Category Best

Let’s face it, movies are inspiring. They are thrilling, titillating, tear-jerkers and we all love them. Sometimes films inspire us to be more than we are. Sometimes they inspire small changes in our life, sometimes drastic ones. And sometimes they help us in the most fundamental ways to find happiness. Here are some of the best films about finding happiness through travel, the ATC way.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

This was a fantastic book that was rightfully made into a fantastic film starring Simon Pegg (Yes, that’s the guy from Shaun of the Dead). The plot centers on a psychiatrist who discovers he is unhappy with his life. He embarks on an epic journey from Asia to Africa and then to America before, ultimately, returning to the UK. Along the way he finds love, hate, fear and– happiness.

Best quote from Hector and the Search for Happiness: “It’s a mistake to think that happiness is the goal.”

Little Miss Sunshine

This film follows the desires of a little girl to compete at the finals of a beauty pageant, and the family that embarks on an epic road trip to get her to the finals. Along the way, some family members emerge as heroes, some are flawed, and eventually they all realize that the only important goals in life are building good relationships.

Best quote from Little Miss Sunshine: “A real loser is someone who is so afraid of not winning he doesn’t even try.”

The Razor’s Edge

If you haven’t seen this film you’ve been cheating yourself. Bill Murray takes off on an epic journey to find himself, and happiness, on the road. From Tibet to Paris, this intrepid traveler survives the worst and best of humanity, only to end up back where he started.

Best quote from The Razor’s Edge: “To live a good life is like living on a razor’s edge.”

Groundhog Day

In this inspired film Bill Murray awakes each day as a news broadcaster to repeat Groundhog day, covering the trivial event in a small town. Each day he finds sadness instead of happiness until one day– he finds love. Then it all turns around and he uses this amazing gift to find fulfillment, and yes happiness, in the repetition of life.

Best quote from Groundhog Day: “What is there is no tomorrow?”

Forrest Gump

This is the tale of one man’s journey through life, and all the amazing adventures he has because he opens himself up to the possibility of optimism. Despite the world he sees, Gump believes and hopes for the best in people– and ignored the rest. He may be simple, but he’s managed to accomplish something the rest of us can only fleetingly dream of.

Best quote from Forrest Gump: “Mama said dying is a part of life.”

The Wizard of Oz

An unsuspecting girl is torn from her home in Kansas and finds herself in a far away land. Though she is a stranger traveling in an odd new world, she befriends the odd locals and together they set out to make each of their dreams come true. While the story has a somewhat realist twist, the characters learn to live as dreamers in a world without happily ever afters.

Best quote from The Wizard of Oz: “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”

The World’s Fastest Indian

Despite his advanced age, one kiwi sets off to prove that his hobby of building the fastest motorcycle can become a reality. He travels to the salt flats to test his mettle against much younger, more technologically advanced racers only to find that age is relative and happiness is a state of mind.

Best quote from The World’s Fastest Indian: “If you don’t follow your dreams, you might as well be a vegetable.”

James and the Giant Peach

One boy’s troubled life leads him to find friends in the orindary critters around him. When a magical man bestows on him a magical peach, the boy sails away with his insect and arachnid pals to find a better life– and eventually, happiness.

Best quote from James and the Giant Peach: “Try looking at life another way.”

Slumdog Millionaire

Although his adventures were not planned, one Indian discovers through hindsight that he has lived an amazing life– a life almost too interesting to be believable. In the end, this man’s search for happiness was put through a range of tests, including women, drugs and money.

Best quote from Slumdog Millionaire: “What the hell can a slumdog possibly know?”

Homeward Bound

When a family goes on vacation and leaves their two dogs and cat behind at a farm, the animals decide to try to find their way home. They embark on an epic adventure through all types of terrain and eventually, find their happiness with family– at home.

Best quote from Homeward Bound: “Home, home sweet home!”

The Land Before Time

When home starts to boil and burn, it’s time to move. As the dinosaur herds depart, their children are separated and must seek out paradise on their own. Small, ill-equipped and unprepared, the kids find themselves and save each other– and eventually they reach their happiness.

Best quote from The Land Before Time: “Let your heart guide you.”

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

A quiet introvert decides to stop daydreaming his life away and take a stab at finding happiness. He pushes himself, and, in the process, finds that he had value– not just in his cubicle, but in his personal life.

Best quote from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: “Life is about courage and going into the unknown.”

The Hobbit

A timid, home-bound man decides to stop being grumpy and to go on a once-in-a-lifetime journey. What started out as a whimsical impulsive decision to hit the road turned into a passionate journey of discovery that made the little hobbit realize happiness can sometimes be found at home– and with friends.

Best quote from The Hobbit: “I’m looking for somebody to share in an adventure.”

Up

Two friends who crave adventure fall in love, marry, and then are separated by death. In the void that is left behind, the widower decides to live out their joint dream of traveling to the end of the earth. He finds his happiness in a little child who tags along, and in sharing his adventures with someone.

Best quote from Up: “Adventure is out there.”

Thelma and Louise

Two women take off to escape their lives and end up finding themselves, an their happiness– n the idea that they are finally free to make their own futures.

Best quote from Thelma and Louise: “I don’t ever remember feeling this awake.”

The Bucket List

Two sick old men find friendship in a shared hospital room and then set off on an adventure to strike items off their bucket list. Oddly, their lives were lacking not achievement, but happiness- something they find in one another.

Best quote from The Bucket List: “You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves against you.”

For our nihilist friends, we’ve put together the top trips for fun, active holidays sure to please even the most exhausted of nihilists.

Tour the Inside of an Active Volcano

For a truly inspirational ending, try touring the interior of an active volcano. There are a few bubblies in Hawaii perfect for the occasion– though getting to the summit will likely be most of the trial and produce a plethora of error. And if the idea of hoping over lava doesn’t light your fire, try touring the interior of a gas crater instead– there are several in scenic Turkmenistan.

The up side: Perhaps your human sacrifice will ward of evils or help with crops in the region. Although, for a nihilist this is more of a downside.

Trek to the North Pole in Summer

Loads of adventurers travel to the North Pole in winter– and for good reason. In the colder months, the rivers, lakes and waterways freeze over offering a slippery but safe road to Santa’s isle. In summer, however, the ice is thin, cracking and even the elves don’t pitter patter across it. You’re unlikely to make it to the pole, but it’ll be a lovely and serene hike until the ice swallows it’s payment for future safe passages.

The up side: The ice roads are long and boring for many of the ice road trucker who ply the routes each year, seeing a foot sticking out of the ice might provide something to break up the trip.

Drink From the Ganges

If you’re looking for a quick out and you’re not from India, book a flight to Mumbai then make your way to the Ganges. At parts the river can be quite beautiful, but it’s also a dumping ground for everything from trash to bodies to food– and it takes life as easily as it gives it. A little slurp from the Ganges and you’re sure to be joining the bodies on their slow journey out to sea.

The up side: As a nihilist, you’ll be in a river full of the cast away parts of humanity– a fitting end.

Free Dive the Marianas Trench

If you’ve seen the amazing videos of free divers and thought to yourself, “hey, I can do that!” then this adventure is for you. Slap on a GoPro and dive into the Marianas Tench– the earth’s deepest-known scar and home to creatures only David Cameron can afford to see. You’re sure to see some interesting aquatic life before you pass out, and on the up side– your body will feed a host of animals that humans haven’t even discovered or named yet.

The up side: You’re likely to end up the first human interaction many of these deep-sea animals encounter, so will be a great and filling first encounter with humanity.

Pit-Fry Bacon in the Serengeti

Although the big five are protected in the Serengeti– humans aren’t. Fill your Teflon pan with lard and when the fire is roaring, toss on the bacon. You’re sure to spot at least a few of the treasured majestic animals of the savannah before the lions find you– and if they don’t, at least the hyenas well get a show as the flies and mosquitoes carry you off.

The up side: At least you’ll feed a creature who hasn’t polluted the earth, built monuments to it’s own immanent demise and waged war on it’s own kind… well, two out of the three anyway.

Sign Up for Mars One

If you’re a true nihilist, the idea of strapping fire to your ass and flying into an inhospitable void may seem welcoming. For the rest of us, it’s pure idiocy. If you make it to Mars (unlikely) you’ll have the impossible job of trying to make the barren planet livable (also an unlikely task). Finally, you can never return to Earth and will be one of the first humans to be buried on a different planet than he was born on.

The down side: You may just end up bringing humanity to another planet.

Swim in the Amazon

It doesn’t take a naturalist to know that swimming in the Amazon is an idea that might bring about an early demise. There is no shortage of things that could take you out in the Amazon. From Jennifer Lopez’s horrible acting to the anacondas she and Ice Cube fled from, to real-life man-eating piranhas and tiny critters that swim up a piss stream and inflate inside a urethra– the Amazon is an easy dip-and-done death.

The down side: Piranhas and humans have a lot in common, so death by vicious fish may just help propagate a similarly dysfunctional species.

Visit the Outback During Drought

These days you don’t have to make the 20+ hour flight to Australia to feel sand in your eyes and your tongue shrivel and dry up in your mouth. Now you need look no further than the dust bowl of California to find an arid plateau of desolation. But for a real nihilist holiday, blow the money on a first-class ticket to the real Aussie outback and take a one-way hike into the greatest inhabited flatland on the criminal isle.

The down side: Once you run out of water and fall over in the Outback, you’ll likely be consumed by a giant snake, spider other ungodly creature. Since insects outnumber humans, this isn’t the best use of your body.

Snorkel With Chum off North Carolina’s Coast

For a quick escape into the depths, rub yourself down with chum and dive off a pier in North Carolina. With all the sharks nibbling on humans in the area, you’re sure to attract a hungry fella. If nothing bites, you’ll get a gentle surf-ride back to to shore and then can try again off another pier. If nothing comes of this endeavor, at least you got to see the underbellies of NC’s finest fishing spots.

The up side: You’ll be food for a fish– and if you weren’t a vegetarian you can consider this payback, from the animal kingdom’s perspective.

*This post is for Ami

It may come as a surprise to you, but the more vacation you take the healthier you’ll be. Or, so says a study done in the UK to promote healthier living. What shocked me about this study was that Americans get an average of 14 days of holiday a year and use 12 of them. We’re already getting far less than most other first-world nations, and yet we’re not using two of our very valuable days off. The study goes on to show depression decreases with increases in holidays, but surprisingly so does productivity. So businesses would benefit from making their employees take some R&R.

One of the biggest concerns with only have two weeks of vacation (and using even less) is that Americans are not able to travel abroad as easily with such limited time. Factoring in travel time (two days) and jet-lag (a half day on each side) you’re looking at losing three days if you go abroad. For many, this is deterrent enough, but factoring in airfare can make the decision to stay stateside seem obvious. The less Americans travel the less they know about the real-world situation on the ground in other countries. This isn’t great because frankly many Americans still believe we have the best system in the world. Perhaps we do, in some cases. But a trip to Sweden or Norway might reveal some real advantages to the way they live, govern themselves and stabilize their economies. Assuming our way is the best without looking at other options is a bit childish. The American republic is an amazing thing, and we’re a very free and lucky nation– but we need to keep evolving or we’ll go the way of all great empires.  One way to move forward is to constantly observe what is and is not working in other nations, and to implement the practices in our own nation that have proven logical, time-tested improvements. For example, the train systems in Europe and Asia provide revenue to their respective governments, are efficient, technologically advanced and provide a solution to many people’s transportation woes. Additionally, it has the added benefit of decreasing pollution, congestion and benefits the environment. It’s a solid infrastructure investment yet we’re lagging behind other first world nations, and embarrassingly enough several third world nations have better transportation technology than the USA. To the left is an image of the subway in Shanghai, to the right is an image of the subway in New York. One of them needs updating.

To show an even more embarrassing disparity. China now has the fastest train in the world, which whisks people from Beijing to Shanghai in five hours. FIVE HOURS! That’s the distance from Seattle to San Fransisco. We could use that on the West Coast. What do we have instead? Amtrak. Below are two pictures. An Amtrak train and a normal, high-speed train (not the new bullet train). If we don’t update our infrastructure soon we’ll be left behind, and an update will cost more, involve a steeper learning curve and ultimately result in years of lost revenue.

Above in an Amtrak Train. Below is a normal high-speed train in China.

A few pictures say more than words will, and that’s one reason why Americans need to travel more, to get more time off work to explore and to see that high-tech systems are going in all over the world yet we’re languishing behind driving old cars, using old, worn down trains with poor routing, and taking fewer personal and vacation days. Why?

A friend sent me this photo recently and as many of you know, this is an issue we’re pretty passionate about. There is crap public transportation in America, and yet we pioneered using the railway to link our two beautiful coasts. Apparently we haven’t updated our trains since they were first rolled out on the tracks. It’s disgusting. Every time I take Amtrak in the states I feel dirty, but the trains are basically the only way to get from place to place without flying or owning a car. Why do they have to be so horrible?

That Russia has super sweet trains and we don’t is a bit shocking. But even France can get it together. Wow. Low blow. China and Japan are at the forefront of technology with trains and while China has suffered a devastating crash on it’s high-speed train, that was ruled human error and everyone is moving on (with trepidation). Japan’s trains are one of the only ways to get around the country, which is super cool.

Imagine how much more time you’d have to play angry birds if you didn’t have to drive? You could just plop down in a seat and read or work on your laptop or finally figure out how 90% of the iPad works. Driving a car is fun, and necessary if you live out in the countryside in the USA, but for most people traveling form say New York to DC should involve sitting on a nice, clean, high-speed train for an hour or two while perfecting your aim at digital paper toss.

I’m still fuming about France’s sleek train.

In our travels around this pretty blueberry planet we’ve only ever seen one train as horrible and unmentionable as an Amtrak train– and that was in Kazakhstan where we witnessed cops climb on board, take off his cap and pass it around the cabin as all the passengers filled it up with cash. When we got to our destination we saw people un-tape bags of ______ from their chests and clamber down the ancient stairs. That was horrible. HOWEVER, on one Amtrak trip a lady asked me to watch her screaming baby while she went to the bathroom. An hour later the thing still howled and screamed and the lady wasn’t back. The cabin attendant finally found her in the bathroom with a needle in her arm. Not that different, really. And yet the trains in Slovakia were awesome, clean, sleek and super shiny and no one O.D.-ed in the bathroom or had ____ taped to their bellies.

I’m all for spending a few of my tax dollars on better, faster, less embarrassing trains. And while we’re at it (don’t get me started on this) better roads. The German autobahn doesn’t have potholes filled with black tar all over the place. Why can’t we build a decent road? AGHHHH!!!!!!

There are over 300 million Americans. Less than 30% of them have passports. That means Americans are not traveling abroad. And 50% of those who do leave the USA are traveling to either Canada or Mexico. So, why is it that Americans are not traveling overseas in larger numbers?

Realistically, money and time are the two biggest factors in our estimation as to why Americans don’t travel abroad. Airfare is costly and flying is a hassle. Meanwhile, Americans on average get around two weeks of vacation a year– not enough to get abroad, get over jet-lag and start enjoying another country. In reality, many of those vacation days are used here and there for extensions on Thanksgiving, for family birthdays or other small events, and that results in, usually, less than two weeks in one chunk for travel. Its not surprising that Asia or the Middle East seems out of reach to Americans who have around 7 days to travel, explore and return. That doesn’t sound like a vacation, it sounds like a gauntlet.

In contrast, the average worker in Europe gets around a month of vacation. By law, all countries in the European Union must allow all workers four weeks of paid vacation at a minimum. Even part-time workers who have worked more than 13 weeks are entitled to their month of paid vacation. This isn’t accrued, its a right. And that doesn’t count public holidays, which are paid days. Americans get 13 days, on average, though some companies have adopted even stricter vacation plans for entry-level employees, like the company Mike worked for in Minnesota. They told him his two weeks of vacation were “To ambitious for an entry level employee.” To which Mike said “audios!” (Chart above shows average PAID vacation days by country)

Meanwhile, workers in the USA have longer daily hours, on average, then their European counterparts. This is interesting because the average salary (even taking into account cost of living) is lower in the USA on average. For example, countries in Europe have a standard 40 hour work week and depending on the country there are laws in place to put a cap on how many hours of overtime per week and year an employee can log, according to the Federation of European Employees. And although the 8 hour day wasn’t always in place, it wasn’t until 1937 that the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law and the 8 hour work day (44 per week) in America became accepted as a baseline for a new standard. (Chart above shows average work week by country and gender).

Granted, there are social implications to these differences in Europe and the US. For example, Europeans are taxed at a much higher rate and companies have to sell products at higher prices to follow labor laws. However, the work-life balance in Europe does seem to be more balanced than in the USA, where success is more important that enjoyment to many. Still, the differences are drastic, and many health related problems in America are stress related, possibly stemming from overwork and lack of holiday time.

Along an entirely different chain of thought, perhaps one reason for the shortage of Americans traveling is fear. American movies constantly have foreigners as the ‘bad guys’ and a general lack of knowledge about other countries and their cultures in the US may lead many to think it isn’t safe anywhere abroad. When the media constantly cover problems abroad in uniquely terrifying language, its no wonder people think the entire world is dangerous. Meanwhile, Americans don’t speak a second language, and this limits their capacity to travel abroad with confidence. Luckily, English is the language of travel, but to many places (Africa and Asia) even English won’t suffice. The American education system should require students to learn a second language fluently by the time they graduate from High School. What language they learn should be their choice, naturally, but it holds people back from traveling, working abroad or even understanding a second worldview when they are limited to one language. Ideas are only as solid as the language in which they are expressed, so learning a whole new language is like learning a second culture, a second way of viewing the world. Americans (myself included) miss out on this when they don’t learn a second language as a child.

CNN Travel recently did a story on the surprisingly low number of Americans who travel abroad. We were excited to see they quoted several of our fellow international travel bloggers, folks like Nomadic Matt and Everything Everywhere.

US citizens can learn how to apply for a US passport.

Abandon the Cube has undergone changes…for the better we hope. Be the first to check it out! We’re excited about the changes we’ve made and can’t wait for you to browse around the new stuff!

As I said, we added a few new pages– the foremost of which is a page of Top Ten lists about various adventure and travel categories ranging from travel foods and gear to the greatest travel adventurers and most intense adventure rally events. Let us know what you think of the Top Ten page, and if you want to add any lists or suggest list ideas, simply contact us with your ideas.

We also expanded the Events aspect of Abandon the Cube to cover more of the activities ATC participates in, from the Mongol Rally to Habitat for Humanity and teaching English abroad. Its a work in progress but we’re hoping the pages do well and attract a bit of interest. With any luck, we’ll be partnering with some English teaching programs soon to bring you the best information on traveling abroad to teach.

But wait, that’s not all! The website changes are ongoing and comprehensive. We continually update the Most Influential Adventurers page. We’ve added a few more female adventures, an area we were sorely representing previously. Suggest someone for the list by contacting us or leaving a comment be low. We’d be happy to know who you consider the world’s greatest adventurers.

As always, the resources page can help you decide if you want to abandon your cube, how to go about it and a few other odds and ends to help you ATC. We think this is a great place to expand, and we’re always looking for new travel resources and tools to add to this page. If you have suggestions for us, don’t be a strange!– Let us know your thoughts.

Finally, we have a few more destination pages coming soon! We’re excited about uploading new destination pages for the countries we visited while on the 2010 Mongol Rally. Check back soon!

Happy exploring, and let us know what you think of the changes!

One of the most common questions we get is about financing our travels. We left Shanghai, our apartment there and our jobs in May of 2009. It is now July, 2010 and we’ve traveled for over a year. It is a fair and understandable question when people ask if we are secret millionaires or if we recently inherited some money. The answer to both of those questions is a firm, “no.” How we make our money is simple.

Website funds:
We make some money on our website, but to be honest we spend a lot of time and money on the site so we do only slightly better than break even on that. Some costs associated with the website include: the hosting fee ($250 for two years, roughly) our pro flickr account ($25 a year) and the amount of man hours put into developing and maintaining the site and the blog. We make money on the site by selling some ad space on the blog, which is unobtrusive and we are very particular about who we will allow to advertise on our site. We turn down some offers for cash in exchange for links simply because the products would not match our reader’s interests or have anything to do with traveling or quitting one’s job.

Income:
Lauren makes money as a writer. She has a few solid contracts that help her make enough money to travel full time as well as cover her college loan payments each month. Meanwhile, Mike was able to save more than half of his earned income in 2008, meaning he is living off his savings. Considering we both made less than $30,000 in 2008, it is possible to travel for cheap on savings if you don’t spend money on frivolous things, or live above one’s means.

Lifestyle:
One of the main ways we save money is to live well below your means. We do this by living overseas, where we don’t have cell phone costs, or outrageous cable and internet fees. We don’t have an overpriced apartment, car payments or insurance fees due each month. Essentially, the money we spend each month living abroad is the total of our food, transportation costs and apartment. We live like the locals do (lower-middle class locals) and save a bundle by avoiding expat eateries and entertainment. For a month in Shanghai we were spending a total of around $350 each, counting everything from random purchases to rent to food costs. If you make $20-25,000 a year and only spend $350 of that each month, you are looking at quite a savings over time.

Traveling versus Staying Home:
Meanwhile, traveling full time is cheap because your only costs are lodging, food and transportation. Often, people spend most of their travel money on lodging, we avoid this by camping whenever possible or staying at hostels for less than $15 a night. In Asia, we spent around $6 a night and that often included dinner. We spend, on average, around $6-700 a month traveling full time abroad. These costs are higher than would be necessary if one traveled more slowly. However, most of these funds went to train and bus tickets. When we were moving slowly we spent roughly $500 a month. For most Americans, that is far less than they spend a month living in an apartment or home with a dozen or so monthly costs.

There is something very strange about the way humans approach booze, and how each nation address alcohol both politically and culturally in extremely unique ways. For example, in America we make it illegal for anyone under 21 to buy alcohol. However, when you do reach that age there is a massive party wherein your first introduction to the drink is compounded by the fact that everyone you know comes out to the bar to get you intoxicated. It is a right of passage, a coming of age ritual and a test of one’s man or womanhood. After that fateful night, drinking in America takes on a purely social atmosphere, and no real gathering is complete without it and every gathering with liquor is somewhat more casual because of the addition. Our time in Europe showed the same to be true, though with a bit less of an adherence to drinking ages. Not so elsewhere.

In China, where we’ve spent quite a bit of time, there seems to be no legal age (although officially it is 18-19). You can often find youths drinking at the bars who appear to be quite young. And in fact no one is ever ‘carded’ in China. Contrary to what most people might assume, this does not breed an atmosphere ripe for degradation. Chinese youths hardly ever take their lax drinking rules for granted, nor do they abuse the booze at a young age, as would be expected if we suddenly made the drinking age 18 in the USA. There is, however, a similar ‘right of passage’ for most Chinese males that involves alcohol. At banquets (which are the preferred method of congregation) everyone sits around a round table, and the person of honor goes around the table and does a small glass of beer  or rice wine with every guest. This makes the guest of honor extremely drunk, and this is something to be quite proud of and admired (on special occasions, only). This often prompts Chinese men to approach Mike and ask, “How many beers can you drink?” Which, of course, Mike did not know the answer to at first. Now it appears this is a staple of maleness, though I cannot stress enough that it seems to happen only in large groups. By the way, the Chinese way of saying ‘cheers’ is “gan-bei” which literally means ’empty glass’ or ‘bottoms up.’ which they take literally when drinking beer. Another interesting bit of drinking culture in China– the person of more status should always have their glass slightly higher when clinking it with someone glasses. So, if you are not the guest of honor, your goal is to touch the top of your glass with the bottom of theirs. This results in fun games where people try to show honor to each other by putting their glasses lower. I saw one group of men putting their glasses on the floor to clink them, showing no one was higher than the other. Here is an example from a Chinese TV show:

In Central Asia we found drinking to be somewhat deplorable. Even worse than a man drinking is a woman drinking, and on the rare occasions I ordered a beer in public I could sense eyes judging me. However, we did notice quite a few drunk people on the streets at night, which means it is an underbelly sort of activity reserved for underbelly types. This obviously wasn’t the case in the major cities we visited in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, but definitely in smaller towns drinking seemed to be a big no-no!

In Mongolia, drinking is a large part of life. We stayed with a family in their ger for three days and nights, and the husband attempted to get us intoxicated on a nightly basis. He would drink after dinner and smoke Pal Mall unfiltered outside his ger as he looked up at the stars. This cowboy lifestyle works well for them and they are extremely happy. Meanwhile, their drinking culture is very inclusive, they pull in everyone and the goal is to have as much fun as possible. There was little segregation because of my gender, and contrary to what I assumed, they welcomed me into their poker game almost immediately. When we left to get on the bus on our final day, our host bought us a round of beers which we all chugged before climbing aboard for a 3 hour ride (big mistake!). Alcohol is used as a social tool to make people happy, include more people into the gathering, and draw everyone into one ger for warmth, entertainment (no TVs out on the steppe) and hours of story telling and card playing.

We’re not experts on these cultures or their drinking habits, but that is what we observed while traveling around from place to place and trying to experience these cultures in the ways they exist when no one is watching.

We get a lot of questions about how we manage different aspects of full-time travel. To answer them, we’ve put together a special Resources page on the website that will hopefully help people find out if they can Abandon their Cubicles, how to do it, where to get the things they need to do it successfully, and just some general information on traveling. We’re not claiming to be any authority on the topic, we’re just hoping to help! here’s what the new page covers:

Is It Feasible. The ‘should you?’ the ‘could you?’ and the ‘how to do’ of abandoning your cubicle. Whether you are thinking of a leave of absence to travel for a few weeks or months, or a full out Jerry Maguire storm out,t hen this will help you assess if now is the best time, and some of the things to consider before you flick off your boss.

Insurance. Lots of people need this to travel. Although we don’t personally have any travel insurance (yet) we’ve checked out some of the options and we have a few links posted that could maybe provide you with what you are looking for. Coverage for a short-term trip shouldn’t run you more than $250, so be wary of people who charge by the month or who promise you year-long coverage for less.

Visas. These little stamps can cost you big bucks, and be a royal pain. But thankfully there are some easy ways to tackle visas like nifty visa services. For some countries (Russia) you’ll have to use a service if you want it done right, fast and without hassle. For others you’re better off doing it alone. We give you some tips on the resources page, as well as at the bottom of every destination page.

Guides. Seasoned travelers always have their favorite guide books, and hardly ever deviate from those. We use a mix of our favorite guide book (which we won’t give a free promo here) and online sites like travel blogs for the area, or wikitravel. We have more info to be found about guides on the resources page!

Languages. The number one thing people ask us about is how we get around without speaking native languages. The answer is that we try really, really hard to learn. We do that with language guide books, i-touch programs, online sites and a lot more. Its important to us to try to talk to people in their native tongue, and we use a lot of different resources to try to achieve that aim.

Equipment. People get really excited about the equipment we use. We’ll meet someone on a camping trail and spend the first fifteen minutes talking supplies before we even get around to introductions. A good tent can make or break the whole trip, and everyone who travels full time has very strong, very serious views about cook stoves.

Expat and Teaching. Many people go overseas for a change of pace to look for an expat-style job or to teach English while they enjoy the local culture. We have some resources for you to do both, including how you can get your teaching certificate (which we did last year, just in case!).

Social Media & Staying Connected. We also listed some nifty travel websites, travel tools online, and ways to stay connected with your loved ones while on the road.

So, to see all that info and more, check out the new Resources page!

Here we go! Just the FACTS about why the West Coast is literally a billion times cooler than the East Coast:

1) Movies about the West Coast are usually uplifting, fun and feature scantly clad youths frolicking along the beaches. Movies about the East Coast usually highlight a primary character who has turned selfish and egotistical while striving for some sort of monetary or business related goal.

2) The East Coast has a rich history that includes the earliest days of America’s past. Meanwhile, the West Coast is still wild, untamed and rugged– so are the people who live north of California. People like D.B Cooper and Kurt Cobain.

3) The West Coast produces way better music. Now that’s just a fact.

4) The West Coast, if you get rid of California, is full of people who love the environment. There are ample forests, of the evergreen and rain varieties, as well as untamed beaches, rugged mountain peaks and even ferns that grow out of tree branches. The East Coast has Krispy Kreame.

5) The West Coast has Hollywood. The East Coast has Disney World.

6) The West Coast had the gold rush. The East Coast had a tea party.

7) The West Coast has vampires and werewolves, the East Coast has Pennsylvania Avenue.

8.) The West Coast has the King crab, and salmon. The East Coast has lobster– nature’s ugliest creature.

9) The West Coast has the leading ocean. Now for those non-geologists that’s a plate tectonic joke.

10) You never hear people talk about the dream of moving out East. Our nation’s manifest destiny was literally driven by people moving to the West Coast.

With the exception of Chicago, the entire non-coastal USA is literally just a highway to and from the coasts.