This week’s #rtwchat on Twitter was all about planning your Round the World trip – the challenges and best/worst of it all. And make sure you sign up for Plan Your Round the World Trip in 30 Days – kicking off February 1!
Just over 1 year ago, we ran the #indie30 blogging and sharing month on BootsnAll. We all had so much fun, that we decided to try a weekly Indie Travel Challenge for 2012. When we started the ITC in January, we intended to do it for the whole year. But with 2012 coming to a close soon, and the year anniversary of #indie30, I decided to end it with this blog post. We had a lot of fun with the folks that participated and we are impressed with the folks that stuck with it. It was a challenge for us to run it as well for the whole year! Coming up with ideas, getting them out there, and managing the real entries as well as inevitable spam that can with the mini-site that we built for the ITC. I think that the month long version was more fun, and easier to mentally handle than the year-long idea. It was an ambitious idea and we gave it a good shot. We will probably do a shorter version again in 2013. To wrap it up, I’m going to link to an assortment of participants. Thank-you for playing and sharing! Our Oyster Eat Drink Travel Repeat Erin R. Caughey Destination Unknown Hannah and the World NithinCoca.com AntSaint.com YQ Travelling I’m a Wanderer Going [...]
We focused on the topic of cultural experiences this week at #rtwchat and had a superb time. Let me know if you are injoying these and what topics you want to see in the future. Recap of the chat after the jump
During the first week of the Indie Travel Challenge we asked you to share your indie travel list for 2012 . Now that we’re about half way through 2012, it’s time to take a look back at what we wrote on those lists! What did you achieve so far? What is something you are proud of? I’ve been keeping a travel resolutions (bucket) list for more than a year now and every January I add more things to it. For 2012 I entered two new countries: Italy and Greece (and hoping to make it back to London too). In March, I spent two weeks visiting Italy (Rome, Vieste and Foggia) and Greece (Athens). They were two of the best weeks of my life. Some of my indie travel experiences included a walking tour of Anafiotika (in Athens) with an amazing artist (and a Greek friend); and walking along the deserted beach in Vieste (Italy) with nothing but the wind and the sound of the waves hitting the shores to keep us company. What travel goals have you met this year? » This week on BootsnAll: Articles you’ll read this week include information on how to have an indie travel experience in Guatemala, a detailed guide on recipes and tips for making cooking on the road fun, cheap and easy, as [...]
From the good advice to the bad advice, travel tips can be based on anything from personal experience to general fears. Last year, we asked our BootsnAll community what the worst piece of travel advice you’d ever received was. The list was both funny and random, where we could almost have played a game of opposites and had a great list of advice. So now we’re asking you: What’s your best tip for a first-time traveler? Most of us get that feeling of excitement and nervousness right before leaving on our next big adventure, but can you remember what you felt like on your first trip? First-time travel is such an eye-opening experience. Everything is new. You’re mind is processing a million things – How much is this change worth? Will this bus stop at the next place or do I need to pull the cord? What language are they speaking? No matter what we do, we’re going to make mistakes — that often end up as some of the best memories — but if you could go back in time and tell self-circa 2009 or 1999 or 1989 or 1979 or whatever decade you began your adventures: What’s one of the first things you would say? » This week on BootsnAll: Articles you’ll read this week include: Is It [...]
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! My Must-have Gear Item I took a 35L backpack on my round the world trip. Occasionally I wished I had a bigger pack, but ultimately it was just the right size for me. While I’ve been told that I’m a pretty paired down traveler, (I try not to let this go to my head), I do pack a number of unnecessary awesome items… from perfume atomizers to stockpiles of Burt’s Bees chapstick. So I had a hard time narrowing down to just one ‘must-have gear favorite’ from my hypothetical list of “things you really don’t need to take traveling, but I like to bring anyway”. So I picked the most useful item, that is now a must-bring for me. Can I travel without it? Definitely, but life on the road is way easier with it. Flight 001′s Wet Suit bag is on my must-pack list. After returning from Panama with a bag even the customs agents didn’t want to open, I decided I needed a strategy for my bag not mildewing on my upcoming RTW trip. I stumbled across [...]
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” –Don Williams, Jr. Something I’ve learned to appreciate from traveling is the waiting and the process of “getting somewhere”. After returning from my RTW trip, I waited to re-purchase a car, and almost three years later, I still don’t have one. Just like when traveling, I’ve found that when I’m actively engaged in my journey (transit) by walking or biking or taking public transportation, I’m experiencing my community and city in a different way. Each trip is unique and can vary from a fairly standard ride to yoga class, to chatting with Portland tourists on the Streetcar and giving them restaurant recommendations, and even the occasional drama like having a bus pull over and call the police because some crazy person is getting mad at the driver), or discovering a new shop because you decided to walk a new route. As I started biking in Portland a lot more in the past year, it’s [...]
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.” –George W. Bush Everyone has slightly different priorities when it comes to travel budgets and expenses. Personally, I like to save on accommodation, and I’m willing to pay more for food or splurging on a cool experience. I’m also a notorious cheapskate when it comes to things I feel should be cheap or free. Other than your initial flight, the largest expense while traveling is usually accommodation, but when the purpose of traveling is to explore and experience a new place, the last thing I want to spend a ton of money on is where I’ll be sleeping. Cheapskate confessions: I made my own fresh-squeezed orange juice on my transatlantic cruise from Barcelona back to the states (with a knife, spoon, bowl, cup, and a mountain of free oranges they provide on the boat). On the same boat, I did my own laundry in the tiny little sink and hung my clothesline criss-crossed across my tiny little cabin. I’ve slept in several airports to save $ on [...]
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow” –Lin Yutang What is home? To me, home isn’t a house I grew up in or a specific city, or even a state… it’s an entire region of the United States, usually deemed “the Pacific Northwest”. We moved around a bit as a child, so by the time I left home for college, I’d lived in 11 different cities from the Seattle area to Eastern Washington, to central Oregon, staying an eternity of four years in Bend, Oregon. This concept of “home” never struck me as unusual, until I started feeling like a compulsive liar when telling the same person “Oh, I grew up there”, but referencing a different city depending on the week or conversation. So these days if I’m asked where I’m from [originally], I say “all over the Northwest”, or short answer, “I’m from Bend, Oregon.” I’m fascinated by people who’s “home” is also a house (in the actual physical sense of the word), [...]
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” –James A. Michener Trying new food is one of my favorite things about traveling. It’s incredibly exciting to me to try something new, or something familiar with a different spin. I’m also a Pescatarian, so I’ve found that food + traveling brings both challenging and amazing experiences. While I’ve never felt like too much of an outsider on the food scene, I love the mix of traveling and food and seeing how some cultures value and use different ingredients. Thankfully, I’m not gluten-intolerant or allergic to any foods, so while I consider myself a Pescatarian and was raised vegetarian, I sometimes [to the confusing shock of my travel companions] like to try random dishes that are new to me… like deep fried tarantulas in Cambodia or bacon-wrapped dates here in Portland at Toro Bravo (neither of those I’ll probably be having again). While my main diet is Pescatarian, you only live once, so what’s the worst that could [...]
About a week ago, most of the BootsnAll team headed to Vancouver, BC for the TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) conference. One of our car discussions, enroute from Portland, was about BootsnAll’s BHAG — Big Hairy Audacious Goal. While we are working on refining our goals and dreams this year, this is the BHAG we are currently tossing around: 10 stamps on every passport in every world citizen’s back pocket. While at the TBEX conference, we handed out postcards asking bloggers to share their dreams – one life goal, one travel goal, and one blogging/connecting goal. Since we’ve gotten a few requests post-conference, we thought we’d just share the postcard with the rest of the BootsnAll community. So feel free to share your goals in the comments or download a pdf of the postcard if you want to keep it to yourself. Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing some of the goals and BHAGs that TBEX bloggers and travelers from the BootsnAll community have shared with us. So if you haven’t shared your BHAG with us, we’d love to hear it! What’s your BHAG?
It’s time again for our First Thursday Travel Meetup in Portland! So if you’re going to be in the area, we’d love to see you! Join us at Popina Swimwear in the Pearl on Thursday, April 7 to chat travel, learn a few things about Las Vegas, enjoy a free beer courtesy of Kona Brewing Co, and enter to win a $75 travel voucher from Alaska Airlines! BootsnAll Travel and Popina Swimwear — the largest women’s swimwear store in the Pacific Northwest featuring the retro inspired Popina brand, have teamed up to host a monthly event for Portland’s First Thursday! First Thursday: 6:30-8:30pm, April 7, 2011 @ Popina Swimwear, 318 NW 11th Ave www.popinaswimwear.com www.bootsnall.com You can RSVP on our Facebook page or just show up! Happy Travels! –The BootsnAll Portland Crew: Sean, Chris, Dave, Ian, Jessica, & Olivia
It’s time for our [second] First Thursday Travel Meetup at Popina Swimwear. And once again, we’re looking forward to seeing all of our Portland area travel friends next week! Join us at Popina’s new location in the Pearl on Thursday, March 3 to chat travel, find out 10 things you should know about Kona on Hawaii’s Big Island, enjoy a free beer courtesy of Kona Brewing Co, and enter to win a $75 travel voucher from Alaska Airlines! BootsnAll Travel and Popina Swimwear — the largest women’s swimwear store in the Pacific Northwest featuring the retro inspired Popina brand, have teamed up to host a monthly event for Portland’s First Thursday! First Thursday: 6-8pm, March 3, 2011 @ Popina Swimwear, 318 NW 11th Ave www.popinaswimwear.com www.bootsnall.com You can RSVP on our Facebook page or just show up! Aloha! –The BootsnAll Portland Crew: Sean, Chris, Dave, Ian, Jessica, & Olivia Photo by: chucklepix steve
A few weeks ago, I posted a poll to our Facebook page, asking what kind of traveler you would consider yourself to be — in ONE word. And while we started with 10 answers — the BootsnAll community is so independent [and creative!] that the poll quickly got abandoned in favor of posting answers in the comments section. Here’s what you had to say: Sound about right? This week on BootsnAll Today, Adam Seper brings us part two of traveling on the cheap with How to Travel Around the World for $40 Per Day. Later this week, we’ll take a look at staying healthy on the road, how to travel more without leaving your day job — enjoying travel without committing to a full round the world trip, along with a quick peek at making the most of your time as an expat. Has the type of traveler you are changed over the years?
We’d love to see all of our Portland area travel friends at our BootsnAll First Thursday Travel Meetup @ Popina Swimwear next week! Need travel ideas, have questions about your next trip, or just want to chat travel and enjoy a free beer? BootsnAll Travel and Popina Swimwear — the largest women’s swimwear store in the Pacific Northwest featuring the retro inspired Popina brand, are teaming up to host a monthly event for Portland’s First Thursday! So come out to Popina’s new location in the Pearl on Thursday, February 3 to chat travel with the BootsnAll Travel crew, plan your next getaway with Popina’s retro-inspired swimwear, grab some “liquid Aloha” courtesy of Kona Brewing Co, and get your chance at winning a $75 travel voucher from Alaska Airlines. First Thursday: 6-8pm, February 3, 2011 @ Popina Swimwear, 318 NW 11th Ave www.popinaswimwear.com www.bootsnall.com You can RSVP on our Facebook page, Tweetup, or just show up! Aloha! –The BootsnAll Portland Crew: Sean, Chris, Dave, Jessica, & Olivia
Last month, Meet, Plan, Go! shared why you should take a career break and told us a bit about their new Career Break Boot Camp course. Today, we’re excited for them as they launch their new Career Break Basic Training class — a lower cost and self-paced version of Boot Camp that we think will appeal to a lot of travelers who are contemplating the big trip, but not yet ready to commit to an 8 week class. So what do you get? The new Basic Training gets you eight self-paced lessons, ongoing community and forum access, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded peers for $149. The eight lessons have a defined objective and touch on key concepts such as finding inspiration, overcoming mental hurdles, saving & budgeting, alternatives to traditional tourism, owning your journey, essential to-do list items for the road, home, & career, and preparing for re-entry. If you’re looking to do extended travel or take a career break, this a great way to get your feet wet. Learn more at Meet, Plan, Go!
On Thursday, several members of the BootsnAll team got together in Portland for a professional development meeting. Of course, one of the main topics of casual conversation was travel, including the question “where do you most want to go next?” Our answers were as varied as the reasons behind them. For my part, I’m dying to go to Albania, mostly as a result of an article that convinced me of the allure of Albania’s beautiful beaches, rugged mountains, and delicious, cheap food. But then I’ve also got New Zealand, Morocco, Chile and many other countries rotating at the top of my list, which is always changing. In fact, I recently came upon a list I’d made back in 2009, which detailed the trips I’d take in 2010. It turns out that I didn’t go to a single destination on that list in 2010, but instead went to several other wonderful places, including Colombia, Vancouver, Prague, and Iceland (again). So I got to thinking about how it was that I visited those places instead of the places I’d originally intended, and how I go about making decisions on where to go next. Five major factors help shape my travel plans. Deals Probably the biggest factor in choosing where to go next is the cost. Maybe I’ve got an idea to go [...]
Happy 2011! It’s time for our annual list of the top 10 places we think indie travelers should consider visiting in the coming year. Top of my list: Curacao, Nicaragua, Albania, and Portugal (my plan of attack is to look for a travel deal to Spain first, and then snag a cheap Ryanair flight from Madrid or Barcelona to Portugal). How many new places will you add to your must-visit list? This week on BootsnAll This time every year, we take a look at our most popular travel articles of the past year. From our best “How To” travel articles, to our favorite post from our WhyGo travel guides. What do you want to see more of in 2011? Photo: pierremangin
Here’s to happiness, health, love, and lots of travel in 2011! Happy Holidays from BootsnAll This week on BootsnAll Merry Christmas Eve Eve! Still not done with your holiday shopping? Take the easy way out with 7 Easy Last-Minute Gift Ideas for Travelers. Tuesday’s How I Travel featured the most widely-traveled man alive — Santa, followed by an objective look at the search for enlightenment with The Eat, Pray, Love Effect: Is Travel Really a Path to Self-Discovery?. So wherever you are in the world, happy holidays!
Happy Holidays! BootsnAll’s travel gear blog launched the 1st annual 12 Days of Travel Gear Giveaways today. There are some awesome giveaways coming up, starting with an ENO Double Deluxe Hammock today. So check back every day until Christmas for your daily chance at winning cool travel gear! This week on BootsnAll We’re taking a look a 7 Former Factories Turned Into Must-See Museums today. Later in the week, we’ll check out unusual transit systems around the world, traveling super light, and the best carry-on bags $70 can buy. Still need a few gift ideas for travelers, BootsnAll has 21 gift guides from round the world travelers to Francophiles.
This week we covered the "why" of your trip and people/things that have inspired you. Join us every Wednesday on Twitter #rtwchat at 12:30pm PST. 
This week’s #rtwchat on Twitter was all about planning your Round the World trip – the challenges and best/worst of it all. And make sure you sign up for Plan Your Round the World Trip in 30 Days – kicking off February 1! 
Just over 1 year ago, we ran the #indie30 blogging and sharing month on BootsnAll. We all had so much fun, that we decided to try a weekly Indie Travel Challenge for 2012. When we started the ITC in January, we intended to do it for the whole year. But with 2012 coming to a close soon, and the year anniversary of #indie30, I decided to end it with this blog post. We had a lot of fun with the folks that participated and we are impressed with the folks that stuck with it. It was a challenge for us to run it as well for the whole year! Coming up with ideas, getting them out there, and managing the real entries as well as inevitable spam that can with the mini-site that we built for the ITC. I think that the month long version was more fun, and easier to mentally handle than the year-long idea. It was an ambitious idea and we gave it a good shot. We will probably do a shorter version again in 2013. To wrap it up, I’m going to link to an assortment of participants. Thank-you for playing and sharing! Our Oyster Eat Drink Travel Repeat Erin R. Caughey Destination Unknown Hannah and the World NithinCoca.com AntSaint.com YQ Travelling I’m a Wanderer Going [...] 
During the first week of the Indie Travel Challenge we asked you to share your indie travel list for 2012 . Now that we’re about half way through 2012, it’s time to take a look back at what we wrote on those lists! What did you achieve so far? What is something you are proud of? I’ve been keeping a travel resolutions (bucket) list for more than a year now and every January I add more things to it. For 2012 I entered two new countries: Italy and Greece (and hoping to make it back to London too). In March, I spent two weeks visiting Italy (Rome, Vieste and Foggia) and Greece (Athens). They were two of the best weeks of my life. Some of my indie travel experiences included a walking tour of Anafiotika (in Athens) with an amazing artist (and a Greek friend); and walking along the deserted beach in Vieste (Italy) with nothing but the wind and the sound of the waves hitting the shores to keep us company. What travel goals have you met this year? » This week on BootsnAll: Articles you’ll read this week include information on how to have an indie travel experience in Guatemala, a detailed guide on recipes and tips for making cooking on the road fun, cheap and easy, as [...] 
From the good advice to the bad advice, travel tips can be based on anything from personal experience to general fears. Last year, we asked our BootsnAll community what the worst piece of travel advice you’d ever received was. The list was both funny and random, where we could almost have played a game of opposites and had a great list of advice. So now we’re asking you: What’s your best tip for a first-time traveler? Most of us get that feeling of excitement and nervousness right before leaving on our next big adventure, but can you remember what you felt like on your first trip? First-time travel is such an eye-opening experience. Everything is new. You’re mind is processing a million things – How much is this change worth? Will this bus stop at the next place or do I need to pull the cord? What language are they speaking? No matter what we do, we’re going to make mistakes — that often end up as some of the best memories — but if you could go back in time and tell self-circa 2009 or 1999 or 1989 or 1979 or whatever decade you began your adventures: What’s one of the first things you would say? » This week on BootsnAll: Articles you’ll read this week include: Is It [...] 
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! My Must-have Gear Item I took a 35L backpack on my round the world trip. Occasionally I wished I had a bigger pack, but ultimately it was just the right size for me. While I’ve been told that I’m a pretty paired down traveler, (I try not to let this go to my head), I do pack a number of unnecessary awesome items… from perfume atomizers to stockpiles of Burt’s Bees chapstick. So I had a hard time narrowing down to just one ‘must-have gear favorite’ from my hypothetical list of “things you really don’t need to take traveling, but I like to bring anyway”. So I picked the most useful item, that is now a must-bring for me. Can I travel without it? Definitely, but life on the road is way easier with it. Flight 001′s Wet Suit bag is on my must-pack list. After returning from Panama with a bag even the customs agents didn’t want to open, I decided I needed a strategy for my bag not mildewing on my upcoming RTW trip. I stumbled across [...] 
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” –Don Williams, Jr. Something I’ve learned to appreciate from traveling is the waiting and the process of “getting somewhere”. After returning from my RTW trip, I waited to re-purchase a car, and almost three years later, I still don’t have one. Just like when traveling, I’ve found that when I’m actively engaged in my journey (transit) by walking or biking or taking public transportation, I’m experiencing my community and city in a different way. Each trip is unique and can vary from a fairly standard ride to yoga class, to chatting with Portland tourists on the Streetcar and giving them restaurant recommendations, and even the occasional drama like having a bus pull over and call the police because some crazy person is getting mad at the driver), or discovering a new shop because you decided to walk a new route. As I started biking in Portland a lot more in the past year, it’s [...] 
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.” –George W. Bush Everyone has slightly different priorities when it comes to travel budgets and expenses. Personally, I like to save on accommodation, and I’m willing to pay more for food or splurging on a cool experience. I’m also a notorious cheapskate when it comes to things I feel should be cheap or free. Other than your initial flight, the largest expense while traveling is usually accommodation, but when the purpose of traveling is to explore and experience a new place, the last thing I want to spend a ton of money on is where I’ll be sleeping. Cheapskate confessions: I made my own fresh-squeezed orange juice on my transatlantic cruise from Barcelona back to the states (with a knife, spoon, bowl, cup, and a mountain of free oranges they provide on the boat). On the same boat, I did my own laundry in the tiny little sink and hung my clothesline criss-crossed across my tiny little cabin. I’ve slept in several airports to save $ on [...] 
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow” –Lin Yutang What is home? To me, home isn’t a house I grew up in or a specific city, or even a state… it’s an entire region of the United States, usually deemed “the Pacific Northwest”. We moved around a bit as a child, so by the time I left home for college, I’d lived in 11 different cities from the Seattle area to Eastern Washington, to central Oregon, staying an eternity of four years in Bend, Oregon. This concept of “home” never struck me as unusual, until I started feeling like a compulsive liar when telling the same person “Oh, I grew up there”, but referencing a different city depending on the week or conversation. So these days if I’m asked where I’m from [originally], I say “all over the Northwest”, or short answer, “I’m from Bend, Oregon.” I’m fascinated by people who’s “home” is also a house (in the actual physical sense of the word), [...] 
This is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project, a daily blogging challenge with a prompt for every day in November 2011. Check out the prompt at the bottom of this post to find out how you can participate! “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” –James A. Michener Trying new food is one of my favorite things about traveling. It’s incredibly exciting to me to try something new, or something familiar with a different spin. I’m also a Pescatarian, so I’ve found that food + traveling brings both challenging and amazing experiences. While I’ve never felt like too much of an outsider on the food scene, I love the mix of traveling and food and seeing how some cultures value and use different ingredients. Thankfully, I’m not gluten-intolerant or allergic to any foods, so while I consider myself a Pescatarian and was raised vegetarian, I sometimes [to the confusing shock of my travel companions] like to try random dishes that are new to me… like deep fried tarantulas in Cambodia or bacon-wrapped dates here in Portland at Toro Bravo (neither of those I’ll probably be having again). While my main diet is Pescatarian, you only live once, so what’s the worst that could [...] 
About a week ago, most of the BootsnAll team headed to Vancouver, BC for the TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) conference. One of our car discussions, enroute from Portland, was about BootsnAll’s BHAG — Big Hairy Audacious Goal. While we are working on refining our goals and dreams this year, this is the BHAG we are currently tossing around: 10 stamps on every passport in every world citizen’s back pocket. While at the TBEX conference, we handed out postcards asking bloggers to share their dreams – one life goal, one travel goal, and one blogging/connecting goal. Since we’ve gotten a few requests post-conference, we thought we’d just share the postcard with the rest of the BootsnAll community. So feel free to share your goals in the comments or download a pdf of the postcard if you want to keep it to yourself. Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing some of the goals and BHAGs that TBEX bloggers and travelers from the BootsnAll community have shared with us. So if you haven’t shared your BHAG with us, we’d love to hear it! What’s your BHAG? 
It’s time again for our First Thursday Travel Meetup in Portland! So if you’re going to be in the area, we’d love to see you! Join us at Popina Swimwear in the Pearl on Thursday, April 7 to chat travel, learn a few things about Las Vegas, enjoy a free beer courtesy of Kona Brewing Co, and enter to win a $75 travel voucher from Alaska Airlines! BootsnAll Travel and Popina Swimwear — the largest women’s swimwear store in the Pacific Northwest featuring the retro inspired Popina brand, have teamed up to host a monthly event for Portland’s First Thursday! First Thursday: 6:30-8:30pm, April 7, 2011 @ Popina Swimwear, 318 NW 11th Ave www.popinaswimwear.com www.bootsnall.com You can RSVP on our Facebook page or just show up! Happy Travels! –The BootsnAll Portland Crew: Sean, Chris, Dave, Ian, Jessica, & Olivia 
It’s time for our [second] First Thursday Travel Meetup at Popina Swimwear. And once again, we’re looking forward to seeing all of our Portland area travel friends next week! Join us at Popina’s new location in the Pearl on Thursday, March 3 to chat travel, find out 10 things you should know about Kona on Hawaii’s Big Island, enjoy a free beer courtesy of Kona Brewing Co, and enter to win a $75 travel voucher from Alaska Airlines! BootsnAll Travel and Popina Swimwear — the largest women’s swimwear store in the Pacific Northwest featuring the retro inspired Popina brand, have teamed up to host a monthly event for Portland’s First Thursday! First Thursday: 6-8pm, March 3, 2011 @ Popina Swimwear, 318 NW 11th Ave www.popinaswimwear.com www.bootsnall.com You can RSVP on our Facebook page or just show up! Aloha! –The BootsnAll Portland Crew: Sean, Chris, Dave, Ian, Jessica, & Olivia Photo by: chucklepix steve ![“I am a[n] ________ traveler.”](http://www.bootsnall.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/thumbs/922-iamxtraveler.gif)
A few weeks ago, I posted a poll to our Facebook page, asking what kind of traveler you would consider yourself to be — in ONE word. And while we started with 10 answers — the BootsnAll community is so independent [and creative!] that the poll quickly got abandoned in favor of posting answers in the comments section. Here’s what you had to say: Sound about right? This week on BootsnAll Today, Adam Seper brings us part two of traveling on the cheap with How to Travel Around the World for $40 Per Day. Later this week, we’ll take a look at staying healthy on the road, how to travel more without leaving your day job — enjoying travel without committing to a full round the world trip, along with a quick peek at making the most of your time as an expat. Has the type of traveler you are changed over the years? ![Join us for our [1st!] First Thursday Travel Meetup!](http://www.bootsnall.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/thumbs/926-oahu-225x300.jpg)
We’d love to see all of our Portland area travel friends at our BootsnAll First Thursday Travel Meetup @ Popina Swimwear next week! Need travel ideas, have questions about your next trip, or just want to chat travel and enjoy a free beer? BootsnAll Travel and Popina Swimwear — the largest women’s swimwear store in the Pacific Northwest featuring the retro inspired Popina brand, are teaming up to host a monthly event for Portland’s First Thursday! So come out to Popina’s new location in the Pearl on Thursday, February 3 to chat travel with the BootsnAll Travel crew, plan your next getaway with Popina’s retro-inspired swimwear, grab some “liquid Aloha” courtesy of Kona Brewing Co, and get your chance at winning a $75 travel voucher from Alaska Airlines. First Thursday: 6-8pm, February 3, 2011 @ Popina Swimwear, 318 NW 11th Ave www.popinaswimwear.com www.bootsnall.com You can RSVP on our Facebook page, Tweetup, or just show up! Aloha! –The BootsnAll Portland Crew: Sean, Chris, Dave, Jessica, & Olivia 
Last month, Meet, Plan, Go! shared why you should take a career break and told us a bit about their new Career Break Boot Camp course. Today, we’re excited for them as they launch their new Career Break Basic Training class — a lower cost and self-paced version of Boot Camp that we think will appeal to a lot of travelers who are contemplating the big trip, but not yet ready to commit to an 8 week class. So what do you get? The new Basic Training gets you eight self-paced lessons, ongoing community and forum access, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded peers for $149. The eight lessons have a defined objective and touch on key concepts such as finding inspiration, overcoming mental hurdles, saving & budgeting, alternatives to traditional tourism, owning your journey, essential to-do list items for the road, home, & career, and preparing for re-entry. If you’re looking to do extended travel or take a career break, this a great way to get your feet wet. Learn more at Meet, Plan, Go! 
On Thursday, several members of the BootsnAll team got together in Portland for a professional development meeting. Of course, one of the main topics of casual conversation was travel, including the question “where do you most want to go next?” Our answers were as varied as the reasons behind them. For my part, I’m dying to go to Albania, mostly as a result of an article that convinced me of the allure of Albania’s beautiful beaches, rugged mountains, and delicious, cheap food. But then I’ve also got New Zealand, Morocco, Chile and many other countries rotating at the top of my list, which is always changing. In fact, I recently came upon a list I’d made back in 2009, which detailed the trips I’d take in 2010. It turns out that I didn’t go to a single destination on that list in 2010, but instead went to several other wonderful places, including Colombia, Vancouver, Prague, and Iceland (again). So I got to thinking about how it was that I visited those places instead of the places I’d originally intended, and how I go about making decisions on where to go next. Five major factors help shape my travel plans. Deals Probably the biggest factor in choosing where to go next is the cost. Maybe I’ve got an idea to go [...] 
Happy 2011! It’s time for our annual list of the top 10 places we think indie travelers should consider visiting in the coming year. Top of my list: Curacao, Nicaragua, Albania, and Portugal (my plan of attack is to look for a travel deal to Spain first, and then snag a cheap Ryanair flight from Madrid or Barcelona to Portugal). How many new places will you add to your must-visit list? This week on BootsnAll This time every year, we take a look at our most popular travel articles of the past year. From our best “How To” travel articles, to our favorite post from our WhyGo travel guides. What do you want to see more of in 2011? Photo: pierremangin 
Here’s to happiness, health, love, and lots of travel in 2011! Happy Holidays from BootsnAll This week on BootsnAll Merry Christmas Eve Eve! Still not done with your holiday shopping? Take the easy way out with 7 Easy Last-Minute Gift Ideas for Travelers. Tuesday’s How I Travel featured the most widely-traveled man alive — Santa, followed by an objective look at the search for enlightenment with The Eat, Pray, Love Effect: Is Travel Really a Path to Self-Discovery?. So wherever you are in the world, happy holidays! 
Happy Holidays! BootsnAll’s travel gear blog launched the 1st annual 12 Days of Travel Gear Giveaways today. There are some awesome giveaways coming up, starting with an ENO Double Deluxe Hammock today. So check back every day until Christmas for your daily chance at winning cool travel gear! This week on BootsnAll We’re taking a look a 7 Former Factories Turned Into Must-See Museums today. Later in the week, we’ll check out unusual transit systems around the world, traveling super light, and the best carry-on bags $70 can buy. Still need a few gift ideas for travelers, BootsnAll has 21 gift guides from round the world travelers to Francophiles.