FOOD TRAVEL: This Is What Professionals Do, Travel Food Safety

Experiencing exotic cuisine while traveling is one of the benefits of traveling to new places.  With this enriching experience comes a new set of challenges and rewards that must be considered when planning out your culinary experiences.  Here are some tips to consider at different stages of your travel;

Food on planes

Choose the Asian-vegetarian option on the plane. You get your meals before anyone else and the special-order meals tend to be fresher and have better quality ingredients.

This depends on your budget and diet regimen. I'm a vegetarian, mostly gluten-free, and often on a budget, so I usually carry a few protein bars, meal replacement bars, or nuts (fruit often gets confiscated), so I have something to snack on during domestic travel, saving me money on having to eat low-quality processed food on airlines or in airports. You may even bring a few extras if you're going somewhere expensive like Moscow or Tokyo, so you can have something to snack on during your days. One empty water bottle also comes in handy as you can fill it up at a water fountain and reuse it.  It’s eco-friendly and you won’t spend money on plastic bottles of water laced with BPA.

Remember, this is where most people’s trips get to be affected in a good way (Anthony Bourdain exploring foods) or in a bad way, getting stuck way out somewhere with a life-threatening sickness or parasite.  This is a personal choice that is going to vary depending on your food preferences and how sensitive your body is to certain foods. Generally speaking, it’s best to eat vegetarian while you’re traveling as meats tend to have a higher risk for foodborne illness.

Street Food

Trust your nose, not your eyes.  Smells are important indicators of the quality of food.

Be aware of who is handling the food. Avoid establishments where the food handlers don’t practice good hygiene, such as tying back their hair, wearing protective gloves, and having clean hands and fingernails. If you see food servers smoking, touching their face, eating out of pots, chewing gum, sneezing or coughing near food, avoid purchasing food from that vendor.

Look for crowds. When surveying the street food scene in any location, look for crowds.  Locals get sick, too, and won’t return to stalls suspected of serving unsafe food, so if there’s a crowd, it’s usually a safer choice to make.  Chances are the food is fresher and cleaner since they are selling it quickly before it has time to sit and grow bacteria or have flies lay eggs in it.

This is how I caught salmonella in Thailand:  I ignored the advice of the local Thai people to not eat at a certain Indian food restaurant in Chiang Mai.  When I went in, I ordered a large sampler dish. I was so impressed that they had it ready in about three minutes, not thinking that it had already been sitting out in the 100 plus weather.  After eating, I ventured up a mountain to my private villa and wasn’t able to leave for three days due to diarrhea and vomiting. I slept for about 23 hours and 45 minutes a day. I can only remember opening my eyes for a few minutes and quickly cutting up, aerating, and eating as many cloves of raw garlic that I could until I passed out again.  My saving grace was the fact that I had a fresh braid of garlic with me. Garlic is antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasitic, and it’s great for supplementing most treatments of travel bugs. In this case, I believe it saved my life!

Be selective when choosing foods. Since raw food is subject to contamination, travelers should try to avoid salads, uncooked vegetables, and unpasteurized juices and milk products.  Dry foods such as cakes, cookies, and bread are safer options, although not as healthy.

Spice things up. Become familiar with spices such as chilies and turmeric, which are known to have antibacterial properties, and seek out dishes that include them.  Acidic fruits, such as citrus fruits and pineapple, are also safer bets when traveling.

Avoid over-handled foods such as bulk bin food where people are handling the food items.  Avoid foods that require a lot of handling before serving or that contain raw or undercooked meat or seafood. In most cases, foods that are boiled should be safer to consume.

Wash vegetables and fruit prior to eating. If you purchase fresh produce from a roadside stand be sure to wash and peel them before eating. Bacteria can be present on their exterior and transferred into the edible section once sliced.  So make sure you wash the fruit before slicing into it. If you’re traveling in an area with unsafe water, be sure to wash the produce with bottled or filtered water and vegetable cleaner, peroxide, or soap.

Eat hot foods hot, and cold foods cold. If the dish you ordered is supposed to be served hot, make sure it is hot when it is served to you. The same is true for any foods that are intended to be served cold. Otherwise, it may not be safe to eat.

Remember the one-hour rule. Don’t consume any perishable foods that have been sitting out beyond one hour when the temperature is higher than 90°F.



Wash Hands

Before eating or handling food, wash your hands with soap and water for at least twenty seconds before eating or handling food.  A good rule is to sing the happy birthday song in your head while you wash your hands. Once you're done singing the song, you're done washing your hands.  If fresh water is scarce, use antibacterial hand gels or wipes to help keep your hands clean, especially after using a restroom and before eating.

Sanitize "high touch" areas.  Germs linger longer on nonporous materials like plastic.  When traveling via plane, train or bus, wipe down common surface areas such as tray tables, seat armrests, and lavatory door handles with an alcohol-based wipe or gel before you touch them.  If you’re staying at a hotel, do the same for the TV remote controls, bathroom door handles, and the telephone. If you miss something don’t worry, it's actually a catch 22. The more you are exposed to germs, the stronger your immune system is. The less you are exposed, the more vulnerable you are.  I generally don’t wipe anything down, but I do carry a bar of soap with me to wash my hands when I can. This also varies from person to person depending on health, age, and sensitivity to getting sick, so keep this in mind when developing your strategy for staying healthy.

Drink

Boil tap water before consuming.  If you need to use tap water from an unknown source, be sure to boil it for several minutes first at a good rolling boil.  Also, avoid consuming beverages that may be mixed with the local tap water supply, such as juices or sodas from sources such as fountain machines or beverages containing ice, since freezing does not kill most microorganisms.  Beverages made with boiled water and served steaming hot (such as tea and coffee) are generally safe to drink. A friend of mine once got sick from eating butter that had been chilled with ice that was contaminated with microorganisms.  It is best to avoid ice.

Not all bottled water is safe. Bottled water products in other countries can be impure or even counterfeit (i.e., refilled from a local tap source, which is common in India and China), so always check the seal to ensure it is intact.

In general, be careful with drinks of any kind when going out for nightlife or just having lunch.  This is often the easiest way for people to slip drugs into your drinks and rob you or take advantage of you.  I've had several friends go out to clubs, meet someone, and wake up somewhere without all their personal belongings.  Carry your own water bottle, refill it yourself in reliable places, and if you’re going out, open sealed drinking containers yourself.  You can also carry iodine tablets and portable water filters with you, so you’re not buying plastic bottles and creating more trash.

I talk more in-depth of travel issues in my Amazon Book. Check it out here.

How To Turn Your TRAVEL COMMUNICATION From Zero To Hero, Hacks

Whether you’re traveling or not communication with friends, family, and employers is key to being able to stay on the road.  The good news is that the world is increasingly interconnected and it’s getting easier to communicate with others for less money, from further away, and with increased reliability.  Planning ahead will help you avoid some of the issues that often plague travelers and can put a damper on your travel plans.

My friend Justin from Las Vegas recently called me from Burma and said, "Ernesto, my boss wants to speak to me, and he doesn't know I'm in Burma. How do I know when he calls, and how do I call him without getting into trouble?"

Set up your home telephone and cell phone with voicemails and passwords so you can access them remotely. Keep in mind that most people never set up passwords on their cell phones because they’ve never had to reach their cell phone remotely from a third-party phone. Also, set up a Skype account, Line, WhatsApp, Google Talk, etc. I use Skype, and it's a penny to call from anywhere in the world to the USA.

Set up your phone with an autoresponder to respond to text messages and phone calls. The message can say whatever it is you want people to know about you. I usually say I'm out of town working and to please email me so I can respond much faster.  I also use voice to text services such as www.phonetag.com, that’ll send you a text of your voice messages when they come in.  You can also set up temporary or long-term secondary phone lines for people to call you on using Google Talk or Burner App to set up multiple phone lines if needed.



Smartphones

Smartphones are possibly the greatest invention ever.  I remember reading an issue of Time Magazine that had an article on the greatest invention of the decade and maybe ever: "The Apple iPhone."  I agree it’s amazing for travel. You can use it to do hundreds of thousands of different things, literally. You can shop around in the App Store for millions of apps that you may find beneficial for your trip.

The basics I use it to include internet access as most places have free Wi-Fi.  I use it to pay my bills, to conduct business, to write this book, as a flashlight, for maps, for GPS, to buy flights, to book hotels, to create PDFs, to e-sign documents, to take pictures, for translation, for scanning, for faxing, or for just about everything else.

It saves you from having to haul around a laptop or pay for the use of an Internet café.  You can also store information on it as well. Just make sure you install or activate an application for finding your phone in case you ever lose it, or so you can wipe it clean remotely in case you can't retrieve it, protecting all of your personal info. You can even plug it in occasionally and transfer your information, pictures, etc. into your online account as a backup.

This backing up also saves you from having to print items.  At airports and venues, you can often show them your digital ticket on your phone. The barcodes on these digital tickets can be directly scanned, and then you’re in.  If you're going somewhere you've never been before, use digital travel guides such as Lonely Planet, Frommer’s, Barefoot, or Let's Go. These guides are full of everything you'll need to travel such as maps, where to stay, where to eat, sites to visit, history, customs, etc.  These books will transform anyone into a professional traveler in an instant.



Expect to be on boats, planes, trains, and automobiles while on your vacation.  Why not sharpen your skills, learn a language, or read those books you've been putting off reading?  By downloading them into your phone, this will save you space and items to carry along. Get yourself a library card, and you can check out thousands of books for free with your smartphone to read while you're on your trip.  

I use an app called Overdrive that allows me to check out eight books at a time for three weeks. You can renew if you need more time. You can also download and pay for subscription services such as Audible, Epic, or Amazon Kindle which give you more book options and options to buy and own a copy of a digital book.  

I recommend a good smartphone cover such as an Otter Box and some extra cell phone battery banks to use in case you can get a charge. This allows you to go up to a week without a charge depending on your usage. I don’t use the covers that have built-in batteries as they drain and damage your phone’s battery.  They also have waterproof covers if you're going somewhere where there's water. Almost all electronic devices now use USB cords, so you can bring one along for your electronics should you choose to bring more with you.

Smartphones also have extra zoom lenses that can be purchased in case you’re going on a safari in Africa or trekking in the jungles of South America and need an extra zoom for your camera.

One of the biggest downfalls of smartphones, which can easily be overcome, is downloading your personal info onto a shared computer.

I have also recently started buying a SIM card in the countries I travel to, as this allows me to use my phone and access my info without the roaming charges. Generally, you still can’t call internationally unless you have an international calling plan.  However, you can use Google Maps to find walking and driving directions on your trip, WhatsApp/ messenger/skype to call people, and translation apps to communicate with locals.

Wi-Fi

McDonald’s, libraries, Starbucks, malls, and most cafés have free Wi-Fi.  More and more public spaces such as parks and transportation areas are also offering free public Wi-Fi around the world.

 

 

I talk more in-depth of travel issues in my Amazon Book. Check it out here.

How To Take The Headache Out Of Travel Documents with Google Drive

 

Documents

Everywhere you go in the world, you are going to need all or some of the following:  vaccination records, passport, business contacts, itinerary, and plane tickets. Without these documents, you won’t be going very far.  Aside from the hard copies of this information, that you should be caring with you. Set up two email or cloud accounts with different companies such as Google Drive and Hotmail One Drive.  I say two, because certain governments will monitor your email as a condition for entering their country. As a result, some companies have refused this intrusion so you cannot access your accounts in those countries.

If you need to travel to North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Venezuela, or some other country that stymies free speech and internet privacy by blocking access to particular websites, you can get around their blocks on your computer or cell phone by downloading circumventing programs called virtual private networks (VPN).

Companies like Google and Hotmail don’t allow those governments to access your personal information, so the governments have banned access to their servers as a form of censorship, so I had to use my Yahoo account to communicate with my world in some of these countries.   You can also download VPN software such as Psiphon for your smartphone, tablet, or computer. That VPN software allows you to circumvent this type of security and check your email or other internet sites that might be blocked. Just in case, it is a good idea to have two accounts since sometimes company servers can be down for periods of time, and you don't have to risk not being able to check your email or access important travel documents.

Make digital copies by either taking clear photos or scanning vaccination records, passports, business contacts, phonebook contacts, plane tickets, and all other pertinent documents, and store them in your two email or cloud accounts.  Think if you get robbed or lose your luggage, how will you get out of or across countries without your documents? This method will allow you to print up copies that are often accepted in most travel outlets and government bodies. It will also give you a good story to tell in the long run.

While in South Africa, my car was broken into three separate times, and all my documents were stolen. Fortunately, I had my documents backed up, so I was able to use my digital copies to complete my trip.

Some countries are really strict about you having your vaccination records and will not allow you into the country if you don't bring the records with you. This allows them to protect themselves and you from public health problems pertinent to that area. In tropical latitudes, such as South America and Africa, or other places where yellow fever is a problem, they will not allow you in if you don't have proof of yellow fever vaccinations for fear that you will add to the ongoing problem or spread the disease to other places, making it harder to contain.

As for your passport, many places will accept printouts if you explain the circumstances. Otherwise, you can go to your embassy with your copies and buy a new passport. A list of medications and copies of prescriptions for medications you are taking are helpful in case you need a refill while on the road.

E-tickets save money and help you lower the importance of your cargo. in case you get robbed or you lose your luggage, you have your travel info stored in your online email accounts.  As for phone contacts, I recommend keeping both a file and a copy-and-paste of your contacts in your email accounts and/or in a cloud account. Sometimes, if you have to use a foreign computer, it may not allow you to open files. If you don't want copies of your documents saved on shared computers, copying and pasting your info into an email allows you to view your info as you normally would.

Time after time, while on vacation, when you least expect it, someone will call you for something important and their contact info will be on a card or on your home computer locked away.  You then have to scramble to remember where it is and ask someone at home—if you even have someone to do this for you at home—to look around and find the info you so badly need. This can be a real stressor, so put all your contacts in online files that you can access anywhere.

USB sticks can also be used as long as you have them password protected so other people can’t access your info if you lose them.  Using a cloud account is your best option as you do not have to carry anything extra with you; however, it does require you to have an internet connection which you won’t always have in developing countries.  In this scenario, a USB stick would be another way to cover yourself.

Passport

Make sure you have at least six months left before your passport expires, or immigration agents in most countries won't accept it. You also have to have some empty pages. It’s best to order a business passport when you get your passport or renew it.  Business passports have more pages for stamps.

While on a trip to South Africa, I had a one-day layover in Frankfurt, Germany. After a day of sightseeing, I tried to board the plane to continue on my journey. However, the staff wouldn't allow me to board the plane because, according to them, I had several pages in my passport that only had one stamp and none that were completely empty. The South African immigration wouldn't allow me to enter without having a clean page in my passport.  I proceeded to the restroom where I used nail polish remover that I had purchased at the airport to remove some of the stamps.

When I went back to try to board, the staff were onto me and didn't allow me to board.  I had to spend an extra night in Frankfurt so I could go to the U.S. Consulate General in the morning and pay to have them staple and glue extra pages to my passport for a fee of $50.  This allowed me to continue on my trip, and after some haggling with the staff, they excused the extra fees resulting from my missing my original flight.

Bills and Financial Information

Just imagine you go on a trip, something changes in your life, and you all of a sudden have a lot of time to burn.  You now have three months instead of three weeks to travel. My boss once did me the favor of notifying me the day before I was scheduled to return to work, after being off for three weeks, that the state had never mailed them proof that my license had been renewed. Apparently, the check I mailed to the state was cashed, but something happened, and my license was not renewed.  Therefore, the process would now take three months to complete.

Meanwhile, I would be disallowed from returning to work (unpaid of course) until I received my new license.  Well, I wasn't going to let a travel opportunity like this pass me by. But wait, I had all this mail at home, and I needed to go through it all and pay my bills; otherwise, my credit would be ruined and my finances would be put into disarray.

As a result, I would recommend that you enroll all of your bills in auto-pay and make all of your accounts paperless so you can access your information from anywhere in the world. Same with your paychecks, retirement payments, or pensions. Have them all pay directly into your bank accounts and store the passwords in your two email or cloud accounts. Don't allow bills and mail to dictate your travel schedule.  

For those that do come unexpectedly, have a friend collect your mail, review, and send you a picture of the contents every couple of weeks. Or you can get a P.O. Box and sign up for USPS Informed Delivery service. Your mail is scanned, and you receive an email summarizing the mail you received. There are also several mail scanning services available such as www.travelingmailbox.com.  They will open your mail and scan it with your permission, forward it, hold it, and some will also respond for you as well.

Before every trip, make sure you contact your credit card companies and let them know you’re on vacation and for how long so they don't block your cards.  This has happened to me, and oftentimes the banks won't reinstate your cards until you call them from your home phone. Essentially, your card will be useless until you get back home from your trip.  It’s also best to leave the cash advance option on travel credit cards to zero in case you get robbed.

My brother Bobby had an economist friend who traveled to Mexico City for an economics conference.  One night he walked out of his luxury hotel to the sidewalk to grab a taxi and a VW van pulled up close to him as if they were dropping someone off.  Instead, one guy pulled a fabric bag over his head while two other guys grabbed him and pulled him into the van and they drove off. He said they scared him into going to an ATM and pulling the maximum amount allowed to be withdrawn from each credit card.  After they got all of the money they could out of him, they took his clothes and left him naked at the side of the road. The same incident happened to a chiropractor friend of mine who was traveling with his partner to Mexico City. Except they made my friend’s family in Los Angeles wire ten thousand dollars to a bank account in order to release them from the house they were being held.

One year during the holidays, I was in Italy and my cards were all blocked just as I ran out of hard cash.  The banks wouldn't bail me out, and the ones that might have were closed for the holidays. I had to hustle and use what little I had as collateral to get cash from a girl I met at my youth hostel.  Fortunately, she had a crush on me and was willing to trust me. If you lose your wallet and have no money, head to your local embassy or consulate. They will provide you with temporary travel documents so you can have money wired to you.  

 

I talk more in-depth of travel issues in my Amazon Book. Check it out here.

Your Key To Success: Student Loan Benefits & Student Loans Repayment

Student loans represent one of the premier ways that a person can achieve higher economic and social mobility within our society.  For children of low-income families, higher education is one of the best options they have available for moving up the income ladder.  Whereas children of wealthy families tend to continue being wealthy whether they go to college or not, and are likely to have more options available to them for success.  Without student loans, I would not be writing this article. Like most people my parents struggled just to provide the basics, the idea of funding a college education wasn’t even a consideration.  To give you some perspective, the school I attended the University of Southern California (USC) had estimated costs for tuition and fees of around fifty thousand dollars a year. At that time, my dad was making twenty-five thousand dollars a year and had five kids and a wife to support.  He would have had to save everything he made for two years to pay one year of my education.

With a combination of student loans, grants, and scholarships I was able to complete a total of fifteen years of education on my way to three masters and a doctorate.  Thanks to the education I received I have had years where I have made over five hundred thousand dollars a year, not to mention the appreciation of the assets I have accumulated over the years.  The money that I received in the form of grants and scholarships has long been repaid multiple times over with all the donations and taxes my income generates. The benefits to society as a whole are also substantial as I have served thousands of sick people over the years as an occupational therapist and a naturopathic doctor.  The people I have had the opportunity to help are mostly having increased productivity in their lives as a result of improved health and decreased physical dysfunction as a result of my care. I am directly causing them to be more productive and generate more wealth for themselves and their communities. The fundamental needs of a society to continue creating wealth are good healthcare and education.  

Although student loan debt can seem overwhelming, student loans are a vital tool and an excellent investment for the student and society.  Student loans are considered good debt because they are typically low interest, subsidized by the government over long periods, and they multiply the amount of money you can earn over your lifetime.  There are also a variety of ways to help you deal with student loan debt in the form of loan forgiveness, tax deductions, and deferred payments when you need it. Banks and lenders are friendlier towards student loan debt because of the increased earning potential that usually comes with a degree.  Once you get out of school, your goal should be to grow your income as much as you can so that you can expense the investment you made in your education.,



Student loan debt is a solid investment and a good liability, that can produce a lot of income over a lifetime.  New college graduates worry about how much debt they have; To them, I would say not to focus on that number. It’s almost like owning several million dollars in real estate debt. If you think about the total amount, then you are going to get stressed out. But at the end of the day, all that matters is cash flow are you making more money than you are paying out? If that is the case, then your real estate ventures are successful.  You definitely, want to try to reduce your liabilities as much as you can as a way to increase your cash flow. But without the initial investment in the real estate, you would have no cash flow. So for those that are worried about student loans, don't!  As long as you are investing in a field of study that you know can produce an income.

When you go to school, it is vital that you do some market research on the US labor department's website. And choose a field of study that you see has lots of demand.  Another thing to keep in mind these days is whether or not a robot can replace your field of education over the next decade. You don’t want to make a significant investment and then have your field of study to be phased out and replaced by a robot. You need to be proactive. If you have your heart set on an area of education and the demand for that field is limited then make that field of study your hobby or a minor in college. Study in fields that are in high demand such as STEM; science, technology, engineering, and math.  These are particular areas of study that are in need in our specific economy. Because they are less challenging, social sciences and business are the areas that are most saturated and the most competitive to find work. Whatever country you live in doing some market research and figure out what is in need and that is what you should invest in as long as you do some research you won’t have to worry about student debt.

Seventy percent of people who have student loans, do not work in their field of study.  That would make some believe that starting or investing in a college degree is not worth the investment.  The fact is that the more time you spend studying, the broader your mind is, and the more you can grasp different concepts and critically problem solve issues.  With this in mind, it’s not unusual for people to study something and end up working in a different field of study. Which is not a tribute to the failure of higher education, but rather a reminder that studying gives you increased opportunities and the ability to work in something else if you find a better opportunity.  Do you imagine that a mechanic would have this flexibility, probably not? The more flexible you are, the more opportunities will open up for you, and having a college degree gives you that flexibility.



College graduates tend to make at least twice as much as someone with a high school diploma.  Women are twice as likely to attend college and twice as likely to graduate than men. Although you may not remember everything you studied in school, the experience helps you develop a unique set of problem-solving abilities that allow you to quickly resolve problems by knowing where to look for the solutions much faster than someone who does not have a college education.  When someone mentions that they may not be working in their field of study and that they may have wasted their money on an area of study they are not practicing. Remind them that education gave them the tools to be successful in the world as a whole. The key is to remain flexible and open to opportunities as they present themselves. Be willing to try new things, develop new skills sets, and live a life that you may not have anticipated. The more you can execute these three things the more successful you are going to be in life, regardless of the amount of student loan debt you owe.

 

I talk more in-depth of travel issues in my Amazon Book. Check it out here.

How to TRAVEL FOR FREE: This Is What Professionals Do to pay for it.

 



The number one reason people don’t travel is due to lack of money to pay for traveling and their living expenses.  If your dream is to travel the world and see places you’ve only had the opportunity to learn about in books. Here are some strategies for you to earn funds while you travel to achieve your goal of traveling the world for free.

The degree of your success will depend on how well you speak the local language, how hard you’re willing to hustle, and of course your English speaking skills.  If you have mastered neither of these, then there is still hope for you as you can provide labor or your unique skill set to fund your travels.

Now is the time to start seeing the world.  This article will give you 19 ways to blaze a trail for yourself through the unknown while sustaining yourself for as long as you’d like.  Here are some of the best options for traveling the world for free:

1. Become a Deckhand

Join a crew on a ship in exchange for the company, being a deckhand, or for a particular skill, you may possess. The captain of the vessel will give you free passage and often compensate you to travel with them on their boats to their destinations. Once in different ports, you can jump from ship to ship and go just about anywhere in the world.  Check out www.findacrew.com or www.crewseekers.net for postings from captains looking for crew.

During a trip to Puerto Rico, I met several people on the island of Vieques who were working in the restaurants, getting paid under the table and saving money to hitch rides on yachts and travel everywhere you could think of: French Polynesia, the Mediterranean, or merely the Caribbean islands.  There were bars we would go to at night where the captains would post signs on the bulletin boards advertising that they needed deck hands with no experience to experienced. Some paid and some just paid room and board depending on how much you could contribute to skills or labor.

2. Get a Travel Rewards Credit Card

Using a credit card to pay for your regular ongoing expenses is an excellent way to build up free flights and hotels.  Credit cards such as Orbitz Rewards Visa, Chase Sapphire, or the airlines’ credit cards, allow you to build up credit for free travel and perks. Just don't accumulate unnecessary debt or it will defeat the purpose of having the card.  You can also join travelhack.org, and they will show you how to get free flights by accumulating miles with offers.

There are also tricks for how to best use miles to your advantage. Transfer miles within a partnership of airlines. For example, I needed to use 525,000 miles for a first class, round trip ticket to fly on ANA to Japan from Los Angeles. Instead, I transferred 90,000 miles from Virgin Airlines to buy the ANA ticket. Since it was a partner airline, it only cost me about 17% of the actual miles for the same ticket.  Using this strategy, you can transfer airlines within travel partners and actually get better tickets for fewer miles.

3. Eat for Free or at a Discounted Price

While on a road trip with the family, in a small town in Colorado, my mom had a breakdown because she was on a diet and was not allowed to have mayonnaise on her sandwich.  She got upset and left me and my girlfriend behind. We would have to ride the bus back to Los Angeles. However, she accidentally left with our wallets and we only had the change in our pockets.  As we wandered around thinking about how to get back home, we found a Salvation Army soup kitchen that was serving lunch. They offered the option to eat for free if you had no funds, or you could pay 50 cents for your lunch.  The food was very hearty, and we could eat as much as we wanted. We had spaghetti with marinara sauce, garlic bread, and Kool-Aid to drink. We ended up calling my mom after she cooled down, and she came back to pick us up.

I had a similar experience in Atlanta, Georgia when I was sixteen traveling with my friends to a baseball card show.  We had run low on money, so we were sleeping outside the convention center in a nearby park until the show started the following day.  We were on a very tight budget and found a soup kitchen that charged 50 cents for all-you-can-eat baked beans, cheese bread, and an orange drink. These places typically have discounted or free groceries you can take as snacks for later in the day.

In the USA about 40% of all the food we produce is wasted and thrown in the trash.  That comes out to over 150 billion pounds of food wasted and about $200 billion USD worth of food not eaten.  So if you are low on funds or food, don’t hesitate to visit a food bank or soup kitchen.

4. Trade Labor at a Hostel

Hostels often welcome the idea of having international staff working there, especially if you speak English in a non-English speaking country.  This is called “Woofing” in the hostel world when you are willing to trade labor for room and board. Speak to the hostel manager and negotiate a deal for room, board, and even pay for your work.  There are also websites like hostelworld.com that have message boards and allow hostels to advertise job opportunities. If it’s a country that requires a work visa and you don't feel comfortable working without a work visa, you can work for room and board so that no money is exchanged

5. Ask for Travel Gift Cards

When you have a birthday or some other special occasion, ask for a gift card for airline travel, Airbnb, HomeAway from home, or travel website gift cards.

6. Work on a Cruise Ship

You can get paid and travel around the world by working as a staff member on a cruise ship.  Check out cruisejobfinder.com, www.cruiseshipjobs.com, and www.cruiselinejob.com. You can also contact the cruise lines and get gigs teaching classes depending on your areas of expertise: business, health, history classes, etc.  Cruise ships offer educational lectures during the days for guests, and you can be a guest lecturer and in exchange get a free or discounted cabin.

7. Host an Educational Trip

Educational travel companies provide free trips for teachers to get them to host tours for students.  Some will include a free training trip beforehand so that you can learn how to be a better guide. Some of the best outfitters include Explorica, EF, and CHA Educational Tours.

8. Drive Someone Else's Car Across the Country

You can either find someone who needs their car relocated on craigslist, drive for a car rental company or Auto Driveaway, the largest vehicle-relocation company in the US.  You need to be at least 23 years old and have a valid license. After putting down a $350 security deposit (returned upon delivery), you will be paid a negotiable rate — either flat or per mile — and gas will be charged back to the owner.

Relocate motorhomes and get paid for it.  The usual cost may be about $200 a day for an RV rental.  However, most people rent them only one way, and someone else has to drive them back to the big cities, so RV rental places such as www.apollorv.com, or cruiseamerica.com offer deals where they pay you and all your expenses to drive the RVs back to desired locations where demand is higher.

9. Volunteer on Environmental Projects

You can look to ecological organizations for volunteer projects around the world, helping out with endangered species and environments.  One such group is deahorsecamp.com where you can work, get paid, and go on polar bear viewings. Also, check out wwwletsgoglobal.ca for volunteer opportunities around the world.

10. Carpool or Hitchhike

There are multiple smartphone applications to help you hitchhike or carpool.  You can either join others or have others join you to help offset the fuel costs.  Some of the sites I use are the Waze Carpool app, craigslist, thorntree.lonelyplanet.com, erideshare.com, compartir.org, and hitchhikers.org.

11. Take Your Medical Skills on the Road

If you are a medical professional (doctor, nurse, occupational, physical, or speech therapist), you can go mobile and travel for free to places like Florida, Hawaii, military bases around the world and get paid for it.  Companies like MedTravelers offer gigs everywhere that last from 8 weeks to a year. The compensation varies based on experience, but traveling nurses or therapists can make as much as $15,000 a month, with food and housing covered.  If you are a nurse or a doctor, you can also get free cruises and get paid for working on cruise ships for short or extended tours.

12. Teach English

You can get paid to teach English abroad for nine months to two years, and in some cases, have your travel expenses covered.  Check out www.tefl.com for job postings teaching English.  Another option is Diverbo that sends 15-25 English speaking volunteers to villages in Spain and Germany for weeklong trips to help locals practice their English skills.  Diverbo doesn't cover your flight, but it does include your room and board.

13. Trace Your Ancestry

Israel, Hungary, Macedonia, Armenia, Cuba, and a few other countries have organizations that sponsor people to visit their homelands and learn about their heritage.

14. House-Swap or Rent Your Home Out

I use HomeAway from home, Airbnb and/or Craigslist to rent out my house, pay for my entire trip, and have money left over! Other options are homeexchange.com, OfferUp, homexchangevacation.com or homebase-hols.com. You have to pay a registration fee. These are usually an even swap, so they are not money makers. However, if you live in a place that is not a high rent area, this may be a better option for you.

15. House Sit or Swap

Craigslist has house swapping options available. Home Exchange, HomeLink charge an annual membership fee, but GuestToGuest is free and allows you to host guests in your home in exchange for others hosting you.

You can also house sit for family, friends, www.mindmyhouse.com, join www.housesitter.com, TrustedHouseSitters,  Rover, www.housecarers.com, or other house sitting websites allow you to live somewhere else so you can travel.

16. Organize a Trip

Organize a trip for friends or family. In exchange for doing so, some travel operators will cover your costs if you function as a trip leader.  YMT Vacations will give you a free vacation if you get twelve people to buy a trip from them; if eight of the guests book their flight through YMT, your airfare is also covered. Other companies that give you a free trip include Grand Circle Cruise Line, Select International Tours, All Aboard Travel and Merit Group Travel.

17. Volunteer

There are volunteer opportunities everywhere in the world where you can get room and board in exchange for some type of service.  www.blueventures.org, www.HelpX.com, www.habitat.org, www.unitedplanet.org, www.nps.org, www.volunteerforever.com, www.parks.ca.gov,  www.WorkAway.com, plus dozens of more organizations allow you to connect with people all over the globe to find volunteer experiences and to meet your travel desires.  ww.Archaeology.org also has opportunities to volunteer on dig sites around the globe.

18. Volunteer With WWOOF

WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) will offer you free accommodation, food, the opportunity to learn a few new skills and immerse yourself in a new culture in the destination of your choosing in exchange for working on the farm. You will be responsible for covering your travel costs and a subscription fee of $75, but your room and board will be included. Another option is www.Workaway.info, which offers cultural exchange all over the world.

19. Work in the Adventure Space

AdventureWork allows you to find short-term or long-term gigs teaching and working in facilities offering skiing, sailing, archery, and water sports in all kinds of sports travel destinations where the host can cover your expenses and pay you a stipend while you help out.

I talk more in-depth of travel issues in my Amazon Book. Check it out here.

How to protect yourself as an Airbnb host. Your Key To Success.

With the explosion of the short-term rental business, people have started sharing their homes like never before.  Air bed and breakfast, AKA Airbnb is the market leader since it emerged over ten years ago. When a couple of young guys from San Francisco started renting air mattresses in their living room with breakfast included to guests over the internet for $80.  As this new industry evolves, it has come with some growing pains, much like any new industry. Airbnb has helped smooth the transition by offering a $1,000,000 guarantee to the property of hosts. Even with this coverage, hosts are finding that a combination of people exploiting the short-term rental industries weaknesses and Airbnb's often restrictive protection policies are leaving people worse off than they started.

After ten years as a host, it’s been a great way to generate income from low performing properties and during vacancies.

So how do you join the short-term rental business while reducing risks?

Our experience has been that you have to be careful as you are on your own and Airbnb only covers about 20% of our claims, even though we experience losses in about 25% of our rentals so that about 5% of actual covered loses.

A few things you can do to protect yourself.

1. Save receipts

Make an inventory with receipts, pictures, and the serial numbers of items when possible, particularly electronics.  After being robbed by guests, we were not reimbursed because we didn’t have some of this information, although requests for information vary depending on the person helping you from the Airbnb trust and safety team.  If you have to get the police or an insurance company involved, they will both request the same information.

We recommend having all this stuff in digital copies and saved in the cloud in an email folder or both.  In case your computer or paper documents are stolen, and you're left with no proof, which happened to us.  As you add more items to your rental; snap a picture of the thing, receipt, the serial number, and save the information in an email folder with the heading describing what the item is.  This will keep you organized and allow you to respond quickly when an incident occurs. We’ve been denied claims because we couldn’t get all the information together fast enough.

2. Protect your mail and personal documents

We’ve had guests break into locked closets and filing cabinets to steal personal information.   Use a safe to guard your information or move it off the property. Professionals, prefer to take your personal information versus your property as it is more valuable and harder to notice. After breaking into a storage area, one guest stole over 50 rental applications; complete with date of birth, social security, bank accounts, and a treasure of other personal information.  

I became aware of the incident when a group of 4 detectives came to my hospital to speak to me months after it had happened. It was scary, and they asked me a lot of questions because they thought I could have been in on it. Police showed me several 4" thick binders with 100's of pages of my documents that they had discovered when they arrested the thieves and nothing was returned to me because it became evident.  They were making credit cards, drivers licenses, applying for lines of credit under everyone’s name, and selling some of the info on the dark web.

Other guests have left behind piles of stolen mail, credit cards, and additional personal information they had taken from other hosts.  Use a locked mailbox and don’t allow guests to have access to your mailbox. If you let them receive mail, you can give them their mail after you go through your mail.

Remember if someone steals from your home the police won’t get involved because you permitted for the thieves to stay in your home.  They will only investigate if it’s a burglary case, which means they had forced entry into an area of your home that was locked and they did not have permission to go into such as a closet, filing cabinet, or safe.  So, using locked spaces for valuables allows you to get help from the police if you're robbed.

3. Make sure guests are verified with government identification.

Before confirming a reservation, make sure the person is verified with a government identification on their Airbnb profile.  Currently, Airbnb only requires this for "Instant Book".

A guests account can say verified if they enter an email or phone number, which anyone can get temporarily under a fake name, and they do.  After they rob you, they open another email, get another temporary phone number, and move onto the next host. Having a government ID on file makes people think twice before they still from you.

However, we have also had people use fake or stolen identifications and rob us.  Most of the professional criminals are going to use counterfeit identifications anyway, but the ID still helps to make some people think twice before stealing.

Unfortunately, Airbnb no longer cooperates with law enforcement when you get robbed unless they get a subpoena from a court.  So, every detective tells me they don’t rely on Airbnb for help because Airbnb doesn’t help unless they're forced. When you contact Airbnb after being robbed, they direct you to a particular contact for assistance with law enforcement requests, and they'll tell you they cooperate; however, they can comply with law enforcement.  But in reality, they don’t help with investigations again unless they get a subpoena which doesn’t happen in burglaries or vandalism cases because it would waste too much of the courts time.

The only thing you can do in this case, install video camera surveillance on the property so you can identify who stayed there.  Just make sure you state in your property profile that you have surveillance cameras or Airbnb will give the guest a full refund if they complain about the cameras and it is not stated in your profile.  It’s happened to me when a guest complained about a camera on the porch after staying there for a month, and we lost the entire month’s rent close to $3,000.

If the person doesn’t have the government ID on file ask them to upload it into the Airbnb system before you can approve them.

4. Get insurance for contents

Content insurance will only help if you’re renting the house you live in, but if you have multiple properties the insurance companies won’t provide content insurance for the others.  There are also some forms of rental insurance available in some areas.

5. Squatters

In my opinion, this is the most difficult to protect yourself from and the Achilles heel of Airbnb.  In most states, if someone has stayed under 30 days in your rental you can call the police, they’ll escort them off your property.  It’s called the innkeepers or hospitality law and its meant to protect hotels from squatters. However, on the 31st day, the tenant has tenant rights, and you would have to go through a full eviction to get rid of someone.  

We had a case that took six months in court with an attorney to evict the people, and that was after we ended up paying a settlement for the people to leave. Airbnb does not provide any protection for this, and their insurance is for liability if the people get hurt or damage your property, not for squatters.  If you end up with squatters Airbnb will call the guest repeatedly and tell them they need to leave, basically harass them, and hope they go. In our cases the guests just blocked them, and it had no effect.

What you can do is not take bookings over 30 days, or have them check out for a day after the 29th day and check back in.  That’s all you can do. When we have had to call the police to get squatters out, the police will ask you “how long has the guest been at your house?”.  They won't get involved if they are outside of the 30 days; otherwise, they can be sued for violating tenants’ rights.

I know of people who have waited for the squatter to leave and just thrown all their stuff out and changed the locks.  This strategy often works, but you run the risk of being sued or put in jail for an illegal eviction which is a criminal offense if it can be proven.  Depending on where you live and your local laws.

The best recommendation would be to research your local rental laws and know how the system works so that you can operate within it.  I know in Nevada an eviction only takes three days, so the requirements vary from area to area.

6. Get the media involved

We have had some awful cases where people trashed our houses, sex, and drug parties, left everything saturated with marijuana odors, and Airbnb denied the claim even though we had before and after pictures and evidence to back up our claim.  They will either tell you they will escalate the investigation, so you feel like something is being done and never get back to you. It’s happened several times to us. Or they’ll just shut you down with an answer like “we will no longer be discussing this incident with you and all communication will be ceased”, and that’s it.  

The only option you'll have is to contact your local media until one of them picks up the story. In our case, the television news came out, videotaped my house all trashed, interviewed me, and then contacted Airbnb to ask if they would like to comment. Within 10 minutes I received a phone call from Airbnb saying they were very sorry about what happened and they were going to handle my case with a special department who offered to pay for my credit monitoring services and assigned a claims management company called Crawford and Company to handle the case and help determine a fair reimbursement for the damages.

Airbnb is headed for an initial public offering (IPO) this summer and they don’t want any negative press.  So if you have no other options seek out a newspaper or news channel to help you get justice.

7. Use a VPN router

This type of router gives everyone who stays at your rental a unique untraceable IP address, this way if one of your Airbnb guests is engaging in illegal online activity from your house you won't be blamed for it.

8. Make detailed house rules

If it is not written in your house manual and someone does it then Airbnb will not cover it.  You have to be very specific and detailed with the information you provide with guests or your guests will get free stays at your house.  We had a guest get a refund because we said the rental was 10 minutes walking distance from a lake and it turns out the guest used google maps and it was 12 minutes walking so Airbnb gave the guest a refund.  

Another guest got a refund after several weeks of staying at my house because the description said it was a one bedroom, but the bedroom actually didn’t have a door on it so it wasn’t considered a bedroom. After the guests sent in a few pictures, they got a full refund.  Airbnb says they are a neutral party, but my experience has been that they are more on the guest's side. So be very descriptive and if a guest mentioned something that you have missed quickly add it to your description.

In end, ask the Airbnb agent helping you with your claim how you can avoid the problems you had with a guest in the future.  The Airbnb staff are very willing to give you some insight if you ask for it. Otherwise, they'll just close the case and move on.  This information is valuable because it gives you some insight into how to avoid having the same issues and if they happen again how to prepare for them so you get reimbursed.  This is how you can become a pro very quickly because these are the details they don't publish in their guidelines.