Flightster

4 Fun Ways To Ignite The World Traveler In You

Well it is August of 2011 which means that I’ve been back in the US for 10 months. WOW. I’m not going to be traveling again for another 6 months so what’s a travler to do?! Well, you get inspired! You get pumped! You find ways to dive into culture even when you’re not walking through it!

Check these out:

Continue

Flight Attendant Layover: Las Vegas

Close your eyes. Now, imagine you’re a flight attendant who wakes up on the morning that you start a trip and you realize that at the end of the day you’re going to layover in Las Vegas, with free accommodations! Now, imagine having to work flights from Los Angeles to Seattle, then Seattle back to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles, up to San Francisco, and then finally San Francisco over to Las Vegas all before laying over with your free accommodations. Not looking so glamorous right? Oh, did I forget to mention that your layover is only 9 hours and 55 minutes? Uh huh. Yup.

Continue

5 Random Nostalgic Things I Miss From That Crazy Country Called China

I never thought I’d say this… but lately I’ve been finding myself missing China. Ah yes… the mainland… home of men and women alike that hawk loogies, being shoved into subway car by the subway pushers, delicious dumplings and noodles, air pollution, and a whole lot more of both wonderful and not so wonderful.

After a year in China I was ready to leave. I won’t lie to you when I say I became a little jaded and calloused after living there. Beijing is a great city and it was one of the best years of my life, but it is not an easy place to live. China will test you. It’ll piss you off. It’ll make you scream in frustration. But it’ll also teach you things, and help you grow, and give you a thicker skin. It’s an amazing place I think that everybody should at the very least visit.

Continue

Home as a Vacation Destination

Home Again and Again

When you’re on the road – whether as a lifestyle or just for a few days – all of your senses are on high-alert.

Your ears perk up at every foreign sound, your eyes track all of the unfamiliar colors and faces and styles of hat, and your brain stores it in neat little neuron-boxes, ready for quick-and-accurate retrieval. You know why? Because this – THIS – is important. This is travel. This is another country or city or planet (soon enough). You’re going to want to remember this.

Continue

Greetings from the World’s Northernmost Capital

Reykjavik Downtown

Hi folks—reporting live from Reykjavik, Iceland, the world’s northernmost capital city. As I learned from watching the movie D2: The Mighty Ducks so many years ago, Iceland is not that icy. Despite the seemingly severe and climatic name, it’s quite green here. Nearby Greenland, though, tends to be pretty icy. Imagine that.

Back in December, I wrote about a possible excursion to Iceland with my brother in March. We had hoped to spend his final college spring break romping around Icelandic volcanoes and waterfalls. While that trip fell through, I serendipitously find myself here a few months later, conducting a cost-of-living study for my company. Sorry, brother. No hard feelings.

Continue

8 Essential Items that Long Term Travelers Should Look for When They Rent an Apartment

If you are a longer traveler or minimalist digital nomad, there’s a good chance you’re traveling on a budget and trying to keep things as simple as possible.  It’s no secret that renting an apartment and staying at a destination longer is a more cost effective way to do things.  But, before you throw down your hard earned cash for your  pad in paradise, there a few essential items that you should make sure the apartment has. I’m speaking based on the experience of living in an apartment that was lacking most of these things.

Continue

The Traveler’s Fear: COMPLACENCY! AAH!

Does the thought of staying in one place indefinitely scare the crap out of you? Well it sure as hell scares me! In the past 2 years I’ve lived in 2 countries, traveled throughout  12 countries and countless cities, went on a 18 day road trip through the US West Coast, lived in a city and lived by the beach, and the list goes on. I love to be moving, seeing new things every day, trying out new ways of life, and basically living as a traveler day to day.

The moment I feel like I’m sitting still is the moment the fear of complacency kicks in.

Continue

Screw Being A Tourist – Become a Local at your Vacation Spot!

Oftentimes the places that we’d love to move to only become the places we vacation to for a week at a time once a year. It’s either that or we dream of moving abroad full time yet we only give ourselves the taste of 10 days with an itinerary so jam packed we don’t even really get a sense of what it’d be like to live there.

I know there are jobs and commitments and houses and all other kinds of responsibilities waiting for us wherever we may be stationed right now, but just imagine if you could move all of them over to that one place you can’t seem to go a year without visiting? Just imagine making everyday of your life feel like a vacation.

Continue

7 Signs That You’re Truly an Expat

After 4 months of being on the road in one country, I’ve realized I’m not really a tourist or traveler any more, but  I’m an expat.  While there are moments that I think I’ve lost my mind and wish for all the things we take for granted in the USA, I know that living any other way would make me feel like I’m missing out on all that life has to offer. There’s just far too to much of the world to see to spend the majority of my life in one country. But in no particular order here are  my own personal signs that you’ve become an expat:

Continue

Travel as a Project

No matter where you go or why, travel can be a lot of fun.

You’re putting yourself in a new context, and that allows you to remove yourself from established habits and routines. You also will usually find more novelty to take in, as the place you’re visiting is not your day-to-day environment, and there’s so much more that’s unfamiliar.

Continue