I recently visited Ethiopia for a very brisk vacation to ‘try out’ Africa. The trip was far from ideal, but I never really expected it to go amazing from the get go given my lack of preparation. After experiencing some of the country and talking with numerous other more veteran Ethiopian travelers at guesthouses, I feel that I can shed some light onto budget traveling in Ethiopia. Here are a few of the main points.

Highlights

First of all, here’s a rundown of the highlights of Ethiopia:

• Injera – the national dish. It’s tasty, just spicy enough, filling, and cheap.  50 Birr  - ($3)
• Coffee – Very cheap, very good. Some of the world’s best, and definitely has a distinct flavor. Coffee, Machiato, and Espresso all are a must. 7 Birr  - ($.40)
• People – The people are very nice and friendly. Ethiopia is safe…relative to the rest of Africa.
• Women – Ethiopian women are unbelievably beautiful. I have never seen such a high density of stunning women in my life. Just don’t be a creep and expect a price.
• Heart wrenching – Poverty is everywhere. HIV is everywhere. Prostitution is rampant. Mentally prepare yourself, but if you give 10 birr to everyone that asks you won’t make it more than a week.
• No Budget Backpacker infrastructure - Overland travel is very time consuming and/or expensive. You can’t just show up and expect cheap transport. Plan accordingly.

Arriving in Ethiopia

Odds are you’re flying into Addis Ababa. (more…)

Things have been rather quiet here as of late, but I expect that to change as I get back on the off the beaten trail. Roughly 3 weeks ago I moved to the Middle East, for work, on a 6 month contract. Following my graduation in May, the stars aligned and called me to the Gulf. So far, it’s been a pretty rocky ride. Many struggles, low highs, and very low lows. But slowly, I’m starting to get settled in the Arab world. I expect life to continue to get better every day.

The majority of my time (think 55 hours/week) will be spent working tirelessly recounting beans for companies. Not quite as glamorous as ’studying’ in Bangkok, but this is what being a grown up is I suppose. My free time will be spent sleeping, surfing the interwebs, staying hydrated, and getting fat on Middle Eastern food.

Pertaining to this blog, I have a plan for some fresh new content and articles. As my scarce free time and holidays allow, I’ll be exploring the region as much as possible myself. Furthermore, I’m already lusting over a nice little swing through greater Asia when I’m finished working here. So be sure to stay in tune for some new articles in the coming days, weeks, and months.

You’re stuck at home with an insatiable appetite to travel abroad. You’re still looking at pictures, skyping old friends, and experiencing daily deja vus that remind you of your glorious past experiences on the road and in foreign bathrooms. Short of throwing yourself off the cliff, you need something else to do. Here are a few things to do, of both the sulky and productive variety, to buy (waste) time in a hipster-backpacker manner while you’re waiting to use your passport once again.

1. Learn a language

How? Local community college, Rosetta Stone, local friend/cultural group, or LiveMocha. Learning a language will be fun and give you an excuse as to why you’re still in the States. It’s productive, will let you meet likeminded people, and prevent you from being the rich-puta-that-only-speaks-english when you finally do leave.

2. Get spicy. Cook!

Seriously. Go to your local ethnic grocery store and buy everything. Oyster sauce? Check. I-can’t-read-the-label spice? Mmhmm. Make some foreign dishes. It’ll likely taste like shit, but it’s a good way to get your cultural fix and open up your senses again to tastes outside of sandwiches and Kraft Mac n Cheese.

3. ..Or, just eat out

For everyone that dismissed #2, I suppose this is for you. Go get some ethnic food. Nothing fusion, nothing over $8. If you’re fortunate to live in a real urban area, check out a real ethnic corner restaurant and feast.

4. Date a foreigner

No comment.

5. Get involved

If you live in a city, there are a million cross-cultural volunteer opportunities. From refugee centers to minority support groups there is no lack of ability to get involved. Outside a real city, check out a Rotary club or get involved virtually (see b).

5 (b). Virtual involvement

For the antisocialites out there: If you can write, have any sort of online tech skills, or know a smidgen about social media you can always get involved virtually. Find an interesting not for profit (Idealist.org, VolunteerMatch.com are good starting points) and give away your time to a cause. You’ll probably be able to make mad amounts of Facebook friends and perhaps a language learning buddy.

6. Read a book

No better way to escape your shitty life than to read interesting stories about others that aren’t as boring as you. Imersing yourself into a good novel once and awhile (or every waking moment) is a good way to expand your mind, knowledge, and litereary street cred for your late night hostel convos in the future.

7. Make Money

If absolutely nothing else, focus on the bottom line and make some money. Improve your cash flow by expanding your top line (get another job, start a project, invest better +Revenue) or cutting your expenses (Netflix > cable TV and is 1/6th the cost). Save, invest wisely, and accumulate a travel fund.

7a. Be clever with your finances

To reiterate, think about cutting your costs and making some sacrifices in order to expedite your travel fund growth. Learn and LIVE personal finance. Get a budget (Mint.com), learn quirky life hacking/budget tricks (Lifehacker, GetRichSlowly, a gagillion other resources), and check out AONC’s Travel Hacking Cartel niche resource when your travel dates get closer. (legit – TravelHacking.org)

I’ve covered the topic at length before, but the changing nature of this that is the internet makes the topic relevant once again. Search is evolving, attempts at travel social networks are launched weekly, and the the internet still rules when it comes to travel planning. I feel these forces create a need for someone to weed through the spammy content farms out there to succinctly list the travel sites that matter.

Thus, I figure I may just be better off just creating a State of the Travelsphere: Sites that matter report to be updated semi-annually or annually…. or something.

Why? I feel like the internet has been filling up with content garbage that hurts search, as noted by TechCrunch recently in Search Still Sucks. Personally, I think travel topics have been hurt most, so I hope this guide may be of some help to save you time and have a better online travel planning experience.

Travel Search - Travel Datasheets

• WikiTravel.org - always should be your numba one go-to
• Gogobot.com - an up and coming travel search for travel topics. Not revolutionary, but new.
• Tripadvisor.com, & Virtualtourist.com - not particularly a huge fan of these behemoth sites, but their age and large sizes make them relevant for data and facts for a variety of specific topics

Flight search

• Kayak.com - I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. Kayak.
• Vayama.com - Always a good backstop in case Kayak doesn’t have all the published fares
• Skyscanner.com …If you really need another search…
• Expedia - Of the behemoth searches out there, Expedia comes in as my personal fav and a solid tool to benchmark flights.

Accommodation

Travel Blogs

Up and Coming Travel blogs: new blogs (…at least to me), that have caught my interest and are very worthy of receiving a mention here. The following make up my favorite blogs due to the recency effect.

• FoxNomad.com - A techy, former hacker now digital nomading around the world while living off of his travel blogs. Definitely a niche quick to my heart.
• Canvas-of-light.com - Awesome travel photography
• WanderingTrader.com - A traveler who trades stocks for a living. An even quicker route to my heart than Fox, given this career move is in my 39 year plan.
• JohnnyVagabond.com - Just good
• NerdyNomad.com - chronicling her experience as a digital nomad supported by her travel blog revenues

Legacy Travel Blogs: old, yet still outstanding travel blogs that are always a good read. The following keep chugging along.

• Cheapest Destinations: travel.booklocker.com
• Matador Network: matadornetwork.com
• Budget Travel (mag): current.newsweek.com/budgettravel
• Vagablogging: Vagablogging.net
• Hobo Traveler: Hobotraveler.com
• Jaunted: Jaunted.com
• Gadling: Gadling.com
• Gridskipper: Gridskipper.com

Forums

• BootsnAll.com - Always, always a favourite
• LonelyPlanet.com/thorntree - occasionally a good resource
• TravellersPoint.com - has somewhat of a social network vibe as well

Social Networking

• TravBuddy - The only one I really classify as a travel social network (that I like
• WAYN - If you must, WAYN is a travel social network as well. I prefer TravBuddy and find WAYN a bit more spammy, but check it out if you must.

..More Travel Data searches

If you want more places to search for travel data / facts / info tidbits, below is a list of sites I find to be all identical in offering “Travel Guides” or reviews or testimonials or what not.

• Stay.com
• Tripwolf.com
• World66.com
• Tripsay.com
• Driftr.com
• Travelpod.com
• Travelblog.org

Outlook

With that, you have the Travel Sites that matter, 2011. The verdict, essentially, that Google sucks for search, and that sticking to authoritative content sources for data like WikiTravel and perusing a few reputable blogs will get you by.

While it’s unlikely Google travel related searches will get any better for travel guides / reviews / etc, it will become a major player in Travel booking and flight / hotel searches in the VERY near future. Google purchased the Travel data provider ITA for $700 million recently, and will surely be integrating it somehow in the near future once regulatory concerns are dealt with.

Who is ITA? ITA is only the sole provider of travel data to Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz…the list goes on. So now that Google owns the data, it will be very, very interesting to see what they end up doing with it, and I believe in 2011 we will begin to see some major shakeups in travel search, potentially with Google besting a lot of other searches like Kayak, Expedia, etc.

When it comes to travel and opportunities to get abroad, my mind is always churning for ideas. I enjoy soaking up all the ideas and opinions out there on how to make it as a mobile expat. After 5 years of searching around, I’ve seen quite a lot, and still find myself a bit confused as to how to make it abroad.

So. For both your and my benefit, I’m going to lay it all out there and give you your ONLY realistic options outside of serendipity to make it as an expat living abroad for a decent amount of time. If you have any other reasonable options, please leave a suggestion in the comments and I can hopefully update the post.

1. Teach English

I purposely put teaching English as #1 to be annoying, and I’m already annoying myself looking at it. But (more…)

London is hardly renowned for its cheap shopping opportunities. Most people who visit the city for some retail therapy will do so with a healthy bank balance – or at least a sizeable overdraft – to support their extravagance purchases.

But venture beyond the high street boutiques and up-scale shopping malls, and it’s more than possible to snap up affordable goods in London. Often it’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

Hot Spots

It is even possible to head for notoriously expensive shopping areas and still pick up some bargains. Kensington High Street, for example, is best known for the ultra exclusive Harrods department store, yet just a stone’s throw from the famous old shopping mecca are numerous inexpensive shops such as Warehouse, Topshop and Oasis.

The same is true of several other districts including Regent Street and Oxford Street – both home to designer stores but also cheaper high street names.

London Markets

Another happy hunting ground for cheap goods are London’s markets. (more…)