So there I am, 16 years old, hiding in the hotel bathroom while sobbing on the phone and spilling my teenage woes to my dad.
And that’s when he hit me with my favorite advice from him:
The Advice
“Shannon, it’s just money. It’s not worth you being in a miserable situation, I’ll buy you a ticket and you can come home tonight.”
 
 
The Back-Story
My dad isn’t one of those pageant parents, so when I told him I wanted to travel out of the state for an Irish dance competition (the Southern Regionals – …

This week wraps up our three part series on how to travel around the world completely via land and sea travel. Michael is a full year into his RTW trip (he thinks it will last about 16 months total) and has shared valuable tips and information over the past three weeks about ways other travelers can plan a flightless trip around the world…from giving yourself a lot of time to travel overland (1), to coping with the extra cost of flightless travel (2).
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Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: Skip the …

Michael Hodson from The Mobile Lawyer continues this week sharing first-hand tips about how to travel around the world without taking a single airplane. He has spent the last year on a ground-level RTW trip taking buses, trains, and ships in a desire to feel every step of his trip around the globe. This three part series covers all of the tips and information he has picked up on a year of flightless travel. Don’t forget to check out the first installment, traveling around the world without flying tips and …

Our guest traveler for the next three weeks gets mad props from me for making the commitment to travel around the world without taking a single flight. Michael, from The Mobile Lawyer, has traveled around the world over the past year without a single plane ride. I really respect his commitment to feel every footstep of his journey and the his choice to take reduce the carbon footprint of his RTW trip. His year of land and sea travel makes him the perfect person to share key tips over the …

This is one of those ever-present questions for new travelers – do you bring a laptop on your round the world trip?
And you may be wondering if you should start your own travel blog? If you opt for full-scale travel blog then it’s a no-brainer, you need a laptop with you.
And if you’ve already decided yes and want some fantastic resources for developing the blog, check out Develop Your RTW Travel Blog.
But if your somewhere in between – consider the pros and cons. It can be incredibly liberating to free …

Climate change and carbon offsetting is one of those highly controversial topics that can spark debates and heated words within the travel industry (hey, it’s happened). And while it’s front and center on some traveler’s agenda, the topic is also often swept under the carpet and ignored so that we can continue traveling guilt-free.
And lest you think I’m pointing fingers, let me be the first to admit that I flew a grand total of 14 flights in just 11 months to take my dream round the world trip…that’s not a …

So, you’re heading out on your round the world trip and you want to document all of your travels. The big question crops up, should you start a travel blog to record stories and photos?
If you’ve already decided yes and want some fantastic resources for developing the blog, check out Develop Your RTW Travel Blog.
I field this question an awful lot and it’s hard to answer, mostly because blogging from the road is not all roses, cake, and flowers. It takes a lot of work to keep any site going …

The initial plan for this post was to research all of the different travel insurance options out on the market for budget backpackers and round the world travelers. And I did all of the research, but rather than providing a compare and contrast of the key travel insurance companies, I really came to the conclusion that World Nomads is simply the best on the market for gap-year or RTW travel.
After sussing out all of the negative and positive reviews on other backpacking and travel sites, it’s pretty clear that the …