Meeting an Unconventional Community

Last Saturday, after many missed opportunities, I spent the evening at Chris Guillebeau's New Haven, Conn. meet-up for the Unconventional Book Tour. The evening was full of goodies and spirited conversation about living a remarkable life on your terms while doing good for the world.

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Celebrating My Layoff Anniversary

One year after being laid off, I’m sitting and reflecting on one of my worst weeks ever…from Bangkok, Thailand. I’m nearly five months into travel, living in Bangkok and show no signs of slowing down. Turns out, losing my job was the best thing that could ever happen to me.

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How to Deal: Budgeting (Part I)

When I finally decided to tackle the budget questions I receive in a proper post, I decided I didn’t want to offer a definitive guide on how to budget a backpacking adventure. So many travel blogs and websites offer strict rules for saving and spending for backpackers to abide by, but those don't work for everyone — myself included.

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50th Post: My Bucket List Beginnings

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about long-term goals and the proverbial bucket list. Sure, there are tons of things that I want to do (or wanted and have since done them!), but I never really stopped to write them all down…until now.

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Red Shirts and Wet Shirts: A Thai New Year

Songkran is a three-day holiday from April 13-15. Its most obvious celebration — aside from visiting wats, paying respect to the family and cleansing the Buddha — is the throwing of water. It has since evolved into one of the biggest water fights in the world. People line the streets armed with Super Soakers, garden hoses and buckets of clay to smear on faces of passersby. It's been really interesting to see how the holidaymakers and the protesters have interacted.

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Red Shirt Protests Turn Ugly in Bangkok

The political upheaval is brought to us by two opposing camps: the red shirts and yellow shirts. Both groups are driven by Thaksin Shinawtra, the former prime minister of Thailand, who was ousted by the military in coup in the fall of 2006. While the red shirts support him, the yellow shirts do not.

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Ch-Ch-Changes [in Travel Plans]

I’ve met a lot of people on the road doing some pretty awesome things — teaching English, running their own businesses, blogging, volunteering — and realized I really wanted to be one of them. So I’ve chosen to stay in Bangkok for the time being to work toward that goal.

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Taking the Leap when You’re Afraid to Jump

Every so often I’ll get an e-mail from someone (usually an old friend I’ve lost touch with who stumbles across my blog through Facebook) asking me what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. For all the questions they have for me, I have one simple one for them.

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Daily Inspiration: Tim Ferriss

After hearing so much about it and already scouring countless used bookstores throughout Thailand, I finally found it. Out of the corner of my eye in Back Street Books in Chiang Mai on Wednesday, I was able to buy a copy of "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferriss for just 300 baht.

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The Balancing Act between Work and Play

For those of you who know me, I’m incredibly organized and goal-oriented. It’s why this trip came as a complete shock for some. Determined, always on-the-go Sarah was going to put work on hold for a year to travel with little commitment? Unheard of.

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