Tag Archives: Earth

Things You Should Know When Caring for an Aging Parent

Watching parents progress through age can be challenging, to say the least. The person who raised you and acted as a strong, powerful role model slowly loses their faculty as they grow old—and before you know it, you’re caring for the person who cared for you since you were a baby.

This transition could happen gradually as their condition worsens, or it could happen overnight if they unexpectedly slip, fall, and break a bone.

That’s why it’s critical for families to be proactive and plan for this chapter of life before anyone is caught off guard and thrown into a caretaking role they’re not prepared for.

 

Mix this with your travel plans and your lifestyle, and it gets tricky. Today, we’ll talk about  3 things you should know when caring for an aging parent.

Daily Living Requirements Must Be Met

How do you gauge whether your parent needs additional assistance as they progress through age? It’s a delicate line to walk. You don’t want to offend their dignity or autonomy, but you need to know that they can safely meet the daily living requirements essential to their emotional and physical well-being.

Keep a close eye on their condition to ensure they independently perform the following activities every day:

  • Self-feeding
  • Dressing
  • Bathing or showering
  • Personal hygiene (grooming, brushing teeth, etc.)
  • Toilet hygiene
  • Functional mobility (getting in and out of bed, sitting down and up from a chair)

Many seniors develop age-related illness or mobility issues that impede their ability to conduct their daily activities with ease. They might show signs of cognitive decline and forget to take their prescriptions, or it may prove unsafe for them to walk up and down the stairs after recent surgery.

Whatever the case may be, you’ll need to find them the appropriate help. This may be in the form of you stopping by at lunch to make sure they took their meds, hiring a qualified professional for help, or retrofitting their home and installing the proper safety equipment.

This transition is inevitably challenging. Adult children may be in denial, not ready to accept their parent’s decline in health, and elderly parents may be reluctant to ask for help due to guilt, shame, or stubbornness. However, taking an honest look at their condition and identifying where they need support is the first step to helping them live out the last years of their life most comfortably.

There are Ways to Pay for Senior Care

As health weakens and parents show increased symptoms, many adult children worry over how to pay for senior care. You want the best possible treatment for your parents, but how can you afford it without placing a financial burden on your own family? And how do you know which type of treatment program is best?

Fortunately, there are several ways to pay for senior care without mounting expensive medical bills. Take a look at the options below:

  • Medicare Part A – Original Medicare includes provisions for different types of inpatient care during temporary stays at a hospital or skilled nursing facility. This form of senior health insurance also provides hospice care for terminal illnesses and may cover the costs of at-home nursing care in severe cases.
  • Supplemental Medicare – Also known as a “Medigap policy”, supplemental insurance can be used to bridge the gap between services not covered under Original Medicare Part A and B. This offsets the out-of-pocket costs for dental care, dentures, eye exams, hearing aids, and more.
  • Investment Accounts and Retirement Savings – According to LongtermCare.gov, the average monthly cost of living in an assisted living or nursing facility ranges from $3,600 to $6,800, which could be very difficult to afford on Social Security alone. When your parent can no longer safely age in place, they can receive the treatment they deserve by tapping into the interest accrued on their investment portfolio or the money they’ve placed into a savings account.

Be sure to take advantage of the publicly funded programs that offer financial assistance for the elderly if you need extra help covering medical expenses.

Charities such as Meals on Wheels can provide your loved one with warm food and friendly smiles when you can’t be there, while the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development may be able to find your parent an affordable place to live.

Estate Planning Should Be Aligned

Unfortunately, it’s not a matter of “if” your loved one will die, but “when”. As they develop signs of age, it’s wise to go over their estate plan to ensure their affairs are in order. It can be uncomfortable to discuss what will happen once a parent passes, but it’s crucial to talk about it in advance.

Having a plan laid out will not only minimize stress following their passing, but it will also help minimize the amount paid in taxes, court costs, and legal fees. It’s likely that your parents began preparing their estate when their children were born, but it’s worth reviewing in case any changes need to be made.

For example, a divorce in the family or the birth of grandchildren could warrant names being added or removed. Your parent may have acquired a business since then, in which case they’ll need to formally document who it will be transferred to, or they might have opened a bank account but have yet to record the information necessary for an heir to access the funds.

Go over the documents in detail to confirm nothing’s left out, and if they haven’t already created a plan, make it a priority while they’re still in good health. Talking through various options from the comfort of home will make you and your parents feel much more comfortable as you prepare.

Conclusion

It’s important to have these conversations with your parent(s) well before their condition deteriorates and they have their full mental faculty. Otherwise, family members might feel rushed into a decision and emotions can run tense. Difficult conversations are never easy but going into them prepared helps smooth the discussion.

Come to the table with these talking points in mind and your loved one can rest assured they’ll receive the best care possible.

Author Bio

Kaelee Nelson received her Master degree with an emphasis in Digital Humanities and pursues her career as a writer in San Diego, currently writing for 365 Business Tips and GoodLife. She enjoys informing readers about topics spanning industries such as technology, business, finance, culture, wellness, hospitality, and tourism.

 

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Best Tips On How to Find Work & Travel Around the World

If you love traveling, then you have to admit at some point in your life you have envied the airline and cruise employees because they get to travel to so many destinations (for Free)!

Well, up until just a few decades ago, people were very, very limited with regard to where they could work unless they specifically had a job that involved international travel.

Most people never had the opportunity to work from another location (whether a farm or factory or an office building), let alone work across the globe.

This meant that not only you could never enjoy the experiences of those that were lucky enough to travel for work (example: traveling salesmen) but also you were bounded by “how many vacation days you get”. 

Time & Money Equals Travel

You need both the money and free days to travel. Without a job, there is no money. And even with a job which pays money, if they only give you two weeks of vacation, how can you fulfill your dream of traveling the world!

In other words, you need flexibility in life and work to be able to travel.

How to Find Work Abroad

Depending on the type of work you do, you may find that you can work from anywhere in the world.

This is great for those who want to expand their horizons by traveling but do not want to give up on their ability to earn a living doing something they have experience in.

The Rise of Remote Work Culture

Find work where all you need is an internet connection

Of course, these days, with the rise in the gig economy and remote work, this has all changed. The digital age powered by cheap and fast internet connectivity has made it possible for people from many different backgrounds and industries to collaborate and work around the world.

Not only is this made easier by being able to work remotely from another location but also because learning new languages has become more accessible.

For instance, you can take online French, Spanish, or Japanese lessons from Live Lingua to help you get to grips with the lingo so you can work more efficiently and score a higher chance of finding a job when living abroad.

Making business partners in Kenya

With some types of jobs, all you need is a computer and internet access, and you are all set to enjoy the working adventure of a lifetime.

American Peace Corps Volunteers in Ukraine

Some tips that can help when it comes to working efficiently abroad include:

Research the Area Properly

One thing you need to do is make sure you research the area or areas you are planning to work from properly.

This doesn’t mean just checking out the best sights and attractions to explore in your spare time – it means looking at factors that could affect your work such as internet access and speeds in the area.

Also, look at things such as living costs in the area, as this could impact the viability of you heading over there to work.

Learn the Language

When it comes to working efficiently, it is important to learn the language for the destination you plan to work from.

There are all sorts of times where you may need to be able to converse, whether it is with local clients in relation to work or whether it is with service providers when it comes to services you use for your work.

Learning how to speak the language will make life far easier for you when it comes to working abroad.

Make Sure You Have Necessary Visas

It is important to remember that there may be different VISA requirements and requirements for other official documentation depending on where you plan to work from.

You don’t want to end up working there illegally, obviously! So, make sure you are well aware of the documentation you need and make sure everything is in place before you head off to work abroad.

You can get plenty of information online about what you need, so you should be able to get it all sorted out in plenty of time.

Learn About Cultural Differences

Another thing to do is to look at cultural differences between what you are used to and what the culture is like in the area you will be working from.

If you are unaware of these differences, you could end up offending people without even knowing it, which is definitely not good for work if you will be dealing with the locals.

Respect the Traditions

So, make sure you look into the culture before you head off, as traditions may be very different where you are going compared to where you are at the moment.

Another thing to keep in mind is clothing. Try to wear as much ethenic or neutral clothing as possible because that shows your willingness to mingle with the locals and it also demonstrated you are respecting their values and traditions.

Research the Currency

You should also take some time to research the currency in the area you will be working and/or living in and compare it against the living costs in the area.

Again, this will enable you to determine the viability of living and working in that area in terms of finances. You can get online to look up this information but bear in mind the fluctuations with some currencies – you will need to keep a close eye on this.

Avoid Politics and Religion

Discussing politics and religion in a workplace setting is often considered off-limits, and perhaps for good reasons. When you are living and working in a foreign country, be extra cautious and avoid taking sides, picking favorites, or insulting or dismissing someone’s beliefs and values (whether right or wrong).

If you have strong opinions, one way you can express those is through Twitter and blogging. If your opinions are critical of the people in power in those countries, and if your main objective is to travel and not start a revolution, then it is also wise to keep yourself anonymous on these online platforms.

Practice Common Sense Safety Precautions

Read these tips:

The World Is Your Oyster

Thanks to digital technology, the world really can be your oyster when it comes to working around the world. The above tips will help to ensure you can work efficiently and that you have everything you need to start working in destinations around the world.

Once you have picked up a skill that is in demand and can be done online (or something like teaching certifications), have mastered the local language, and learned about local culture and traditions, you will find it much easier to settle in destinations you are not familiar with.

You can then get on with doing your work, earning money, and enjoying an adventure all rolled into one!

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10 Most Common Myths About Low Cost Budget Airlines

Nowadays, traveling is not a luxury anymore. Even budget travelers can fly with comfort and pleasure. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the appearance of low-cost airlines. You can get an airway ticket for just a couple of dollars if you know, where to search.

Of course, this fact also made many people doubt: isn’t it too good to be true? This has led to many rumors and myths about “low-costers” and their services. Here are the 10 most common myths about low-cost budget airlines:

Myth #1

Low-cost airlines arrive God-knows-where and getting from the airport can be even more expensive, than flying the regular airline.

Yes, and No.

Low-cost airlines truly do arrive at smaller airports. The main reason is the size of airport taxes. However, the location of a particular airport and the price of getting to the city can vary greatly.

For example, getting from Paris-Beauvais airport to the city will really cost you around 20 euro, which is even more than some low-cost ticket price.

On the other hand, we were able to get to Milano from Milano-Bergamo airport for just 5 euro. In Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, the minor airport, which caters low-cost airlines, is located within the city borders and can easily be reached by public transport, unlike the main international airport.

Also, many cities, such as Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, or Corfu Town in Greece, have only one airport, situated not far from the city, or even within the city borders. In fact, we were a little short in cash at the end of our trip to Greece, so we just walked to Corfu airport from the city center. It took us just 30 minutes by foot, which is not long at all.

And of course, no one will make you leave the plane somewhere in the field. Although, I’ve heard such a myth too 🙂

Myth #2

Cheap flights are dangerous.

No.

Low-cost airlines update their air fleets more often than the regular ones. They believe, it is cheaper to buy a new airplane than to maintain and constantly repair an old one.

Also, old aircraft break down too often, and low-costers can’t afford to cancel flights all the time, as these are additional spendings for them. So, if you really think about it, it is probably safer to fly a low-cost airline than the regular one.

Myth #3

You may not get the seat on the plane.

No.

The number of tickets issued always matches the number of seats on the plane. Of course, unpredictable situations happen sometimes. But it is, in fact, more common for regular airlines, than low-costers.

On the other hand, there may not be enough space in the luggage locker if you board late. So, try to enter the plane as soon as possible. Pay attention, where you seat is and which entrance you should use. Some airlines put this information on the boarding pass, so read it carefully.

Myth #4

The flight can be suddenly canceled or delayed.

Yes.

Of course, it can. But this is true about all airlines, and not just low-costers. The schedule can also change sometimes. Due to this fact, the best time to book your ticket is around 2-3 months before the flight, and not earlier.

If your low-cost flight was canceled at the last minute, don’t worry. You will be given an exchange or a refund, just as with regular airlines.

Myth #5

Low-cost flights are always late.

Yes, and No.

Any flight can be late, and it doesn’t apply to low-costers only. In fact, low-cost airlines try much harder to stick to their timetable, as their planes usually do 2-4 flights a day.

In my experience, low-cost flights arrived earlier almost every time. However, it doesn’t mean you should choose risky flight change options: it is always better to stay in the airport for a little bit than to miss your flight.

Myth #6

Advertised price is not final.

Yes, and No.

 

You need to proceed the booking process up to an end, to see the final price of the ticket. Some booking fees, taxes, etc. can sometimes be added, but it is not common. Pay attention, however, when booking a low-cost ticket.

Most definitely, you will be offered additional services, such as insurance, choosing a seat on the plane, food, drinks, booking a hotel, or arranging a car rental service.

So, if the price of your ticket changes, when you proceed to the next step, you should check, what services were included. If you really added something without a purpose, go back and cancel it.

Myth #7

Low-cost tickets are always cheaper than regular.

No.

If you search the same destination with a low-cost and a regular airline, the low-coster will most probably have cheaper fares. However, it cannot be true for 100% different situations.

For example, sometimes regular airlines make huge ticket sales, and you can buy a ticket at a simply funny price. Or you can get lucky and find “hot” ticket at the last minute. Or get a birthday discount. In all of these cases, your ticket will be even cheaper, than the low-cost flight.

Also, keep in mind that low-cost ticket price, in the most, only includes hand luggage. And if you are used to traveling with a huge suitcase, you will have to pay an additional baggage fee, which can be even higher, than the price of your ticket. And don’t forget about the taxi fee you will have to pay, to get to the airport if your low-cost flight departs at night or early in the morning.

The destination attractiveness also matters. During the high season, low-cost airlines may require higher prices, than even the regular companies. And of course, ticket fares tend to grow closer to the departure date (for low-costers, the difference can sometimes be around 4-5 times between the starting and the final prices).

Myth #8

Low-cost airlines don’t give any guarantees.

No.

Low-cost airlines play according to common rules. Yes, they never offer joint flights and don’t take responsibility, if you are late for your next plane. On the other hand, they try to avoid force majors and unpredictable situations as much as possible, not to have any additional spendings.

Myth #9

You can only fly low-coster with hand luggage.

No.

Ticket price in low-cost airlines only includes hand luggage, it is true. But you can take as much luggage as you want, as soon as you are ready to pay for it. On some destinations, the price of the ticket, plus the luggage fee, will still be lower, than the same route at regular airlines. 

Keep in mind, though, it is always cheaper to pay for your luggage online (even after buying your ticket), than doing it in the airport, right before departure. You can add any amount of luggage on your personal page on the airline’s website, up to 3 hours before the flight leaves.

If you don’t want to pay additional fees, however, learn to travel with hand luggage. Not only is it cheaper, it is more convenient too:

  • You don’t have to get in line for baggage registration
  • You don’t have to wait for your luggage after arrival
  • Your luggage will not get lost, as it will be with you on the plane

But keep in mind the general rules for things you can and can’t have in your hand luggage if you decide to travel light.

Myth #10

When you arrive at the airport for you low-cost flight, you suddenly find out about additional fees you have to pay.

No.

This can only happen for two reasons:

  • You didn’t do the online check-in for the flight, as most low-cost airlines demand. If you do it at the airport, the service will be paid, and usually, it costs a lot! So, don’t forget about the online check-in. Plus, it is much more convenient to do from home, than to wait in a huge line at the airport.
  • Your hand luggage or baggage doesn’t meet the strict size and weight demands of low-cost companies. Find out, which are the luggage size and weight limits of a particular low-coster, in advance, and stick to them. Otherwise, you will have to pay an additional fee at the airport.

Keep in mind: if you are not sure about your luggage, you should arrive at the airport, at least 4 hours before the departure. In this case, if you need to pay an additional fee, you will still have time to do it online, using your phone or tablet, and it would save you a fortune!

However, both situations are, in fact, the result of people’s inattentiveness. So, if it happens to you, you have no one to blame, but yourself.

If you travel on a low budget and want to use a low-cost airline, all you need is be attentive, avoid common mistakes and travel with pleasure!

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Top 100 Places People Most Want to Travel

Have you ever wondered what are the top 100 places in the world that people most want to travel? Well, we did some research and here we present you a list of awesome destinations that you can turn into an epic bucket list.

These top 100 places are the most desired among travelers from around the globe. (Listed in no particular order for curiosity and surprise.)

In other words, below are the top 100 places to visit before you die. How many of these have you visited so far?

London

Paris

New York City

Singapore

Las Vegas

Los Angeles

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Bangkok

Bali

Sydney

Cairns

Vancouver

Galapagos Island

Madagascar

Jerusalem

Mecca

Jordan

Agra

Goa

Jaipur

Kerala

Rome

Vatican City

Venice

Switzerland

Hawaii

Bahamas

Bermuda

South Africa

Amazon River and Jungle

Egypt

Iceland

Costa Rica

Belize

Easter Island

Hong Kong

San Francisco

Toronto

Alaska

Grand Canyon

Dead Sea

South Beach, Miami

Tokyo

Madrid

Barcelona

Berlin

Bora Bora

Maldives

Amsterdam

Ibiza

New Zealand

Shanghai

Dubai

Beijing

Salt Flats, Bolivia

Kathmandu

Tibet

Melbourne

Buenos Aires

Mexico City

Cancun

Panamá

Rio de Janeiro

Mykonos

Santorini

Morocco

Istanbul

São Paulo

Seoul

Scotland

The Great Wall of China

Machu Picchu

Tahiti

Bhutan’s Tiger Nest Monastery

Amalfi Coast, Italy

Banff, Canada

Tanzania

 

Kenya

Vietnam

Phuket

Austria

Preikestolen, Norway

Niagara Falls

Stonehenge

Namibia

Tikal, Guatemala

Saint Basil’s Cathedral, Moscow

Iguazu Falls, Brazil-Argentina

Yellowstone National Park

Dolomites, Italy

Khajuraho Temples, India

Patagonia, Argentina

Maasai Mara, Kenya

Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Alhambra, Spain

Ice Cave, Skaftafell, Iceland

Gobi Desert

12 Apostles, Australia

Bagan, Myanmar

Mt. Everest Base Camp

One Golden Rule To Avoid Overpacking

When I went on my first ever solo trip, I bought myself a 75L rucksack. Yes, you read it correctly. A 75L Rucksack!

I was so happy when I received it. It was huge, and it could carry almost anything.

In my excitement, I packed four pairs of shoes and all the pretty dresses I had. The rest is just a bad memory, Lol. My rucksack became so heavy that I got backache and blisters, and overall physical exhaustion from my trip.

I was so much in pain, that I couldn’t even enjoy my stay. I needed a vacation after my vacation to recover from my vacation!

Read Next: How to Pack Like a Pro & Travel Like a Ninja

The Golden Rule

Pack your bags smartly. There is a golden rule of packing that you must follow if you want to avoid overpacking situations like me.

The Golden Rule: Ditch the what-ifs

If you travel to a place in monsoon, then travel with your boots on. So, you don’t have to think- “should I pack my boots?”

Pro-travelers have a neutral colored wardrobe. I prefer black and blue over any other colors.

As a solo female traveler, as a bonus benefit, remember neutral colors goes a long way. For example, When you are traveling through busy streets or tourist hot spots, and if you dress up in bright colors, you will attract unwanted male attention.

Not only this waste time in causal small talks and saying “No” to offers for drinks and coffee, but it also causes unwanted stress, especially if the place and people don’t appear safe.

But if you wear a neutral color like navy blue, black or gray, you feel at home with the Parisian Women. Make sure your travel capsule has neutral colors which you can mix and match.

Black pants, black jacket, black jeans, and boots can take you almost anywhere in the world. And you can mix and match it with gray and navy blue. Below, there are infographics to show you how to create a travel capsule and yet look fashionable.

There is a saying that the lighter you pack, the farther you go. And it couldn’t be truer.

Travel Capsules – Packing Tips

We have three travel capsules for three seasons you may encounter on your travels: winter, summer, and rainy.

Fall and spring seasons can be planned as a winter destination minus the coats, thermals, jackets, gloves, and boots.

Winter Travel Packing List

  • (Inner) Thermals
  • Black tank tops
  • White tank tops
  • Black full sleeves t-shirts
  • Grey full sleeves t-shirts
  • Black and white striped t-shirts
  • Black pants
  • Blue jeans
  • Black jacket
  • Black boots

Summer Travel Packing List

  • White tank tops
  • Black tank tops
  • Black T-shirts
  • Grey T-shirts
  • Black and white striped t-shirts
  • Blue jeans/shorts
  • Black pants/shorts
  • Tan Sandals
  • A Red/black/white dress

Rainy Travel Packing List

  • Travel size umbrella
  • Light Waterproof /Windproof Jacket
  • White tank tops
  • Black tank tops
  • Black t-shirts
  • Grey Full sleeves shirts
  • Black and white striped t-shirts
  • Black pants
  • Blue jeans
  • Black boots/tan boots

What About Accessories

Actually, accessorize (watch, bracelets, jewelry) don’t take much space. Also, things such as scarves, belts, and handbags don’t take up a ton of space if you utilize the space and pack them smartly.

This means your default neutral-colored look can be enhanced with beautiful, small accessories of bright colors.

Moreover, there are good chances that you’ll do some shopping on your travel and you can also buy a few accessories or clothes as you travel. If you plan it right, you can carry even fewer stuff than what we have suggested above.

A Word on Souvenirs

Some folks like to collect memorabilia from everywhere they visit. This is a subjective choice and although I respect those who buy 5 magnets and postcard photos and a handmade artisan craft and a bag of local coffee or whatever that place is known for, know that these days you can buy most common stuff everywhere.

Besides, many of the artisans made pieces are not truly “made in fill-in-the-blank” but imported from China or South America.

If you absolutely feel like buying a souvenir for yourself or your family and friends, then buy something that is essentially and uniquely local.

You can choose to buy stuff that helps the local people and economy rather than at the airport or in big stores.

You can also consider donating money or hard cash to local artists or street performers. Moreover, you can take a class for something if you are staying longer.

These memories, good karma, and the new skills that you will learn will give you more joy than the shot glasses, postcards, magnets, or whatever common stuff everyone collects.

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Safe Traveling: 5 Tips On How To Travel Abroad Safely

Safe Traveling gives you a sense of security. We love going places, meeting new people, seeing beautiful sunsets. That is what travel is about. But in the excitement of it all, we should not forget about staying safe.

Don’t be so immersed in walking down a bustling tourist street that you get pick-pocketed. There are some basic tips you need to follow for safety.

It is not just theft that you are up against, you never know when you face a natural disaster, or God forbid an illness during your trip. In that case, you ought to be prepared for the worse. Below are the safety rules for wise travelers.

Carry a door lock with you

No matter what kind of destination you go and no matter how high end the hotel you stay in, you always need to have your privacy.

That is the key to safe traveling. A door lock helps you keep unwanted visitors at bay and is particularly useful for women who travel solo.

Read Next: Be Bold For Solo Travel: International Women’s Day

Along with a door lock pack a smoke detector with you too. Not all the rooms have smoke detectors.

So it is better to have one with you in the case of an emergency it can be a lifesaver. Many buildings do not have smoke detectors, so to be on the safe side take one with you.

Memorize the Emergency Digits

For safe traveling, You need to be well aware of the emergency numbers before you travel to a new country.

For example, the emergency number for an ambulance in America is 911 but in Cuba, it is 104. Google the emergency numbers of your destination before you head out for being safe. It will be beneficial if you find yourself in any trouble.

Translate Important Documents

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You might snort and say that “English is Global, Why translate it?”. But just a bit of illness abroad and you will know how important the local language is.

Countries such as China, Japan, South Korea are very serious about their mother tongue. If you give them your health documents in English, they can’t understand it because they don’t know it.

In such cases, download the health app if you haven’t already. And then input the information into it. You can use a translation app to translate all the information, So the translation would not be a biggie.

Prepare all these documents before you head out for your trip, And keep apps like to translate Microsoft Translator, Translator and Google Translator in your phone. They come in handy while traveling.

Sign up with the State Department

The Smart Traveler Enrollment Program provides US Nationals with many benefits. But above all in any case of emergency, the US Embassies can help you out in a much faster and swifter way.

It is a free service, so all the US citizens but takes advantage of it. The department also sends travel alerts regarding the country you are about to travel to.

Choose to Stay on Lower Floors

By lower floors, we do not mean the ground floor. You know in case of a break in the ground floor is the most vulnerable floor. But in the event of a fire emergency, the top floor is also going to give you trouble.

The comfy of all floors are the second and the third floor. In the case of break-ins, you are relatively safer, and in the event of a fire emergency, the ladder can reach you.

These are just a few practical tips for those travelers who love their safety. And yes it is also for those paranoid travelers who keep checking their door locks.

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10 Famous American Explorers Who Shaped The World

America remained hidden beneath the curtains of ignominious darkness, but later when explorers came, it was the happy ground for many.

There were and are many great American explorers who turned the tide of exploration in the Modern World.

ANN BANCROFT

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A girl who had a learning disability but did not give up, instead she became a risk-taker.

Born in Minnesota, and graduated from St Paul Academy and Summit School she eventually became a wilderness instructor. She was the only women to go on the International North Pole Expedition on sleds.

It was just the beginning of an exciting journey. She crossed both polar Ice caps- North and South, her obsession with The Poles did not diminish.

She conducted the first-ever all-female expedition to the South Pole. Other than being a feminist, she is also a staunch supporter of the LGBT Community.

DANIEL BOONE

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Explorers are those who dare to tread on the unholy ground. Daniel Boone – started a trade which gained popularity.

He went game hunting, then he sold the pelts in the fur market. Boone became the first American to settle west of Appalachian Mountains.

The route which he marked became the Wilderness Road- filled with attacks from Shawnee Tribes. Where Boone settled later became home to 20,0000 Americans, and it was Kentucky.

Boone had guts to trail through the paths that nobody ever touched, and in doing so, he discovered something worthy. He also founded the village Boonesborough in Kentucky after himself.

RICHARD MOHUN

Born in Washington D.C, Mohun became a commercial agent for U. S in Congo and Angola. During his work as a commercial agent, he led a campaign against the Arabian slaves. He subsequently became counsel to Zanzibar.

His three-year posting here made him middle-man between rivals in the Anglo- Zanzibar war. Seeing his dedication, the Belgian Government gave him an assignment which he happily accepted.

He had to layout a telegraph line from Lake Tanganyika to Wadelai on the White Nile. His ship- Sir Harry Johnson took him from Zanzibar to Africa.

On their way, his crew faced a lot of problems- from cannibals to laying the long transmission lines. It took him three years to do so, and he was the only one standing alive at the end of the expedition.

FREDERICK COOK

Despite the reputation of a Failed Explorer Frederick Cook has some wins under his belts. His clash with Robert Peary did not help his image. And whatever he claimed to achieve, got denied by Peary.

When Cook claimed that he reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908, a year before Robert Peary, his accounts were not trustworthy. His claim of climbing the Mt. Denali is also denied, the picture which portrays the Fake Peak- is the photo of a small peak 19 miles away from Mt. Denali.

But after all the denials there is one truth that proves Frederick Cook did go in an expedition to the North Pole but whether he reached is a big question mark. He discovered the first and only American Arctic Island- Meighen Island.

WILLIAM CLARK

Clark- a native of Virginia joined Military and took part in the Northwest Indian War. But at the age of 26, he retired because of his poor health. After six years in Mulberry Hill, Louisville he, Meriwether Lewis recruited William for Corps of Discovery.

The mission of this expedition was to establish trade with Native Americans, explore the territory of Louisiana, find a waterway from the US to the Pacific Ocean. In the Pacific, Coast Clark became the tough slave owner, but the indigenous people respected him.

SACAGAWEA

 

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Sacagawea was the lone woman in the team of Lewis and Clark Expedition. Born as Shoshone, she got kidnapped at the age of 12. She was the slave wife of the Toussaint Charbonneau who accompanied Lewis and Clark. Sacagawea knew how to speak Shoshone. Hence Lewis and Clark thought it was a good idea to hire Charbonneau as his wife speaks Shoshone.

When they headed for the expedition from the port, Sacagawea was pregnant. Both Clark and Lewis nick-named her baby Pompy. She was the lady who guided Lewis and Clark through every basin, mountain pass and gave them the optimal route.

KIT CARSON

A vagabond in nature, he truly outdid any other explorer of his time. Carson came from a humble family in rural Missouri. At the age of 16, he went to become a mountain man.

Later, after accompanying Ewin Young in his Mexican California Expedition, he became a fur trapper.

His marriage in the Rocky Mountains was to Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.The next ten years passed in a flash when he guided John C. Fremont through California, Oregon, and Great Basin area, giving us the Oregon Trail.

ROBERT EDWIN PEARY

While Cook’s claim of reaching the North Pole is fraud, Peary’s claim became null in 1913. After careful evaluation of his accounts, we know that he never really reached the North Pole. He was just 60 miles away from it.

Though his desire remained unfulfilled, he took eight expeditions to the North Pole. His every attempt was to get closer to the North Pole.

His first expedition in 1886 was to Greenland, he decided to travel solo using a sled, but a Danish Official Maigaard convinced that it is suicide to visit the North Pole alone. 1891 to 1909 – he took four expeditions, of which last two were solely to reach the North Pole.

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK

He worked for the militia in the American Revolutionary War and made valuable contributions by capturing – Vincennes and Kaskaskia.

This led to the British ceding the power of North West. He also led the opening engagements of Northwest Indian War.

There were accusations against him drinking while on duty, which forced him to resign. In later years he led the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Pacific Coast.

His knowledge of the west’s natural history gained him many students like John Pope and John James Audurbon.

DONALD BAXTER MACMILLAN

Born in Massachusetts, Macmillan became a world-class explorer of the Arctic. He studied geology at Bowdoin College. And he went on his first expedition with none other than Robert Peary. After than explorations became a daily thing for him.

In his 46 year career, he went on 30 expeditions. He was the first to introduce the use of radios, electricity, and plane in Arctic.

And he also studied flora and fauna of the Arctic, bringing back with him samples and photos of the Arctic scenery. He took his last expedition when he was 82, and he died thirteen years after that.

30 Awesome Travel Captions for Instagram

We all worry about what do we write in our captions, that it does not seem too long and yet informs about the excitement we feel while traveling.

Below are some beautiful Instagram captions – which are short and sweet for letting the world know that you are traveling and killing it!

1) I got 99 problems, but traveling ain’t one.
2) I have an insane calling to be where I’m not.
3) I read, I travel, I become.
4) I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.
5) It is bad manners to keep a vacation waiting.

6) I want to vacation so long, I forget all my passwords.
7) Come on, we are never too old for a good trip.
8) Traveling leaves you speechless.
9) Hooked on this city!
10) Tasting our way around the world one glass at a time.


11) A picture is worth a thousand calories.
12) I have restless soul syndrome.
13) Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder.
14) I am in love with cities I have never been to.
15) Puns are cool, beaches are cool, combining them is also cool.


16) When in doubt, Vacation.
17) I have got the dreamers disease.
18) A change in latitude would help my attitude.
19) Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.
20) Every single moment is an adventure.


21) Every exit is an entry somewhere.
22) Let us wander where the Wi-Fi is weak.
23) Backpacking is the best cure for paranoia.
24) When traveling, Go local!
25) Nothing teaches better than the world, Travel it, learn it!


26) True places are never on a map, dare to explore beyond.
27) There is nothing a road-trip can’t cure.
28) The journey never ends, it is always in your memories.
29) Gypsy souls- make everyone their tribe, and the whole world their native land.
30) Wanderer with a touch of swag.

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17 Proven Tips On How To Combat Jet Lag Naturally

Sometimes when you arrived back home from a long journey, you feel like death. You become extremely exhausted, feel unmotivated, and pick up weird eating habits and sleep patterns.

Well, it is what people call as “jet lag”.

Almost all of us have experienced jet lag. Its symptoms include drowsiness, muscle ache, insomnia, irritability, and difficulty concentrating.

Your circadian rhythm has a tendency to run slightly longer than 24 hours. Studies suggest that we can push back our body’s clock about two hours per day.

Fun Fact: It is always worse going east than going west.

Photo: Wake up coffee / The Art of Travel Partners

Flying west over two time zones extends your day by two hours which we can adjust. Within the same day journey east has us waking up two hours earlier and going to bed two hours earlier which does not necessarily mean sleeping.

We can advance our sleep/wake cycle somewhere between 60 to 90 minutes per day. So it takes as much as two days to adjust to get your body to log back on track. So here’s the natural way to cure jetlag.

What is Jet Lag?

Jet lag is actually a disruption with our internal clock that helps us to anticipate dusk and dawn. These biological clocks help control blood pressure, stress, appetite and more. So if you mess with the clock, you mess with your life.

17 Proven Tips to Combat Jet Lag Naturally

Here are some tips that can help you come out of your jetlag faster so you can enjoy your trip as soon as possible.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

1. Exposure To New Light

You can ease yourself into a new time zone by consciously manipulating exposure to light that is green.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Your body can feel extra exhausted when it is forced to completely adapt to a new light schedule so if you are traveling East; your body will feel like it is getting darker earlier and a way you can prepare for this is by leaving the light outside earlier in your day.

Indoors, get away from light so your body is trying to synchronize up with a light schedule of where you will end up if you are doing the opposite and traveling to the West then you want to stay up later and expose yourself to outdoor light as long as possible.

2. Spend The Day Outside In Sun

Sunlight helps us regulate circadian rhythm for eastbound flights. Try to get an early sleep. It will help you wake up for westward travel. Get Sun in the late afternoon and evening.

3. Re-Timer Glasses

Use light therapy to regulate your sleep-wake cycle. Use 450 minutes in the morning for eastbound travel or night for westbound travel. If someone asks tell them you are a cyborg.

4. Earplugs & Sleep Mask

Block out distractions with earplugs and a sleep mask. Complete darkness is ideal for melatonin (hormone that enables your body to know, when it is time to sleep and when it is time to wake up) production. Melatonin helps regulate our circadian rhythm.

5. Cold Shower at Night

Cold shower in the evening before bed can also help increase melatonin production throughout the night.

6. The 20 Minutes Nap

If sleep does not come easy at night, try 20 minutes nap throughout the day to make up for lost sleep but try to get at least four hours when it is dark out.

7. Stay Active

Exercise in the early morning or late afternoon but just not too close to bedtime. It can keep you up.

8. Drink Tea

 

Go for a tea; a natural brew of Yebra mate, a Ginkgo Biloba or Ginseng can recharge your body and mind in the morning and even in the evening.

Try Chamomile lavender and Valerian to help you not off. You can shop them online. Keep looking for their discount coupons and vouchers, promotional deals and promo codes and enjoy the rest.

9. Avoid Alcohol & Coffee

Avoid alcohol and coffee at least three hours before bed. Both act as stimulants and can keep you from falling asleep.

10. Choose Overnight Flights


The thing with overnight flights is you will get your sleep after dinner as you would at home. And when you sleep it off you reach your destination at morning or afternoon (in another timezone), Which is as close as you can get to your regular schedule.

In this way, you can cheat your body to think that it is replicating its daily schedule, so it gets easier for your body to adjust its biological clock.

11. Upside Down Your Internal Clock

It is a very hard thing to do, but it is effective. Just 4-5 days before your flight, change your schedule.

Make a schedule that coincides with your destination. Shift your sleeping and eating times with that of your destination, and when your body reaches the destination, you will feel like you are still at home.

12. Double Down on Hydration

In the flight, your body gets dehydrated faster, and to keep it healthy you need to compensate for the water loss.

Dehydration leads to weakness, so we advise that- to avoid weakness you do all necessary things. Drink enough water every hour ( at least 8 ounces ).

Use hydrating spray, moisturizing lotion, and lip balm to add water content to your skin as well. If you wear contact lenses, then use Eye drops. But remove them before you take a nap.

13. Sleep A Lot


To fight the exhaustion of Jet Lag, you need one silent weapon – Sleep. If you are on a long flight and traveling from Asia to the United States, then your body needs as much as sleep to adjust to the time zone change.

A business or a first class ticket is must for long flights because you want that reclining seat to sleep well. And if that is beyond your budget then do bring neck pillows and noise-canceling headphones with you- for a good sleep.

14. Can’t Sleep On A Flight? Try Sleeping Pills

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For some of us, sleep comes naturally. But for the rest, it takes hours of changing positions and a sacrifice to Gods to let the sleep coming. So, if going to sleep takes you a lot of time then take sleeping pills on the flight.

Check out the time duration of the effect of sleeping pills at home before you use them on the flight. Short Duration pills are better as they won’t make you feel groggy when you reach your destination.

15. Take Melatonin

Image Credit

We are not talking about Melanin here but melatonin. It decides when our body goes to sleep and when it wakes up, or in other words, it controls our sleep schedule.

Doctors have tested that 3 milligrams of Melatonin every day after reaching your destination help your body to reset its sleep clock better. Try this non-prescription drug, and check if it works on you.

16. When Not To Sleep


If you reach your destination in Morning, then avoid sleeping. It is not a time for your body to take rest, so sleeping makes you more tired.

But, if you reach your destination at around bedtime then it is okay to go to sleep. A short nap of 20 minutes is okay if you are used to taking naps. But a longer sleep will result in you staying awake whole night.

Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you?

17. Do Nothing

If you are there for only a day or two, try doing nothing. I mean you are just going to have to go back to your home time zone; you might as well stay on that schedule. Do not even set your watch.

I hope these natural ways will help you to combat jet lag as much as possible.

Jet Lag Is Common

They say Jet Lag is for amateurs. But it takes a lot of skill and practice to beat the Jetlag.

Your body needs time to adjust to the change in timezone and also the exhaustion of the long International Flight. It is better if you catalyze your body’s recovery to the JetLag.

Author Bio

Abigail Kent is an enthusiastic blogger, who loves to write on Trending topics related to lifestyle, traveling, and money saving tips. She’s currently associated with Discount Codez, an online coupon code directory offering latest and updated deals, promos, and vouchers. Follow her at Twitter.

12 Months, 12 Challenges: Happy New Year

Happy New Year! You have hit the reset button and you get to start fresh. Congratulations, you have made it to the new year, a new beginning in many ways.

This morning, on January 1st, Neha and I brainstormed and discussed how can we make this year a little different and more interesting than any of the previous years.

A New ‘New Year’

We didn’t want to do any new year’s resolutions this time. Like, lose another 10 pounds or travel to 6 new countries kinda common, boring, silly stuff.

This year, we wanted to do something fun and inspirational. Something that can be replicated by anyone and can be measured and therefore hold us accountable.

Read Next: 69 One Month Challenges That Will Make Your Life Better

 

12 Months, 12 Challenges

After drinking a gallon of water to flush all the alcohol from our system from the last night’s new year’s eve party, and peeing around 15 times, we were finally hit with a lightbulb moment.

We thought of how we can turn an ordinary year into a transformational year. Something that is both fun and motivational for our travel-addict community.

We had a nicely brewed cappuccino by the window while we enjoyed the sunny Boston afternoon. We discussed what challenges are practically doable by most people and beneficial to the doer even if they fail. We brainstormed and selected the following ideas.

Related: If you like challenges, you’ll love Our Ultimate Travel Bucket List

12 Challenges in 12 Months

  • One month without alcohol and soda
  • One month of being total Vegan
  • One month of sugar detox
  • One month of running 1 mile each day
  • One month of yoga every day
  • One month of social media detox
  • One month of caffeine detox
  • One month of eating only at home or home-cooked meal
  • One month of no Netflix and TV
  • One month of daily reading for at least 30 minutes
  • One month of daily mindfulness meditation for at least 20 minutes
  • One month of doing a random act of kindness

No soda, no alcohol, no caffeine

Monthly Challenges Breakdown

  • January – one month without alcohol and soda
  • February – one month of being total Vegan
  • March – one month of sugar detox
  • April – one month of running 1 mile each day
  • May – one month of yoga every day
  • June –  one month of social media detox
  • July – one month of caffeine detox
  • August – one month of eating only at home or home cooked meal
  • September – one month of no Netflix and TV
  • October – one month of daily reading for at least 30 minutes
  • November – one month of daily mindfulness meditation for at least 20 minutes
  • December – one month of doing a random act of kindness

Well, this is going to be both fun and tough.

That said, we want to encourage you to make your own list of challenges and play along with us.

A new day, a new start

Benefits of Monthly Challenges

Whether it’s writing a novel in 30 days or doing 30 days of yoga or 30 days of running or 30 days of detoxing, there is a good reason that 30 days challenges are getting popular. I believe:

  • Monthly challenges are a great way to instill new healthy habits
  • Anyone can commit to doing anything for 30 days
  • The 30 days duration is neither too long nor too short
  • A monthly schedule is easy to track and follow
  • These can be turned into fun group activities and can be viewed as games

Well, the clock is already ON. Let’s get started and motivate each other!

Challenge Your Friends

Please share your progress and lessons learned from each challenge on the social media of your choice or just comment below.

Please follow us on @The Art of Travel and @Fitness_Girl_Daily. We’ll be sharing our progress and our failures on Instagram stories.

Please tag us in your posts if you are planning to do any of the challenges above.

And, once again, a happy new year to you and yours from all of us at The Art of Travel family.

7 Hidden Aircraft Features You Didn’t Know About

A frequent flier might be of the opinion that she is aware of everything that is to know about flying. After all, a regular traveler would know how the routine works.

Clearing the security checks, turning off the mobile phone when in flight, the instructions from cabin crew and possibly in-flight food and beverages. But these are customary within a flight.

There are many hidden features as well which many travelers are not aware of. Most of these features are hidden in plain sight, but they are positioned with a purpose in mind. The sole purpose being “to improve the in-flight experience of fliers”.

Still, don’t believe it? Check out some of these hidden features the next time you board a flight!

Hidden Aircraft Features

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Not long ago traveling by airplanes was restricted to the wealthy and privileged. Most common fliers in airplanes used to be top brass of companies traveling on a business trip.

However, in the last decade, the airlines’ companies have diversified into economy travel. This has not only led to a decrease in the price of airline tickets but also a higher competition in the air travel industry.

Photo: Inside an aircraft / The Art of Travel Partners 

1. The Secret Room

The secret room is generally a hidden feature in an aircraft because most of the passengers have no clue. It might sound exciting, but don’t get any funny ideas.

This is the room which is separate from the passenger area and the cockpit. Typically, the secret bedroom is the place where flight attendants can take a breather during long hours of flight time.

It is sort of a break area for attendants and air hostess where there can relax, read books or even escape the maddening passengers.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to 500+ Travel Hacks

2. Black Triangles

Every aircraft has a marking over four of its windows. A little black triangle marks about four windows. This marking offers the best view of the airline wings and flaps. However, this marking is not intended for passengers.

This is useful if the flight attendant has to check the airline flaps or other moving parts while the craft is in mid-air.

In addition to offering the best view of the wings, this seat is also the center of gravity of the airplane. So a passenger suffering a nauseatic attack can find some relief in these seats.

3.  Hidden Handrail

Quite often, other passengers might grab on to your seat when walking towards the bathroom at the end of the passenger cabin.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

This might seem annoying but you might end up doing the same when you are walking to the end of the plane. But airplanes are designed with a handrail at the bottom portion of the overhead compartment.

You can witness airline staff placing their hands near the ceiling. This is to grab hold of the handrail while walking during a flight.

4. Hidden Latch on the Bathroom

This might seem weird, but it is designed to cater to emergencies during the trip. The bathroom within the airplane has a hidden latch on the outside.

Photo: The Art of Travel

This will allow in-flight attendants to open the bathroom from outside. This is especially useful if a patient suffered some emergencies inside the bathroom and is stuck.

Sometimes, it is also useful to rope out pesky passengers who tend to hide inside the washroom for hours at a stretch.

5. Chemical Panel

Photo: We all need air / The Art of Travel Partners

The cabin crew demonstration before the flight takes off is very amusing. The crew displays how the oxygen masks will be deployed and relay instructions on how to use it.

But where does the oxygen in the mask come from? Oxygen tanks are too heavy and it is impractical to carry them on a flight. So, airplanes are designed with a panel filled with chemicals.

Chemicals like barium peroxide, sodium chlorate, and potassium chlorate are stored in the panel. When these chemicals are mixed, it releases oxygen through the cabin masks. This is a much more effective way to store oxygen than to carry containers in the airplane.

6. Handcuffs and Defibrillators

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Almost all the airlines and flight crew are trained and well equipped to handle emergency situations in an aircraft. Sometimes, airline staff may encounter violent and aggressive passengers whose behavior might be too unruly and disturbing to other passengers.

In such cases, the airlines’ staff are provided with handcuffs to restrain the passenger. These handcuffs are made of plastic and can be highly effective. An aircraft also has an in-flight defibrillator.

This can be a lifesaver if a passenger encounters a heart attack when on the flight. The flight staff is trained to use this defibrillator and provide temporary medical assistance till the time flight is safely landed.

7. In-flight ashtrays

It is a known fact that smoking is not allowed within the airplanes. But still, every flight has an ashtray as a safety precaution. This is a mandatory requirement on all newly designed aircraft.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Although you still can’t smoke, there are ashtrays within the flight. The idea is to have ashtrays because while smoking is not permitted on flights if someone were to light a cigarette on board there must be somewhere to safely extinguish it.

Author Bio

Harsh Arora is a Content Consultant at Enuke Software, a pioneering Blockchain, and Mobile App Development Company and Blockchain Development Company in the USA. He is passionate about the start-up ecosystem, Cryptoworld, entrepreneurship, latest tech innovations, and all that makes this digital world.

When not writing, Harsh loves to play basketball, cook, and go on drives. Prior to this, he was working for a technology marketing company based in Norwalk as a content contributor and crypto advisor.

16 Famous Explorers and Their Incredible Stories

When men invented ways to move from one place to another, may it be through wheels or sails, many brave souls ventured into the unknown to defy logic? Such explorers made a name in history, and surely lived a life of adventure.

Let’s hear their tales of discovery and exploration.

Famous Explorers

The Age of Discovery or the Age of Exploration primarily began from the beginning of the 15th century until the end of the 18th century.

It is an informal and loosely defined term for the period in European history in which extensive overseas exploration emerged as a powerful factor in European culture and was the beginning of globalization.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

It also marks the rise of the period of widespread adoption in Europe of colonialism and mercantilism as national policies. Many lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered by them during this period, though most were already inhabited.

From the perspective of many native population or non-Europeans, the Age of Discovery marked the arrival of invaders from previously unknown continents.

Global Exploration

Photo: The Age of Discovery / The Art of Travel Partners

Global exploration started with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores, the coast of Africa, and the discovery of the sea route to India in 1498.

This was followed by the trans-Atlantic Voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas between 1492 and 1502 and the first circumnavigation of the globe in the early 16th century.

These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans, and land expeditions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, and ended with the exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century.

Let us relive the stories of 16 of the most famous explorers in the history of humankind.

Marco Polo

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners / Public Domain Archive

What sets Marco Polo apart from the rest of the explorers is his written account of his travels. Though when he published it, many believed it to be fiction, but now historians confirm many of his accounts as facts that Marco Polo mentioned in his book.

Polo was an Italian, his father and uncle were successful Jewel Merchants in Asia. When they came back to Italy, Marco Polo went with them to China. He describes his first look of hardships in Afghanistan and Gobi Desert.

Later when he made it to China, Kublai Khan sent him on voyages to Tibet, Burma, and India. After working for King Kublai Khan for 17 years coming back home after 23 years was a difficult transition. He was also imprisoned in Genoa for declaring war against the city.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners / Public Domain Archive

Inside the prison, he recorded his tales in “The Travels of Marco Polo.” This made him a celebrity later after he got out of prison. After being released from the prison, he lived 25 more years with his daughters and died in 1324.

Vasco Da Gama

A Portuguese by nationality and an explorer at heart, Vasco Da Gam learned to navigate the ships at an early age from his father, Estevao. When King Manuel discovered that Indian and Atlantic Oceans merged, he wanted to know the route that led to India.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners / Public Domain Archive

The King sent Vasco Da Gama on his way, the changes in weather forced half of his crew to fall to scurvy. That is the reason Da Gama made a rest at Mozambique, the first step of Portuguese colonialism planted here.

On his way, he stopped at Mombasa and Malindi and took a guide Ahmed Ibn Magid with him. In the May of 1498, Da Gama landed in Kochi.

After establishing spice trade in India, he went on his way back to Portugal. And Scurvy claimed the lives of his fellow crew member, as well as his brother Paulo. After struggling to keep his brother for a year in the Azores, he got back home as a hero.

His next voyage to India portrays his ruthlessness. He ordered the death of 380 Muslims aboard a ship back from Mecca. And his determination made him the dominant spice trader in Kochi. After twenty years of his second voyage to India, in 1524 he ventured to India once again.

But this time age took over mental strength and as soon as he reached Kochi, he became ill. A Catholic Church acted as his burial ground, but later his remains got back to Portugal.

Sir Walter Raleigh

He was not only a favorite of Queen Elizabeth but also a sworn enemy of the Spanish. The reason behind his hatred for Roman-Catholicism was the persecution of his family under Queen Mary I who was a Catholic.

He went to France to fight Wars of Religions, and he also studied law at Oxford. His Voyage includes his quest to find the North West Passage, but along the way, the Spanish army became the vessels of his wrath.

He became the Queen’s favorite after his return; it is even said that when he married some another woman, the Queen imprisoned him in a jealous fit.

That aside, apart from North West Passage Sir Walter Raleigh established a colony in Roanoke. His Last Voyage was to South America after which he died in Westminster (sentenced to death because of treason).

Roald Amundsen

Born to a family of shipowners and captains in Norway, Roald Amundsen was the first ever explorer to navigate the South Pole as well as the first to travel the North West Passage.

Photo: Public Domain Archive / The Art of Travel Partners

He was the leader of the Antarctic exploration. His first expedition led to his being locked up in sea ice west of Antarctic Peninsula. After surviving a harsh winter, he led his crew through the North West Passage.

Roald first wanted to explore the North Pole, but hearing he won’t be the first one to do so discouraged him. It took two attempts for him and his team to reach Polheim or the South Pole.

Abel Janszoon Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company. He was the first known European explorer to reach the islands of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania after his name), New Zealand, and the Islands of Fiji.

Photo: Tasman’s voyage route to Tasmania and New Zeland / Public Domain Archive

Ironically, from the point of view of the Dutch East India Company, Tasman’s explorations were a disappointment: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. Although received modestly, the company was upset to a degree that Tasman did not fully explore the lands he found and decided that a more “persistent explorer” should be chosen for any future expeditions.

For over a century, until the era of James Cook, Tasmania and New Zealand were not visited by Europeans – mainland Australia was visited, but usually only by accident.

James Cook

James Cook was the brave captain who led his ship to dangerous territories. Son of a farmhand in Yorkshire he gradually grew up and worked as an apprentice for a shipowner in Whitby.

Photo: Gisborne, New Zealand / The Art of Travel Partners

Due to his experience with ships and ports, he joined the British Nany, then ended up as the Ship’s Master. After the Seven Years War, he took on a scientific expedition to the uncharted areas of New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef.

He also took a tour of Antarctica in which he discovered Ester Island, Tonga, and he smashed the belief of fabled southern continent’s existence.

He did more than any sailor ever did to fill in the vast blank spaces in the world map. He died in a battle with the locals of Kealakekua Bay.

Sir Francis Drake

The relationship between Spain and England was not a warm one during the 16th century. When n Francis Drake became a successful slave trader as he sailed to Africa, but after that, he became a victim of Spanish forces in 1568.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

He and Hawkins deluded the Spanish Navy. Then, Queen Elizabeth, I issued a privateer’s commission to Drake saying he has right to plunder the properties belonging to King Phillip II.

For his next voyage, he went to Panama and raided the coast, then came the best point in British Naval history when Sir Drake became the first British to circumnavigate the earth.

Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan is often revered as the first man to circumnavigate the earth. That is so not true, his crew was. In his conquest to find a route to the Spice Islands from Spain without Portugal coming in the way, he lost his life.

But before that, he sailed to East Africa, Malacca (Malaysia), Indonesia. After his employment in Morocco had finished, he moved to Seville, Spain.

Under the orders of King Charles I, he sailed to Brazil, Patagonia, South America, Strait of Magellan, Philippines. He died while fighting in a mutiny in the Homonhom Island.

David Livingstone

In earlier days sailors were rowdy and cruel, they needed a rough exterior while traveling on the unknown waters. But David Livingstone was a saint among the devils.

He was a Scottish pastor who fell in love with Africa. He went to Africa in 1836 to work as a missionary. Even though he traveled to his country, he loathed slavery and adhered to his morals.

His madness for exploration led him to a hand to hand combat with a lion even. After retiring from his missionary job, he continued in Africa- but his source of motivation was to glean knowledge about the origin of the Nile River.

He was unsuccessful in his studies, but he made a dramatic exit from life when he died while on his knee- praying.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an Italian-born to a weaver father, but that did not stop him from going on voyages to Mediterranean and Aegean seas. He was a disillusioned hero who thought he had arrived in South Asia when he had actually discovered America by error.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Columbus made four remarkable voyages. The first one nearly took his life, when French privateers attacked his ship in Portugal’s Coast. But Columbus did not give up and swam to the shore.

Both the Portugues and the Italian Kings rejected his idea of exploring a safer route to Asia, after the war when the Spanish sponsored his expedition Columbus reached the Bahamas.

In his subsequent voyages he set foot in Venezuela and Cuba, but in his death, he still thought that it was some part of Asia.

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator, and cartographer. Born in the Republic of Florence, he became a naturalized citizen of the Crown of Castile in 1505.

Photo: Vespucci arrives in New World /Public Domain Archive

Vespucci first demonstrated in about 1502 that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia’s eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus’ voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass hitherto unknown to people of the Old World.

Colloquially referred to as the New World, it came to be termed “the Americas”, a name derived from Americus, the Latin version of Vespucci’s first name.

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Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula and played an important role in Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru.

But Soto is best known for leading the first Spanish and European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States (through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and most likely Arkansas).

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

De Soto’s North American expedition was a vast undertaking. He is also the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.

It ranged throughout the southeastern United States, both searching for gold, which had been reported by various Indian tribes and earlier coastal explorers, and for a passage to China or the Pacific coast.

Brave leadership, unwavering loyalty, and ruthless schemes for the extortion of native villages for their captured chiefs became de Soto’s hallmarks during the conquest of Central America.

De Soto died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River; different sources disagree on the exact location, whether what is now Lake Village, Arkansas, or Ferriday, Louisiana.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa

Vasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World.

He traveled to the New World in 1500 and, after some exploration, settled on the island of Hispaniola.

He founded the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién in present-day Panama in 1510, which was the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas (a settlement by Alonso de Ojeda the previous year at San Sebastián de Urabá had already been abandoned).

John Cabot

John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer, born in the Kingdom of Naples. His 1497 discovery of the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England was the first European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century.

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Like other explorers at those times, including Christopher Columbus, Cabot led an expedition on commission, in his case, England. Cabot planned to depart to the west from a northerly latitude where the longitudes are much closer together, and where, as a result, the voyage would be much shorter.

He still had an expectation of finding an alternative route to China.

Henry Hudson

Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.

In 1607 and 1608, Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a rumored Northeast Passage to Cathay (China) via a route above the Arctic Circle.

In 1609 he landed in North America and explored the region around the modern New York metropolitan area, looking for a Northwest Passage to Asia on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.

He sailed up the Hudson River, which was later named after him, and thereby laid the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region.

Hudson discovered the Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay on his final expedition, while still searching for the Northwest Passage.[6] In 1611, after wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, but most of his crew mutinied. The mutineers cast Hudson, his son, and seven others adrift; the Hudsons and their companions were never seen again.

Lewis and Clark

The Lewis and Clark Expedition began near St. Louis, made its way westward, and passed through the Continental Divide of the Americas to reach the Pacific coast.

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From May 1804 to September 1806, it was the first American expedition to cross the western portion of the United States.

President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the expedition shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to explore and to map the newly acquired territory, to find a practical route across the western half of the continent, and to establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.

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The campaign’s secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and to establish trade with local American Indian tribes. The expedition returned to St. Louis to report its findings to Jefferson, with maps, sketches, and journals in hand.

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201 Greatest Travel Quotes for Travel Inspiration

Enjoy some of the greatest travel quotes and allow yourself to be seduced by the spirit of wanderlust and vivid imaginations of adventures in far and distant lands.

Each quote will gently guide you to listen closely to your own heart.

201 Greatest Travel Quotes

1) “Bury me where I die.” ― Jane Bulos

2) “Travelers are dreamers who make their desires for adventure a reality.” – Anonymous

3) “When something good happens, travel to celebrate. If something bad happens, travel to forget. If nothing happens, travel to make something happen.” – Anonymous

4) “The Travel impulse is a mental and a physical curiosity. It is a passion. And I can’t understand people who don’t want to travel.” – Paul Theroux

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

5) “Some of us just need more Vitamin Sea.” – Salil Jha

6) “To travel is to evolve.” – Pierre Bernardo

7) “This heart of mine was made to travel the world.” – Anonymous

8) “I travel because I become uncomfortable being too comfortable.” – Carew Papritz

9) “My goal is to run out of pages in my passport.” – Anonymous

10) “To live will be an awfully big adventure.” – Peter Pan

11) “The traveler’s rush that hits you upon arrival to a new place is like a drug. And like a drug, the more you expose yourself to it, the more you want it.” – Clayton B Cornell

12) “My passport is screaming to be stamped.” – Cherie Oke

13) “This is your planet; you should really come see it sometime.” – Anonymous

14) “My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” – Diane Arbus

15) “Travel is my therapy.” – Anonymous

16) “We travel, some of us, forever to seek other places, other lives and other souls.” – Anais Nin

17) “I travel because seeing photos in books and brochures wasn’t good enough for me. To be there was everything.” – Wiremu Ratcliffe

18) “If traveling was free, you would never see me again.” – Anonymous

19) “A traveler is active; he goes strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing”.”  – Daniel J. Boorstin

20) “I depart, whither I know not; but the hour’s gone by when Albion’s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.” – Lord Byron

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Related: The Ultimate Travel Bucket List

21) “Travel brings power and love back to your life.” – Rumi

22) “In traveling, I shape myself betimes to idleness and take fools’ pleasure.” – George Eliot

23) “I have been a stranger in a strange land.” – Exodus 2:22

24) “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.” ― Robert Frost

25) “The man journeyed far, and he heard and saw many strange things on his travels. He learned that – the friend and the enemy are but two faces of the same self. That the path one believes chosen long since, constant and unchangeable, straight and wide, can alter in an instant. Can branch, and twist and lead the traveler to places far beyond his wildest imaginings. That there are mysteries beyond the mind of mortal man, and that to deny their existence is to spend a life of half-consciousness.” ― Juliet Marillier

26) “Not all those who wander are lost.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

27) “I love to escape to wild places – forests, mountains, rivers or the sea. If that’s not possible, I flee into books; vicarious travel is rejuvenating.” ― Jane Wilson-Howarth

28) “Foolish acts and bold adventures almost always appear, especially in the beginning, to be the absolute same thing.” ― Leigh Ann Henion

29) “As you travel along the roads in life, there is a certain kind of peace that comes with knowing you’re on the right path. And when you are faced with adversity, it challenges you but makes you stronger. The road is not always an easy route. Nevertheless, you must not allow your fears to keep you from reaching the destination.” ― Amaka Imani Nkosazana

30) “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

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31) “Little by little, one travels far.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

32) “Let your life reveal its lessons. Follow your heart, as it will not lead you astray. Find your passion and let its energy run through you in ways you have never experienced. With that, your real life will begin.” ― Angela Bushman

33) “Our homes travel with us. They are wherever we feel loved and accepted.” ― Kamand Kojouri

34) “As is often the case when I travel, my vulnerability — like not knowing what the hell I’m going to do upon arrival — makes me more open to outside interactions than I might be when I’m at home and think I know best what needs to be done. On the road, serendipity is given space to enter my life.” ― Andrew McCarthy

35) “You are only given one life, one chance at fully living it…take risks, believe in your dreams, explore the world and her people, live out loud!” ― Danell Lynn

36) “Travel is rebellion in its purest form. We follow our heart. We free ourselves of labels. We lose control willingly. We love the unfamiliar. We trust strangers. We own only what we can carry. We search for better questions, not answers. We truly graduate. And, sometimes, we choose never to come back.” ― Anonymous

37) “Not all journeys seek an end. Some are their own purpose.” ― Una McCormack

38) “I’d learned so much from traveling to familiar places that I figured I’d learn twice as much by going to a place I knew nothing about.” ― Gerry Abbey

39) “We are the roads we travel. The choices we make are everything.” ― Megan Duke

40) “There are those who travel but never really arrive. Those who visit a place but never know the people. Travel is so much more when you get closer to life and how it is lived here, wherever here may be. I am moving into the unknown to come into being at home wherever I find myself. Individually, inspired, and imaginative.” ― Anna Asche

Related: 101 Couple Goals

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

41) “I Travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” ― C. Stinnett

42) “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” ― David Mitchell

43) “We should not judge people by their peak of excellence, but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.” ― Henry Ward Beecher

44) “I was an adventurer, but she was not an adventuress. She was a ‘wanderess’. Thus, she didn’t care about money, only experiences – whether they came from wealth or from poverty, it was all the same to her.” ― Roman Payne

45) “Chaos is more freedom; in fact, total freedom. But no meaning. I want to be free to act, and I also want my actions to mean something.” ― Audrey Niffenegger

46) “Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.” ― Roman Payne

47) “Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” ― Paulo Coelho

48) “By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.” ― Virginia Woolf

49) “Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else.” ― Tennessee Williams

50) “I’m inspired by the people I meet in my travels–hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I’m inspired by the love people have for their children. And I’m inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.” ― Barack Obama

51) “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” ― Pico Iyer

52) “Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward towards the light, but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

53) “Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades bumps and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your characters is truly tested and have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.” ― Katie Couric

54) “There ain’t no journey what don’t change you some.” ― David Mitchell

55) “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” ― Carl Sagan

56) “Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.” ― Maya Angelou

57) “Life is simple. Open your heart, mind, and arms to new things and people, we are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some opportunities only come once, seize them. Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them, so go out and start creating. Life is short, live your dream and wear your passion.” ― Holstee Manifesto

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

58) “As for you girls, you must risk everything for Freedom, and give everything for Passion, loving everything that your hearts and your bodies love. The only thing higher for a girl and more sacred for a young woman than her freedom and her passion should be her desire to make her life into poetry, surrendering everything she has to create a life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in her imagination.” ― Roman Payne

59) “Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world.” ― Jason Mraz

60) “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” ― Christopher McCandless

61) “Although time seems to fly, it never travels faster than one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity to live your life to the fullest. In each waking day, you will find scores of blessings and opportunities for positive change. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the unchangeable past or the indefinite future! Today is a new day!” ― Steve Maraboli

62) “There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic: this was usually Valentina’s first impulse. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you’ve misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.” ― Audrey Niffenegger

63) “It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born-and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.” ― Anne Lamott

64) “No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet.” ― Patrick Rothfuss

65) “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines.” ― Anne Lamott

66) “Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion.” ― Robert Macfarlane

67) “You can’t control the past, but you can control where you go next.” ― Kirsten Hubbard

68) “You told me once of the plants that lie dormant through the drought, that wait, half-dead, deep in the earth. The plants that wait for the rain. You said they’d wait for years, if they had to; that they’d almost kill themselves before they grew again. But as soon as those first drops of a waterfall, those plants begin to stretch and spread their roots. They travel up through the soil and sand to reach the surface.” ― Lucy Christopher

69) “Most people fail at whatever they attempt because of an undecided heart. Should I? Should I not? Go forward? Go back? Success requires the emotional balance of a committed heart. When confronted with a challenge, the committed heart will search for a solution. The undecided heart searches for an escape. A committed heart does not wait for conditions to be exactly right. Why? Because conditions are never exactly right.” ― Andy Andrews

70) “Everything will be alright in the end so if it is not alright it is not the end.” ― Deborah Moggach

71) “The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown.” ― Paul Theroux

72) “By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.” ― Virginia Woolf

73) “When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys, and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.” ― Clarence Darrow

74) “I want my life to be the greatest story. My very existence will be the greatest poem. Watch me burn.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

75) “Along your pathway of life you will observe that you are not the only traveler. There are others who need your help. There are feet to steady, hands to grasp, minds to encourage, hearts to inspire, and souls to save.” ― Thomas S. Monson

76) “To wander is to be alive.” ― Roman Payne

77) “Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.” ― Yogi Bhajan

78) “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” ― Bashō Matsuo

79) “It is better to travel aimlessly than to sit idle and daydream about a perfect vacation.” ― Salil Jha

80) “One day in my shoes and a day for me in your shoes, the beauty of travel lies in the ease and willingness to be more open.” ― Forrest Curran

81) “When you travel, you are with yourself. You can’t carry your belongings, your home, your past. Long-term travel is a form of meditation and a life of simplicity.” – Salil Jha

82) “If you want to be a minimalist – travel.” – Salil Jha

83) “With maps and globes decorated around your room as a child and with passport and ticket in hand in the present, it is your world to explore. To travel is to ask for a complex mix of the new and the old, hellos and goodbyes, and sadness and happiness. Leave your shoes behind at home and to walk in the footsteps of others for a while.” ― Forrest Curran

84) “Sure, the Leaning Tower of Pisa leaned like everyone else said it would, the mountains of Tibet were more beautiful than you had ever expected, and the Pyramids of Egypt stood mysteriously in the sea of sand like in the pictures; yet is it the environment or rather the openness in mindset, that makes up the elusive essence of happiness that we experience when we travel?” ― Forrest Curran

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

85) “Is the sunrise of Mount Fuji more beautiful from the one you see in the countryside a bit closer to home? Are the beaches of Indonesia really that much more serene than those we have in our own countries? The point I make is not to downplay the marvels of the world, but to highlight the notion of the human tendency in our failure to see the beauty in our daily lives when we take off the travel goggles when we are home. It is the preconceived notion of a place that creates the difference in perception of environments rather than the actual geological location.” ― Forrest Curran

86) “The beauty of traveling is understood along the way rather than at the end of the journey, just as the purpose of marriage isn’t about becoming Mr. and Mrs.’s, but is about the love that is expressed on a daily basis between two lovers. A journey is not made up of the destinations that we arrive at, but is composed with every step we take.” ― Forrest Curran

87) “It is enough to think that we are mortals and that today may be our last. Live to the fullest while you are alive. Explore, try, travel.” – Salil Jha

88) “I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” ― Oliver Sacks

89) “It is better to travel, than to arrive.” ― Gautama Buddha

90) “I am not going to seek employment again, that is for certain. To live a short life and being told what to do, when to do, and how to do is not a safe life but an absurd life. Quitting servitude is the first step towards freedom and a chance for achieving an extraordinary life.” – Salil Jha

91) “Wandering is the activity of the child, the passion of the genius; it is the discovery of the self, the discovery of the outside world, and the learning of how the self is both “at one with” and “separate from” the outside world. These discoveries are as fundamental to the soul as “learning to survive” is fundamental to the body. These discoveries are essential to realizing what it means to be human. To wander is to be alive.” ― Roman Payne

92) “Just as a painter paints, and a ponderer ponders, a writer writes, and a wanderer wanders.” ― Roman Payne

93) “When I die, I want your hands on my eyes. I want the light and heat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me. Once more I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny. I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep. I want your ears still to hear the wind; I want you to sniff the sea’s aroma that we loved together, to continue to walk on the sand we walk on. I want what I love to continue to live, and you whom I love and sang above everything else to continue to flourish, full-flowered. So that you can reach everything my love directs you to. So that my shadow can travel along in your hair, so that everything can learn the reason for my song.” ― Pablo Neruda

94) “God always brings someone into your life that has traveled the same path and knows the rocks you climbed to get to the end of the trail.” ― Shannon L. Alder

95) “To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realize that where you wish to be is where you have already been … and always were.” ― Neale Donald Walsch

96) “The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing, while the true traveler knows that the novel world about her serves as the most appropriate accessory.” ― Gregory Maguire

97) “Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone’s home and backyard.” ― Vera Nazarian

98) “If you can’t travel, read. Reading is like travel, allowing you to exit your own life for a bit, and to come back with a renewed, even inspired, perspective.” ― Laurie A. Helgoe

99) “Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.” ― Nikos Kazantzakis

100) “It’s hard to go. It’s scary and lonely…and half the time you’ll be wondering why the hell you’re in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires. But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful… It will open up your life.” ― Cheryl Strayed

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

Also Read: 100+ Common Travel Questions Answered

101) “The explorer who will not come back or send back his ships to tell his tale is not an explorer, only an adventurer; and his sons are born in exile.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

102) “Bad, or good, as it happens to be, that is what it is to exist! To sail into an unknown spring, or receive one’s baptism on storm’s promontory, where the solitary albatross heels over in the gale, and at last come to land. To know the earth under one’s foot and go, in wild delight, ways where there is water.” ― Malcolm Lowry

103) “Real travel would be to see the world, for even an instant, with another’s eyes.” ― Robyn Davidson

104) “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, but I chose neither one. Instead, I set sail in my little boat to watch a sunset from a different view that couldn’t be seen from shore. Then I climbed the tallest mountain peak to watch the amber sun through the clouds. Finally, I traveled to the darkest part of the valley to see the last glimmering rays of light through the misty fog. It was every perspective I experienced on my journey that left the leaves trodden black, and that has made all the difference.” ― Shannon L. Alder

105) “This is what you should know about losing someone you love. They do not travel alone. You go with them.” ― Augusten Burroughs

106) “Let’s not just grow roots but also wings to fly.” ― Salil Jha

107) “I had always believed that I left a bit of me wherever I went. I also believed that I took a bit of every place with me. It was as if the act of touching these places, walking these roads, and asking these questions had added another column to my being. And the only possible explanation I could find for that feeling was that a spirit existed in many of the places I visited, and a spirit existed in me and the two had somehow met in the course of my travels. It’s as if the godliness of the land and the godliness of my being had fused.” ― Bruce Feiler

108) “Find something you love and go for it with all your heart. No excuses, no plan B. Never settle for anything less than you know you can do. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

109) “Wanderlust is a form of curiosity. It is naturally human. You cannot keep it buried and expect it to never arise.” ― Salil Jha

110) “Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished.” ― Henry David Thoreau

111) “One goes on a vacation to relax but one travels to satiate inquisitiveness.” ― Salil Jha

112) “Most of our life is encountering the expected, the normal; it is the encounter with the unexpected that teaches us the truth.” ― Salil Jha

113) “Roam abroad in the world, and take thy fill of its enjoyments before the day shall come when thou must quit it for good.” ― Saadi

114) “Goals are my north star. My compass. The map that guides me along the road I wish to travel. Goals are motivations with wind in their sails—they carry me forward despite the storms.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich

115) “Just as we are never too young for love, we are never too old to travel.” ― Salil Jha

116) “There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” ― Alain de Botton

117) “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I am going is what inspires me to travel it.” ― Rosalía de Castro

118) “But real life doesn’t travel in a perfect straight line; it doesn’t necessarily have that ‘all lived happily ever after’ bit. You have to work on where you’re going.” ― Chris Kyle

119) “No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.” ― Patrick Rothfuss

120) “I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.” ― Jean Webster

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

121) “Meditation is an essential travel partner on your journey of personal transformation. Meditation connects you with your soul, and this connection gives you access to your intuition, your heartfelt desires, your integrity, and the inspiration to create a life you love.” ― Sarah McLean

122) “The only cure to all this madness; is too dream, far and wide, if possibility doesn’t knock, create a damn door. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t make it. If the journey you’re travelling seems to farfetched and wild beyond your imagination; continue on it, great things come to the risk takers. And last but not least, live today; here, right now, you’ll thank your future self for it later.” ― Nikki Rowe

123) “Cutting my roots and leaving my home and family when I was 18 years old forced me to build my home in other things, like my music, stories and my journey. The last years I have more or less constantly been on my way, on the road, always leaving and never arriving, which also means leaving people. I’ve loved and lost and I have regrets and I miss and no matter how many times you leave, start over, achieve success or travel places it’s other people that matter. People, friends, family, lovers, strangers – they will forever stay with you, even if only through memory. I’ve grown to appreciate people to the deepest core and I’m trying to learn how to tell people what I want to tell them when I have the chance, before it’s too late.” ― Charlotte Eriksson

124) “A wanderer may be far from home but is never lost.” ― Salil Jha

125) “Your comfort zone is a place where you keep yourself in a self-illusion and nothing can grow there but your potentiality can grow only when you can think and grow out of that zone.” ― Rashedur Ryan Rahman

126) “The world is full of wonderful things you haven’t seen yet. Don’t ever give up on the chance of seeing them.” ― J.K. Rowling

127)  “Life is whatever we make it. The traveler is the journey. What we see is not what we see but who we are.” ― Fernando Pessoa

128) “When you take the step towards your dreams you will be met with fears because you have never traveled this way before. As you go, you will discover that you had nothing to fear. Through overcoming your fears you give those that follow you hope that if they pursue their dreams, they will achieve their dreams.” ― E’yen A. Gardner

129) “Going on a journey doesn’t mean believing in a path, but having faith in yourself.” ― Salil Jha

130) “This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one.” ― Paolo Coehlo

131)  “I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question.” ― Harun Yahya

132) “We are torn between the nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.” ― Carson McCullers

133) “I no longer see any meaning of life but then I saw no reason to die as well. I traveled to faraway lands, running away from friends, family and everyone else and I confined myself to my thoughts, to my feelings and to myself. Hours, days, weeks and months passed and I waited for a moment of magic to happen, a turn of destiny, but nothing happened, nothing ever happens. I waited and I counted each moment of it, thinking about every moment of my life, the good and the bad ones. I then saw how powerful yet weak, bright yet dark, beautiful yet ugly, joyous yet grievous; is a one single moment. One moment makes the difference. Just one moment. Such appears to be the extreme and undisputed power of a single moment. I realized that the power of the moment is not in the moment itself. The power, actually, is in us. Every single one of us has the power to make and shape our own moments. It is us who by feeling joyful, celebrate for a moment of success; and it is also us who by feeling saddened, cry and mourn over our losses. I, with all my heart and mind, now embrace this power which lies within us. I wish life offers you more time to make use of this power. Remember, we are our own griefs, we are our own happiness, and we are our own remedies.” ― Huseyn Raza

134) “It’s hard to be less than happy when you can be happy with less.” ― Chris Brady

135) “Why the obsession with worldly possessions? When it’s your time to go, they have to stay behind, so pack light.” ― Alex Morritt

136) “There is no place like the beach… where the land meets the sea and the sea meats the sky.” ― Umair Siddiqui

137) “In the old days, when travelers would get lost, they would follow the stars and I love that idea. I wish that I could rely on something as simple and magnificent as a star for all of my aching questions.” ― Jennifer Elisabeth

138) “He will one day meet his true love… A fellow traveler on the road… Her eyes will be his ocean… In her ocean he will sail forever.” ― Kem

139) “The spectacular landscape circling the fortress supplies an essential backdrop, inspiring dreamers to wander its ruins for the sake of it; North American tourists, bound down by their practical world view, are able to place those members of the disintegrating tribes they may have seen in their travels among these once-living walls, unaware of the moral distance separating them, since only the semi-indigenous spirit of the South American can grasp the subtle differences.” ― Ernesto Che Guevara

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

140) “Having books standing on a shelf in a room is like having completely different worlds at the ready, waiting to be explored.” ― J.F Hermann

141) “Freedom has its dangers as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off we’ll be.” ― Alice Steinbach

142) “I am thankful to all the souls, I meet in the journey of life.” ― Lailah Gifty Akita

143) “But it is a long and difficult road, full of perils, and if a traveler on foot were to look at the length of it, his spirit would be overcome and he would sit down and refuse to go any further. You must not look to the end of the road. Look only to the step in front of you. That you can do. Just one step. And you will not make the journey alone.” ― Deanna Raybourn

144) “All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet’s hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man’s way of heading home. ” ― Paul Theroux

145) “The best traveler is one without a camera.” ― Kamand Kojouri

146) “Carrying a camera doesn’t make one a lesser traveler, but looking at a place only through your camera lens does.” ― Salil Jha

147) “All men have the stars but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. But all the stars are silent. You, you alone, will have the stars as no one else has them.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

148) “I believe that life is all about perception and timing. That good things come to those who act and that life’s about more than collecting a paycheck. I believe that the only person you’re destined to become is the one that you decide to be. That if you try hard enough you can convince yourself of anything. That having patience doesn’t make you a hero nor does it make you a doormat. I believe that not showing love proves you’re weak and belittling others doesn’t make you strong. That you are never as far away from people as the miles may suggest.” ― Todd Smidt

149) “Life’s too short to read awful books, listen to terrible music, or be around uninspiring people. I believe that where you start has little impact on where you finish. That sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away. I believe that the cure for anything is salt water; sweat, tears, or the sea. That you should never let your memories be greater than your dreams. And that you should always choose adventure.” ― Todd Smidt

150) “That we leave our homes, that we step through our doors to the world, that we travel our whole lives not because we want to collect exotic T-shirts, not because we want to consume foreign adventure the same Western way we consume plastic and Styrofoam and LCD TVs and iPads, but because it has the power to renew us—not the guarantee, not the promise, just the possibility. Because there are places our imaginations can never construct for us, and there are people who we will never meet but we could and we might. It reminds us that there is always reason to begin again.” ― Stephen Markley

151) “Every journey has its own traveler. Every dream has its own dreamer. We are all belonged to a specific journey and dream. Some people are currently looking for it, some people are just figuring it out, some people are still lost, and to some they have finally found it.” ― Diana Rose Morcilla

152) “If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear ― whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I’ve seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag’s heart half-circle.” ― Chris Avellone

153) “Travel is the discovery of truth; an affirmation of the promise that human kind is far more beautiful than it is flawed. With each trip comes a new optimism that where there is despair and hardship, there are ideas and people just waiting to be energized, to be empowered, to make a difference for good.” ― Dan Thompson

154) “Leave no path untaken.” ― Neil Gaiman

155) “We did all the tourist crap, but I just wanted to sit in a cafe and watch people.” ― Sara Shepard

156) “Do not ask me where I am going, as I travel in this infinite world, where every step I take is my home.” ― Dōgen

157) “When you build a city near no mountains and no ocean, you get materialism and traditionalist religions. People have too much time and lack inspiration.” ― Donald Miller

158) “As a traveler, education is our way of life.” ― Debasish Mridha

159) “Go far—too far you cannot, still the farther. And go sparing — one meal a week will serve you, and one suit, through all your travels.” ― John Fletcher

160) “Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof.” ― Thomas Fuller

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

161) “(Un viaggiatore prudente non disprezza mai il suo paese.) A wise traveler never despises his own country.” ― Carlo Goldoni

162) “The soul of the journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.” ― William Hazlitt

163) “The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ― Samuel Johnson

164) “Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don’t let him go to the devil where he is known.” ― Samuel Johnson

165) “As the Spanish proverb says, “He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.” So it is in travelling: a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.” ― Samuel Johnson

166) “Though they carry nothing forth with them, yet in all their journey they lack nothing. For wheresoever they go, they are at home.” ― Sir Thomas More

167) “Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels.” ― Socrates

168) “When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travelers must be content.” ― William Shakespeare

169) “The sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.” ― William Shakespeare

170) “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

171) “I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land or by water.” ― Jonathan Swift

172) “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” ― Publius Syrus

173) “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” ― Mark Twain

174) “Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.” ― Izaak Walton

175) “The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere.” ― Xun Zi

176) “The traveled mind is the catholic mind educated from exclusiveness and egotism.” ― Amos Bronson Alcott

177) “Traveling is no fool’s errand to him who carries his eyes and itinerary along with him.” ― Amos Bronson Alcott

178) “Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travels into a country before he has some entrance into the language goes to school, and not to travel.” ― Francis Bacon

179) “He travels safest in the darkness of night who travels lightest.” ― Fernando Cortez

180) “One who journeying along a way he knows not, having crossed a place of drear extent, before him sees a river rushing swiftly toward the deep, and all its tossing current white with foam, and stops and turns, and measures back his way.” ― Homer

181) “They change their sky, not their mind, who cross the sea. A busy idleness possesses us: we seek a happy life, with ships and carriages: the object of our search is present with us.” ― Horace

182) “I am fevered with the sunset, I am fretful with the bay, for the wander-thirst is on me and my soul is in Cathay.” ― Richard Hovey

183) “The wonders of each region view, from frozen Lapland to Peru.” ― Soame Jenkyns

184) “The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ― Samuel Johnson

185) “Let observation with extensive view, survey mankind from China to Peru; remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, and watch the busy scenes of crowded life.” ― Samuel Johnson

186) “Follow the Romany pattern sheer to the Austral light, where the bosom of God is the wild-west wind, sweeping the sea floors white.” ― Rudyard Kipling

187) “Death is the final journey we all must take. Don’t wait to travel on your own until your final voyage.” ― Salil Jha

Photo: The Art of Travel Partners

188) “The secret to meditation is to drop the mind. The secret to long-term travel is to drop your plans.” ― Salil Jha

189) “Traveling is living a book that is in the process of being written.” ― Salil Jha

190) “Better sit still where born, I say, wed one sweet woman and love her well, love and be loved in the old East way, drink sweet waters, and dream in a spell than to wander in search of the Blessed Isles, and to sail the thousands of watery miles in search of love, and find you at last on the edge of the world, and a curs’d outcast.” ― Joaquin Miller

191) “The dust is old upon my sandal, and I am still a pilgrim; I have moved from wild America to Bosphor’s waters, and worshipped at innumerable shrines of beauty; and the painter’s art. To me, and sculpture, speak as with a living tongue, and of dead kingdoms, I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins.” ― Nathaniel Parker Willis

192) “To love, you don’t wait until the wedding. To travel, you don’t wait until you retire. Just as you fall in love, you let yourself to be seduced by wanderlust.” ― Salil Jha

193) “(Qui veut voyager loin ménage sa monture.) He who will travel far spares his steed.” ― Jean Racine

194) “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?” ― Christina G. Rossetti

195) “Does the pilgrim counts the miles when he travels to some distant shrine?” ― Friedrich Schiller

196) “He whose mind is everywhere is nowhere.” ― Seneca the Younger

197) “I think it was Jekyll who used to say that the further he went west, the more convinced he felt that the wise men came from the east.” ― Sydney Smith

198) “I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, “‘Tis all barren!” ― Laurence Sterne

199) “When we have discovered a continent, or crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find another ocean or another plain upon the further side…. O toiling hands of mortals! O wearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

200) “Many travel the world to seek meaning. In sadness, many travel to seek happiness. But no such place exists in this mad world. Each of us carries the fountain of joy within us and the meaning of travel is to witness the conscious expression of life.” ― Salil Jha

201) “For always roaming with a hungry heart, much have I seen and known.” ― Alfred Tennyson

Related

6 Outdoor Activities that can Improve Memory and Focus

Going outside works wonders for our body, we are all aware of that. But let’s talk about what it does for our mind. I’m sure we are all aware of how everyone is talking about the outside world these days and the magic it works for our growth and development – both physical and mental.

There are, of course, a large number of ways how your brain improves when you are more open to fresh air and a natural environment, but we will be discussing memory and focus, mainly.

Improve Memory and Focus

We all know indoor games, activities, and exercises that help in improving our memory and concentration, but you should be aware that these two traits can easily be enhanced if you become more perceptive to life in the outside world as well.

Let us talk about the activities which will help you out and how they can do so:

 

1. Walking in Nature

So, let us begin with the basics. Can a simple walk in a park or around your block help you out? Of course, it can. Walking in a natural environment can be considered a form of meditation. You find it easy to block out the world around you and focus solely on your thoughts.

You can clear out any unnecessary concerns from your mind and start organizing things that truly matter in your brain. One of the reasons why we struggle with memory issues is that we lose some critical ones in the plethora of unwanted thoughts that we have accumulated.

Once you can empty your mind of thoughts that do not matter, you will realize that there are some critical things that you need to work on. Losing junk thoughts will also help you improve your focus on the things that matter.

You can make walks a daily or weekly thing then and use that time to contemplate the world around you. The natural beauty around you will also calm your anxiety and stress which will further enable you to think clearly.

 

2. Team Sports

Many of us assume that playing team sports for fun or in leagues is for knuckleheads alone. This concept is far from the truth because team sports require a lot more focus than individual sports.

Not only do you have to be wary of your movement and actions during the game, but you also need to be aware of what your team is doing as well. Working in complete coordination with your group requires a lot of focus which exercises your mind and body both.

The chances are that you are not only going to be playing the sport once but many times. So you must always remember the movements and the coordination you have learned.

It eventually becomes reflexive when you play with the same team for a long time but not before giving your brain the workout it needs!

3. Outdoor Memory Games

When we think of memory games, we usually think about sitting in a friend’s living room with a memory board game or a card game or something of that sort.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could play memory games outside so that we benefit from nature while working on our focus and memory?

One game we have in mind is collecting a couple of things from your surroundings, like twigs and stones and flowers. Then, show them to the participants and blindfold them.

Remove an item or two, open their blindfold, and ask them to guess what the missing thing is. You can play this game at various difficulty levels.

Related: 5 Best Tips for Traveling Carefree

4. Gardening

Gardening is very beneficial for therapeutic reasons, and many people practice it to remain calm and composed. However, without truly focusing on your garden’s needs, all your hard work will go down the drain.

You plant seeds, and to nurture them into a healthy plant, you must remember to take care of them every day. Some plants also have specific needs which you must keep in mind as well.

Also, you need to focus on how everything is growing so that if there are any anomalies, you notice right away.Gardening is not an easy job, and it can be an excellent exercise for the mind and body.

 

5. Yoga

Yoga can be an indoor or an outdoors venture, but you must have noticed flourishing Yogis take their practice to the outside world.

They practice their skill outside because it makes them more confident in their art. Other than that, practicing Yoga outside also improves its meditative benefits.

Many Yogis also believe that they can absorb the chakra from nearby life forms such as plants and trees when they are practicing Yoga, and that is why they choose to do it outside.

 

Related: 30 Best Short Travel Quotes

6. Road Trips

We lose our concentration and memory the more stressed out we are. So to relieve that stress, why not go out on a fantastic road trip?

It could be a wonderful vacation where you could be surrounded by nature all the time. You can find some time to get rid of additional concerns and go with the flow.

When you get back home, you will notice that you remember things better than before and you concentrate on things better than before as well.

Author Bio

Currently a student of English Literature, in his final years, James Martin is passionate about writing his thoughts into words. He takes up writing projects in his leisure time to accompany his studies. He generally understands the essence of writing on every topic, but especially those that relate to his field. He regularly writes at cannabismo. Check out one of his informative post on depression here.

Top 6 Tips for Budget Travel

Travel. The 6-letter word that gets everyone, kids and adults alike, all juiced up. Budget; another 6-letter word that is a very important factor in traveling.

But can you put two and two together and figure out how the heck you can travel on a tight budget? Especially that the raise that’s been long overdue hasn’t been overseen by your boss…AGAIN!

Don’t let that dampen your spirits. If you put your foot down and not allow yourself to be reeled in by those luxurious travel commercials or expensive travel brochures; you can definitely afford to travel. All you need are a bit of patience and proper planning.

Same as you, I was once also in a similar situation when I was planning my first ever Southeast Asia vacation. But I stuck to these top 6 tips for my first budget travel.

Related: How to Travel as a Couple on a Low Budget

1. Travel Off-Season

There’s a beauty in traveling off-season and that is – saving money! Airlines hike up the airfares a few weeks before, during, and after peak seasons.

Travel during the off-season or the shoulder season. Some budget airlines almost always offer promo airfares during these seasons and you might get lucky and snatch a cheap fare to the destination of your choice!

Be patient and check the airline’s website once in a while.

2. Go for Budget Hostels

When you travel to a new place, you’re not going to lounge in your beautiful expensive hotel the whole day but you’re probably going to be on-the-go most of the time.

The only time you’ll need it is when you’re done with the day’s activities. Booking a low-cost accommodation can save you loads of money which you can use for other things like attraction fees, souvenirs, or transportation fares.

There are a lot of platforms you can search for reviews and pricing.

3. Try Airbnb or Couchsurfing

Just as the above, if you can’t find a decent hostel in a area, then try Couchsurfing or book your stay through Airbnb. Both options work great and both has its own merits.

Airbnb allows you to search and book shared accommodations. While, Couchsurfing is a community of like minded people who like to travel and meet new people.

Read Next: How to Travel on a Student’s Budget

4. Package Deals and Group Tours

Although having a solo tour with a tour guide all to yourself might sound a bit fancy, it will also cost you a huge amount of money! Go for package deals and group tours.

There are several groups of backpackers and travelers that are also looking for like-minded people they can travel (and save money) with.

5. Pack Right and Pack Light

Only bring the essentials. Strap on your best travel backpack and leave the unnecessary things behind. This will not only give you comfort in carrying a light burden but will also save you the extra baggage fees on the plane.

Rolling my clothes always hits the mark in terms of packing like a pro.

 

Related: Top 15 Money Saving Tips That Actually Works

6. Ditch the Taxis and Embrace Public Transportation

As you know, taxi fares might be very steep in other countries compared to yours. Try to avoid taking cab rides from one point to another.

It’s good to map out your routes for the day so you’ll know which public trains to take. Think of traveling as a fun form of exercising, go for long walks (if you can) to the tourist spots.

Author Bio

Judy Maria is a passionate travel & outdoor blogger who loves to travel and write about her experience. She spends her free time hiking, swimming, camping and spending time with her family. She also blogs at GearJunior which is a site filled with outdoor tips and guides.

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6 Road Trip Safety Tips That Could Save Your Life

Going on a road trip solo or with friends and family is always exciting. The thought of reaching your destination, spending time during a road trip with your favorite people, driving fast on not-so-busy highways while listening and singing along to your favorite songs are some of the things that make road trip unforgettable.

The journey is always fun if you are well prepared for it. But, oftentimes, in the excitement of the trip, there are some basic things we tend to forget.

In this blog, we want to cover a few basics which will double your joy and hopefully might even save your or someone’s life someday!

Road Trip Safety Tips

Well, we’re not talking about your iPhone charger (can you really forget that?) or earphones but something much more important. While cars and roads are safer now than before, you can’t afford to take chances on yourself and your loved one’s lives.

Too often, simple precautions get forgotten in the midst of all the excitement and delight of hitting the road. Below are the six tips on how to make your road trip safer and more fun having the extra peace of mind that comes with being totally prepared for anything.

Carry a Fully Stocked Emergency Kit

 

It’s always good to hope for the best, but it’s even better to prepare for the worse just in case. The first thing that should go in your car should be an emergency kit that stocked with items that can be helpful in case of an emergency. It should include:

  • Flashlight
  • First Aid Kit
  • Water bottles
  • Mobile Charger
  • Clean blanket
  • Emergency contact names & numbers – this is critical

You should also include car-specific items in case your car develops issues on the trip like triangle reflectors, some coolant, jumper cables, and an adjustable wrench.

We advise keeping all the emergency items in one place, preferably a tote bag or box, so that you can quickly get everything you need during an emergency.

Read Next: Beach Safety Tips, Ocean and Swimming Safety Tips

Learn Basic Car Maintenance Skills

If you are heading to a place you’ve never visited before, it is best if you can be fully self-sufficient with everything, from road navigation to vehicle maintenance.

You don’t want to start looking for a mechanic in the middle of the woods when your car busts a tire. As such, a week before leaving familiarize yourself with DIY car maintenance procedures like removing and changing tires, checking and adding pressure and changing antifreeze and coolant.

Learning to do these things with boost your confidence, eliminate worries and let you enjoy your trip.

Related: 9 Tips to Prepare for a Long Motorcycle Roadtrip

Keep the Music Low

 

You may find putting your favorite Drake song on full blast as you drive home from a long day at work quite therapeutic. There would be little to no impact on your driving. But that’s probably because your mind and body are used to taking the same road home every day.

On a new road, however, you need to be as keen and focused as possible on what’s happening in the front, sideways and at your back.

You might not be able to swerve fast enough to avoid an oncoming truck if you’re too busy having your own version of Carpool Karaoke.

Map & Load Your Route Beforehand

 

Get acquainted with the routes to your destination a few days before the trip, even if you’re not the driver. Additionally, check the weather and traffic forecasts on all roads you plan on using and plan accordingly.

Share your route information with a close family member who will be left behind and keep them updated on your progress. In case you suddenly go off-grid, they’ll know where to look.

Service Your Car Before You Go

The last thing you want to do is go on a trip hundreds of miles away from home with a faulty vehicle. Apart from subsequent repairs being expensive as hell, a defective car on a long journey is an accident waiting to happen.

Do a full checkup and service before you get on with your journey, replacing everything likely to break down within a month’s time. It is also good to carry spare parts like wheels and windscreens.

A Good Night’s Sleep Goes a Long Way

As mentioned several times above, going on a trip on unfamiliar roads requires loads of concentration and alertness to avoid accidents and nasty road experiences altogether.

Thus, the driver (and the co-driver) need to sleep for at least 8 hours before departure to ensure that they are on high alert and fresh during the trip.

Apart from sleep, resting also does wonders to one’s concentration and instinctual reactions. You might want to skip leg day if it falls a day before you’re set to be the designated driver.

Also, do we really need to stress the importance of being entirely sober before and during a trip?

Conclusion

Traveling is fun, exhilarating and eye-opening, more so when it’s with a bunch of friends or family. Nonetheless, a little caution goes a long way to making sure you all come back in one piece.

We hope that you’ve learned something about Road Trip Safety from this article and that you have a safe and fun road trip to wherever you’re planning to visit.

Feel free to also share your personal tips with our readers, congratulate us on a good job or just drop some words of wisdom in the comments below. Cheers!

Author Bio

Scott Pine is a team-building coach in the social marketing sphere, expert in a life insurance company, traveler and car lover. Scott also works on several own projects, including AutoExpertGuides. Follow him on Twitter.

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30 Best Solo Travel Quotes (Traveling Alone)

Nothing beats the feeling of having the world all to yourself. The excitement and fear intermingle, making it hard for a solo traveler to move ahead.

But no worries, we have got 30 best solo travel quotes about traveling alone, to inspire your next solo adventure.

Solo Travel Quotes

1) I am never happier than when I am alone in a foreign city. It is as if I had become invisible. – Storm Jameson

2) Solo travel not only pushes you out of your comfort zone. It also pushes you out of the zone of other’s expectations. – Suzy Strutner

 

3) To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. – Freya Stark

4) Some journeys can only be traveled alone. – Ken Poirot

5) I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone because they reflect more. – Thomas Jefferson

6) Traveling solo does not always mean you are alone. Most often, you meet marvelous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime. – Jacqueline Boone

7) I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it. – Rosalia de Castro

8) I had chosen to leave and live alone in a foreign country. And in fleeing thousands of miles across the Pacific, I chose myself, and a chance at a different future. – Alison Singh Gee

9) Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time. – Hannah Arendt

10) Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it. – Eudora Welty

11) But when you are alone, you have to carry each experience with you like a secret, something you have to write on your heart, because there’s no other way to preserve it. – Shauna Niequist

12) I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone because they reflect more. – Thomas Jefferson

13) When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted with himself. – Liberty Hyde Bailey

14) The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. – Henry David Thoreau

15) Not I, nor anyone else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself. – Walt Whitman

16) Embrace the beauty of your solo journey. – Mandy Hale

17) The inner journey of travel is intensified by solitude. – Paul Theroux

18) To travel is to take a journey into yourself. – Danny Kaye

19) Travel only with thy equals or thy better; if there are none, travel alone. – Dhammapada

20) No matter where you are, you are always a bit on your own, always an outsider. – Banana Yoshimoto

21) Don’t be scared to walk alone, don’t be scared to like it. – John Mayer

22) He travels the fastest who travels alone. – Rudyard Kipling

23) Loneliness, tenderness, high society, notoriety, you fight for the throne and you travel alone. – Bob Dylan

24) The first rule of travel is that you should always go with someone you love, which is why I travel alone. – Andrew O’ Hagan

25) Never go on trips with anyone you do not love. – Ernest Hemingway

26) The only thing I love is travel, and maybe one or two people. – Anonymous

27) I would gladly live out of a suitcase if it meant I could see the world. – Anonymous

28) I have got a crush on the world. – Anonymous

29) I travel a lot. I hate having my life disrupted by routine. – Caskie Stinnett

30) Traveling alone doesn’t mean living lonely. It is when you travel alone you are most open to others. – Salil Jha

Related

30 Best Funny Travel Quotes

How to portray the feelings of travel-fun in words? Sometimes, it can be difficult to look at the bright side when you have to go through the airport security and wait for 45 minutes for your baggage.

But if you look at your travel misadventures, oftentimes there are some wise experiential gems that you can pick up and perhaps even laugh about.

Below is our pick for 30 best funny travel quotes, to make you quit your job and have some fun.

Funny Travel Quotes

1) Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying “I would stay and love you but I have to go; this is my station”. ~ Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

2) When you come to a fork in the road; take it. ~ Yogi Berra.

3) I dislike feeling at home, when I am abroad. ~ George Bernard Shaw

4) I travel a lot, I hate having my life disrupted by routine. – Caskie Stinett

5) I have been to almost as many places as my luggage. – Bob Hope

6) A cruise ship is a floating town of lazy people. – Garrison Kellor

7) It is easier to find a traveling companion than to get rid of one. – Art Buchwald

8) It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off. – Woody Allen

9) Gosh that takes me back… or forward. That is the trouble with time travel, you never can tell. – Dr. Who

10) Airplane travel (in the economy class) is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo. – Al Gore

11) Kilometres are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometres. – George Carlin

12) People travel to faraway places to watch in fascination the kind of people they ignore at home. – Dagobert D. Runes

13) A journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. – John Steinback

14) Travel plans are dancing lessons from God. – Kurt Vonnegut

15) Jet lag is for amateurs. – Dick Clark

16) If we were meant to stay in one place. We’d have roots instead of feet, he said. – Rachel Wolchin

17) The world is your treadmill, run all over it. – Anon

18) Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life. – Robin Sharma

19) Forget champagne and caviar, taste the world instead. – Anon

20) I am a travel addict on the way to recovery, Ahaan! I am on my way to the airport. – Anon

21) It is bad manners to keep vacations waiting. – Anon

22) Unless you are my backpack, yes I can live without you. – Anon

23) To reduce stress I sit in one corner and read book. Just Kidding. I read books on my flight. – Anon

 

24) My friends having babies, and I am like, “which country am I going to next?” – A popular meme

25) Gypsies don’t travel and move. They wander and groove. – Anon

26) Why catch feelings, when you can catch flights? – Anon

27) I prefer to be an incurable travel addict than being a sedentary morphine druggie. – Anon

28) If you do not wake up in strange beds everyday, you are traveling wrong. – Anon

29) You think you are dying? No darling, its travel asphyxia. – Anon

30) I don’t pay rent, my suitcase is my home. – Anon

Related

30 Best Short Travel Quotes

Need some inspiration to explore the wide expanse of the earth? Here we have compiled the best short travel quotes to get you inspired to hit the road or maybe board the plane.

These quotes are easy to memorize and share. Travel, discover, and explore!

Short Travel Quotes

1) “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Dalai Lama

2) “Traveling makes one modest, you see the tiny space you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

3) “I haven’t been everywhere, but it is on my list.” – Susan Sontag

 

4) “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

5) “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Anderson

6) “Traveling. It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

7) “The world is a book and those who do no travel read only a page.” – St. Augustine

8) “Not until we are lost, do we begin to find ourselves!” – Henry David Thoreau

9) “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep rolling under the stars.” – Jack Kerouac

10) “I would rather own a little and see the world than own the world and see a little.” – Alexander Sattler

11) “Travel far enough and you’ll meet yourself.” – David Mitchell

12) “Man cannot discover oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide

13) “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

14) Travel is never a matter of money, but a matter of courage. – Paulo Coelho

15) You must go on adventures to find where you truly belong. – Sue Fitzmaurice

16) Little by little, one travels far. – J. R. R Tolkien

17) The World is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark. – John Muir

18) Travel is the most intense mode of learning. – Kevin Kelly

19) Explore the World with an open mind, a sturdy carry-on, and clothes that don’t wrinkle. – Madeline Albright

20) With age comes wisdom, with travel, comes understanding. – Sandra Lake

21) The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. – G. K. Chesterton

22) Travel tends to magnify all human emotions. – Peter Hoeg

23) You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown that reveals you within yourself. – Ella Maillart

24) There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. – Robert Stevenson

25) All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. – Martin Buber

26) The more I traveled the more I realized that my fear makes strangers of people who should be friends. – Shirley Maclaine

27) Travel brings power and love back to your life. – Rumi

28) Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled. – Abu al-Qasim Muḥammad

29) If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. – Lewis Carroll

30) We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, we travel to be lost. – Ray Bradbury

Related

Lessons Learned from Traveling the World & Living Abroad

Saying that travel helps you grow sounds like such a cliché. However, it happens to be the truth. Before re-settling in Canada with my family, I have spent over a decade living abroad.

During that period, I learned a lot of things about life that cannot be learned in a classroom. Lessons about appreciating others, being grateful for what you have, living in the moment, enjoying your own company, and getting to know yourself can only be learned by being out there and experiencing the world.

Traveling the World & Living Abroad

Depending on who you are and what you have experienced, the lessons learned from traveling can be very different. During every new trip, you will either learn something new or reinforce lessons learned from previous travels.

Each trip will have its own impact and will continue to shape your personality. Here are six valuable life lessons you can learn from traveling the world or living in a foreign country.

Related: 30 Best Inspirational Travel Quotes

1. How to Be Curious

As adults that worry about their career and reputation, we must stick to routines and cannot afford to make a mistake. Mistakes cost time and money, and we always have to stick to what we know works.

As adults, we often forget that it is important to aim for self-growth and always be open for learning and experiencing new things. Traveling remind us of the importance of curiosity, because being a tourist is like being a curious child.

When you visit a country you have never visited before, you are looking only at a corner of the world that you know nothing about. This gives you an amazing opportunity to be innocent, poke and explore.

Most people give up curiosity in adulthood, and that is something we mustn’t forget because we need in our life because it makes our mind active, opens up new worlds and possibilities, and brings excitement into your life.

2. How to Appreciate People

If you keep spending your time with the same people, always sticking to the same spots, you will forget how to appreciate others. You will see your friends and family as “them again,” and you’ll forget the things that make them so beautiful and great.

Traveling together will help you remember why you are so close, and traveling alone will help you remember how much you care about them.

Traveling is always an excellent opportunity to make new contacts, and meet new friends. It doesn’t matter if you don’t form a lifelong relationship with someone you met. The value in talking with strangers is allowing you to see them at their best.

You will see how different people are and most of them will gladly help you with something if you are a complete stranger. Traveling will undoubtedly strengthen your faith in humanity, and remind you how good people can be.

3. How to Enjoy the Moment

When you’re always trying to meet deadlines, you often forget about enjoying the moment and just cherishing the present. Traveling remind you that you should sometimes take things slow.

A great meal takes hours to cook. A good book can take a whole day to read. And who even knows how much time you need to stand in front of a painting in a museum before you realize its true beauty?

When you are in a foreign country, and everything is new, you will observe carefully and cherish every moment. At that moment you will realize that are a lot of amazing things around us (even at home) just if you see them the right way.

Although you sometimes don’t see things the right way, the moment you do will help you realize it was worth the wait.

4. How to be Responsible

At home, you feel secure, and you often don’t have to make the hard decisions alone. As a traveler, you will put yourself in uncomfortable situations – you might get lost, struggle with a foreign language, and say “I don’t know”, and apologize more often than you’re used to.

You will make mistakes and wrong turns, but you will learn how to rely on yourself and be responsible for your acts.

Read: 9 Smart Tips to Travel on a Student’s Budget

5. How to Better Know Yourself

As a traveler, you open yourself up to a whole new world. Instead of sticking to your same old routine, you can ignore impositions and expectations, and start listening to your own thoughts and feelings.

Changing your environment will help learn how to understand yourself and discover what really matters to you.

6. How to Be Grateful

At home, you often take things for granted. When you stay long enough in a foreign country, you will start to miss things. You will yearn for your bed, the food you can buy just around the corner, or some music you can hear on every street.

You will suddenly start appreciating your home more and realize that you have been living a pretty good life.

Traveling the world opens your eyes, gives you a valuable frame of reference and provides you a way to see things from a different perspective. Eventually, you will discover that it’s really the small things that give us joy in life.

Author Bio

Brandon Miller is a registered immigration consultant and a Canadian who re-settled in Canada with his family after traveling the world and living abroad for over a decade. His traveling experience has given him a deeper understanding of the world and himself.