Chris Guillebeau's Blog, page 105

Launch of Legal Guide + 20% Off Everything Sale!

Big news: it’s time for our once-a-year, everything-must-go sale at Unconventional Guides.

This year, there’s something special: after a long wait with no new products, we now have a new guide out today. Oh, we’re also doing a brand-new event. What! I know.

Read on for more … or click here to go to the site.

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Our Annual Holiday Sale Is Here!

For the rest of the week, you can save 20% on everything we produce in the Unconventional Guides store. Twenty percent! Everything!

Use discount code pum...

Happy Thanksgiving from AONC

Back from Australia and in Portland for the U.S. holiday, I faced a tough choice today: pecan pie or bread pudding.

I chose the bread pudding … but then I experienced an onset of buyer’s remorse as I thought about the pie. Was I right? Was I wrong?

Honestly, I wasn’t sure. They both had their merits. But finally I decided the best choice was just to decide—so I decided to enjoy the bread pudding.

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Image: Rob

How to Take the Law Into Your Own Hands (and Why Not To)

Two quick items today:

1. For the first time in nearly two years (!) we’re releasing a new Unconventional Guide. It comes out next week.

2. Also next week, we’ll have our only sale of the year. We usually do this during Thanksgiving, but with the new guide coming out, it will begin next week. Stay tuned!

More on both these points below…

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When I went on tour for The $100 Startup, people asked a lot of questions. I was able to answer most questions about product launches, creating your first webs...

Almost Free Trip to Australia (A Travel Hacking Case Study)

Last week I flew to one of my favorite countries. Ever since I first got stuck in Australia after being denied boarding for Nauru, it turned into a country I love to escape to whenever I get the chance—especially the sunny city of Sydney.

Only problem was, this time my favorite sunny city was in a downpour for almost my entire visit. I still had a good time, but I wish I’d left earlier to go to Melbourne, where I ended up for the last two days of my trip. Fortunately, I had a beautiful sunny...

Rain in Paradise

Somewhere in my constant travels I learned an important lesson: you can be at peace wherever you are, or you can be anxious wherever you are.

Circumstances aren’t completely irrelevant, and a comfortable environment certainly helps. But circumstances only go so far—feeling good or bad doesn’t depend on what’s happening around you.

I remember shivering in a tent in Zimbabwe, feeling miserable yet still excited about the adventure. I was on my own in a strange place… and I was happy!

I also remem...

On the Road: Notes from LAX

I was flying to Sydney via Los Angeles and Brisbane, but at the moment it didn’t matter. What mattered was: I was heading out to see the world.

I touched down in LAX via the Greyhound of the West Coast skies, otherwise known as Alaska Airlines. Heading outside, I blinked at the flashing lights of the hotel shuttles and taxis.

It was my favorite time of day—early evening when the sun sets and swarms of passengers arrive for red-eye flights from the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

I watched a...

In Limbo

Being between things is tough. There’s a bright future ahead! You can picture it, just out of reach in the near distance.

But there’s a muddied present in front of you. Things are messy and take longer than you think.

You experience setbacks as you proceed toward the goal. What can you do?

You could downsize the goal, telling yourself that thing you’d hoped for wasn’t really what you wanted.

You could accept less than you dreamed of, in other words. But why would you do that?

Chances are, the...

How Do You Pay for Your Travel? (Part II)

Monday’s post was about how I paid for much of my travel to 193 countries by being intentional about priorities and practicing selective frugality. Today’s post continues the story…

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I didn’t begin travel hacking until long after I began traveling. At first, I did what everyone else did—I had a couple of Frequent Flyer accounts, I looked online when buying tickets, I tried to comparison shop and get the best deal I could, but I didn’t know much about the tricks of the trade.

One time, early...

How Do You Pay for Your Travel?

Over the course of ten years, I visited every country in the world, many of them several times.

When I first started writing about the quest, the most common question I received was, “But how do you pay for that?”

Since then I’ve tried to be very clear on how much it costs to travel—not just for me, but for anyone else. In this post, and in the follow-up on Thursday, I’ll outline my general response to travel and money.

First, Define Your Priorities

Put simply, what do you value?

There’s a prov...

Risk Something to Gain Something

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“If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.” -Jeff Bezos

I don’t run an operation the size of Amazon.com, and you probably don’t either. But all of us have responsibilities. We have commitments, goals, hopes, and dreams.

We’re also faced with decisions every day.

How do you make choices? When you’re faced with new opportunities, how do you decide which to pursue and which to decline?

I believe one criteria is… does it excite you? Does it scare you a l...