Author: Jenn Miller

This Week on Bootsnall: Travel Lessons, Sponsorship, Walking & Connecting with Locals

This has been an exciting week on Bootsnall. We dug into the inner journey and the lessons that travel teaches and thought through some of the ways that we can connect with locals as we travel to deep those lessons. We also heard some great ideas for ways to get your journey sponsored, both corporately and by individuals, from a team of guys who got half of their epic adventure paid for by sponsorships! Awesome! Finally, for the ultimate in slow travel: Walking. Did you know there are people who walk across whole countries? Yep.

Honoring the Lessons Travel Teaches

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If you’re traveling, you’re learning, I promise you that. Not all of the lessons are obvious in the moment. Sometimes they take days, weeks, even months, or years to tease apart. But how do we take the lessons we learn on the road and honor them in our “regular lives” when we return? Great question. There isn’t one answer, but..
“It’s not a question of whether or not travel changes us, it’s a question of how we honor those lessons in our daily lives, whether we ever return home in the physical sense, or not. If we don’t honor them, then what’s the point of traveling in the first place?”

10 Tips for Getting Sponsorships

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Many travelers have dreams of getting their epic adventure sponsored. Wouldn’t it be awesome to get PAID to travel by companies who think you are rocking their gear? Yep. It is. Of course it’s not that easy, either. Paul Archer, of It’s On The Meter expedition breaks down his strategy for you. Also, their book is coming out… like… now!
“You must figure out why somebody is going to give you money. People are not just going to give you money to go on holiday; they must get something out of it. This could be a range of things, but almost always it’s for publicity, they will invest in your idea if it sounds like the kind of idea that will appear to the greater public.”

10 Countries to Traverse by Foot

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So, I’m a walker… and my country wasn’t even on this list. I walked across Spain a couple of years ago. It was fun. And it hurt. I got blisters. After doing it once, I’m inspired to do it again and this article gave me more grist for that mill. 10 countries you can walk across? Yes please!
“Gracing many a traveler’s bucket list, the lofty aspiration of crossing a country on foot is a tempting challenge for the adventurous. Whether strolling the mere 0.2 square miles of Rome’s Vatican City, officially the world’s smallest country, or plodding the epic lengths of America, there’s a cross-country hike to suit all commitment levels.
For those with little time to spare and many miles to march, here are ten countries where traversing from border to border won’t take you an eternity.”

Connect With Locals & Enhance Your Experience Abroad

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When we travel it’s all too easy to be sucked into the local backpacker community and meet dozens of people from around the world, but never truly connect with the local population in the country we went to see. Connecting with locals can be difficult, especially if you’re just passing through and not spending much time in a place. Isabel Broher has some strategies for making those life changing connections:
“By immersing yourself, you will learn more about the destination. But equally important is that you will learn more about yourself. By experiencing a different political system, you will evaluate your own country’s situation more critically, finding differences that are both positive and negative. Similarly, by learning colloquial phrases in a foreign language and investigating their etymology, you can make comparisons to your own language. Just as learning a language takes time, so does immersing oneself in the local community. Take it slow and savor every moment of that journey of discovery.”