Second Language
• TEFL: Teaching English as a foreign language. - Training
• TESOL: Teaching English for speakers of other languages. - Higher Certiciation

So what do ESL teachers do?

ESL teachers teach English (more…)

….is not what we want others overseas to think as soon as we leave their presence, is it? (rhetorical) So, I’m going to tell you how to avoid that, well actually, Erin Richards from BudgetTravelOnline is. Frommers’ Budgettravelonline.com has a great piece on Americans and their tendencies in cultural ettiquete. The article is titled Are you an Ugly American?

It’s a great read that ties in well with my previous post on How to Travel. Now, I’m going to give you my commentary on a few of my favorite parts.

Don’t overtip

Monica Francois Marcel… says nobody tips as much as Americans (and that isn’t always commendable)… “A taxi driver could easily interpret your tip as flaunting your wealth.” Marcel recommends asking a concierge to explain local expectations… (more…)

Today, it seems like the most popular medium chosen to travel througout Europe is in the air. Flying is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest (sorry Eurail) way to move through Europe, thanks to the creation of low cost airlines, like Ryanair and easyJet.

However, with all of the interlinked airports and cities in Europe, it can be difficult to decide where to fly out of, and where to fly to. This is where the Low Cost Airline Guide (low-cost-airline-guide.com) comes into play.

The Low Cost Airline Guide is a simple, yet valuable site that allows its users to view where travelers can fly from a specific departure city. The site operates the same way Which budget does, but I think the low cost airline guide is much easier to use.

So for example, If I’m studying abroad in Oslo, Norway and I want to get away for a long weekend, the low cost airline guide tells me all of the destinations I can go to. One place of interest to me is Barcelona. Barcelona sounds nice, and the site tells me I can fly there with sterling.dk.

If you’re not a fan of the list view, there’s also a visual route map that can be used.
Low Cost Airline Guide is definitely nifty travel site that should be able to make anyone’s international budget travel bookmarks. Enjoy, and happy travels.

So I was bored, and I decided to watch TV even though Sundays aren’t “TV nights” for me. I didn’t know what to watch, so I started to watch a little of the [not so] Amazing Race. This particular episode they were in India, and I thought to myself, “Self, you don’t know anything about India…that’s bad.” I’ve heard of the India’s computer programmers and their rising demand for oil, but I didn’t know enough about them to satisfy my continual thirst for knowledge of the universe.

So I decided to do a little research for myself (online of course) about India, more specifically, Mumbai. I learned alot, but stayed up too late doing so. I ran across a thorough Mumbai, India guide over at Open Travel Info. (more…)

For one of the few times on this blog, what I have posted about previously will be able to be used by my readers in “the real life.” So think long and hard about an entry that I’ve made that has actually mattered. . . Nothing comes to mind . . So I’ll tell you.

My last post about Trip Planning is worth $200. Actually, $205. You can make anywhere from $5-$205 for a simple winter travel plan. (more…)

Thank you, Web 2.0, for giving the online travel community a valuable site. While I’ve been exploring the usefulness of all of the other new, hip, online booking sites (flyspy, farecast, & farecompare), I ran accross an absolute gem. That gem is TripTie.com. TripTie is an online community created to allow travelers plan and share their trips easily.

The site is a godsend to redefine the term “online travel community” The site is easy to use, clean looking, yet very helpful and in depth. It puts other online travel communities to shame. (Most notably VirtualTourist.com - yuck) TripTie doesn’t bombard its users with ads and un-navigable user interfaces.

The best aspect of TripTie is that it allows you to view other people’s trip plans, and easily “save” items off of their itineraries. So simple, yet so efficient. In the image below, (more…)