Archive for April, 2010

Overcoming the 7 Obstacles to Traveling the World
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

You are probably reading Briefcase to Backpack because you have a dream; a dream to take a break and travel. Ahhh…but there is a battle going on; raging in your psyche dropping bombs and waving white flags.

angel-and-devil-doodle.png

Image property of Bill S. @ doodler blog

The ‘good angel’ says

“Do it, take that job and shove it! See what the world has to offer. Other people do it, so why can’t you?”

The ‘devil’ says

“It’s too expensive, you have to be rich. What will my family say? It’s irresponsible!”

Anil Polat has taken the bombs that your devil drops and addresses them in his E-Book – Overcoming the Seven Major Obstacles to Traveling the World. Anil is someone who has done it; he worked in a traditional job for 6 years and then decided to shake up his life and combine his love for travel with his work. He has overcome these obstacles himself. Sure, everyone’s circumstances are different, but if you need a little push, then Overcoming the Seven Major Obstacles to Traveling the World may be the nudge you need.

Traveling the world is not a luxury for most people – it’s a choice. You can overcome each and every obstacle you face and travel with good planning and by making some choices you’ll find hard to make.

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Career Breaks that Give Back
Monday, April 5th, 2010

Carolyn Lane is the founder of the non-profit organization Dog Meets World and she’s changing people’s lives one picture at a time. Armed with tools, a little stuffed dog and a portable printer, her Phodographers travel around the world providing kids and parents photos of themselves. A rare treat in these people’s lives.

Dog Meets World

We typically talk about career breaks as pausing your career to travel and volunteer and participate in activities that interest you. Carolyn is not the typical career breaker, but she has taken these three important elements of a traditional career break and put them together in a groundbreaking idea to make the world a better place. She left her stable career behind to pursue creating a volunteer opportunity around travel.

I had the opportunity to speak with Carolyn about her efforts to bring photography to all corners of the world.

Carolyn Lane of Dog Meets World You decided to take a very unusual career break in order to travel and give back. Can you tell us what you did prior to your career break? My eclectic career has spanned from being a research scientist to most recently the Director of Discovery Montessori School.

How did you decide to take the career break leap and pursue your goal?
I returned after 12 years to again head the nonprofit Montessori school which I had co-founded in 1990 and guide it through a growth period. I indicated to the board that I would not be the next long term director but would prepare the school for the future, so I already had an inkling of wanting to do/create something else as part of my life’s work. So after 3 years as the head administrator I resigned to make space to create what would become the Dog Meets World project, which at the time was just a collection of loose ideas.

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Photo Friday: Routeburn Track, NZ
Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Routeburn Track - 4-2-10

This Photo Friday was submitted by Manali & Terry Bettendorf, who departed Atlanta, GA in August of 2009 for their year-long career break. So far they have explored, Japan, China, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia.

They are currently in New Zealand, where this photo was taken while walking one of New Zealand’s Great Walks: The Routeburn Track. “We felt as if we were on the top of the world, defintely one of the highlights on our 5 week adventure in New Zealand!”

You can follow their career break adventures on Manali + Terry: Yuppies to Hippies | Newlyweds on our World Adventure

Every Friday we’ll feature a career break inspired photo. Want to see your photo here? Join our Facebook Fan Page and upload your career break photo to our Wall. Add a brief description of the photo and we may choose to feature it here!

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