All posts by Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

Can Couchsurfing Right their Sinking Ship?

CouchsurfingI hope so.

A few months ago, I wrote a post on Tnooz detailing some steps CouchSurfing should take to revive their community. Ignoring the obvious rifts in the community and staying the course clearly wasn’t a viable option. My recommendation was to fire all their top execs, hire leaders from within the community, and then go on a full on roadshow.

This past Friday, their CEO Tony Espinoza stepped down.

I want to be very very clear on my stance on CouchSurfing, so there is no confusion.

The Couchsurfing hospitality movement is awesome, and has been for a long time. I know many, many people who have surfed all over the world and developed amazing friendships as a result. I’ve attended several meetups abroad, and met great people at them. I’m a huge fan of what Couchsurfing has stood for for a long, long time.

Oh Hey World is focused on connecting like minded people in person…regardless of what they believe in, or which websites they use or don’t use. We’re not out to make CouchSurfing go away. Far from it. In fact, I’d love to help Couchsurfing succeed by connecting surfers/hosts who are still passionate about it in a more efficient way while they travel.

As I mentioned in my original post, I still believe a roadshow is the only way to get the wheels back on the track. Someone at the top of the organization who is 100% committed to righting the ship needs to go talk face to face with the former diehard supporters, and win them back over. As such, I created a “community” page on Oh Hey World for Couchsurfers who wish to give suggestions as to how to bring the magic of the movement back and are open to speaking to others who feel the same way. The Couchsurfing community can use the group page as you see fit. If you want any of the content on it modified, I’m happy to do so – just send me an email (drew at ohheyworld). If you want to use some other platform, group, website, or app to organize yourselves and provide feedback to CouchSurfing — then that’s totally fine too.

The page can be accessed HERE.

Of course, I have no idea what is happening inside the Couchsurfing walls to know how employee moral is, as I’m not a part of the organization nor am I an active member of their community. I truly hope Couchsurfing figures out a way to right their ship. As of now, it looks bleak from the outside.

But don’t listen to me. Listen to the Couchsurfing community members (and here and here).

Note: To use the community page, you’ll have to sign into Oh Hey World, check-in to a city, and THEN visit the Couchsurfers community page. We’re currently working through the UI/UX/Design – we’ll end up with an intuitive flow focused on communities and not the check-in…but we’re not there yet.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Welcome Jeff Turner as a Mentor and Advisor

I’ve known Jeff Turner a long time. I can’t remember exactly the first time we met in person, but it was in 2006 or 2007 at a real estate conference. Over the course of the past 7 years, I’ve spent time with him in multiple cities all over the country — and been to his house outside of LA in Santa Clarita once. I’ve even spent some time at Rocky’s orphanage in Kenya (see here and here).

Point being. He is no stranger.

Far from it.

He’s one of the people in the real estate industry I truly, deeply respect. If you know Jeff personally, or even from afar, that won’t surprise you in the slightest.

Last week, I watched his CRS presentation from 2012:

YouTube Preview Image

I highly encourage you to spend the hour and watch it, or at least put it on in the background as you work. As I mentioned last week, he completely and utterly understands the power of community. Like Jeff, community is what I crave in my life.

What did I do after watching?

I listened to his advice of course, which is to find a mentor who shares my core values — and I emailed Jeff to ask him whether he’d be willing.

Less than 20 minutes later, I was fortunate to get a yes in response. The reasons he’s a good match are not really even a question. They include, among others, 25 years of business experience, a focus on impact & helping others, and a deep understanding of community. Jeff’s bio has been added to our team page.

Welcome to the team, and thank you for your support.

PS: For all those reading who know Jeff and Rocky, please consider joining our Mothers Fighting for Others community to pledge your support for the amazing cause.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Are You Building a Passion Community?

We’ve been working on the concept of community pages for awhile to connect people with shared passions. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that we’ve had this concept baked into our product for quite awhile (see post from August).

Our new community pages came from the interest we received for finding people with shared passions, yet our tag result pages not being the focus of our user experience. Frankly, most people never figured out they could add tags to their profiles.

The new community pages put the entire focus on the specific communities of like minded people. What’s different from the old tag result pages? A few things…

  • Larger photos
  • Community-specific profiles that help you understand why someone cares about a particular community, cause, topic, or brand.
  • A big “join” button so it’s clear how to indicate you care.

Here are a few early communities already setup:

  • Kiva – The peer to peer microfinance lending platform likely needs no introduction. People that care about Kiva, are extremely passionate about giving people a hand up rather than a hand out.
  • Geek Estate – the real estate technology community that I started in 2007. Geeky real estate professionals trying to figure out how to use technology to their advantage.
  • AVC – I’d wager a guess that this is the most passionate community on the entire internet. Certainly the most passionate communities of business startup geeks.
  • Mothers Fighting for Others – Every child needs an amazing home where they are loved. MFFO supports 40+ children who otherwise never would have anyone to love them.
  • Oh Hey World – For those who love Oh Hey World, we’d love you to join the OHW community page and tell us why.

Are you building a passion community with an interest in discovering each other and connecting with others in person?

If so, we’d love to hear from you – shoot me an email at drew at ohheyworld.

Note: To join community pages, you’ll have to sign into Oh Hey World, check-in to a city, and THEN visit the community page of interest (a bunch of communities are linked from my OHW profile). We’re currently working through the UI/UX/Design – we’ll end up with an intuitive flow focused on communities and not the check-in…but we’re not there yet.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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The Short Of It

A startup is a turbulent ride. Constant ups and downs. Stress. Sleepless nights. Lots of not knowing what the next day will have in store. Not knowing where money for next month is going to come from.

While doing consulting over the past few months – I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what the next step is for Oh Hey World. Do we double down on the current strategy revolving around sharing your location with everyone that matters, or change the messaging and experience to narrow in on a particular type of customer?

What do we really want to create with Oh Hey World?

A place for like minded people to meet. A community that gives a shit about making the world better, who happen to travel. Like anything else, making an impact doesn’t happen alone. It happens when you have a community of people who care about the same things to tap into for ideas, feedback, and support.

The other night, I watched Jeff Turner’s CRS presentation from 2012 (as a result of his recent post).

YouTube Preview Image

He completely and utterly understands the power of community. Like Jeff, community is what I crave in my life.

The thing is — this thinking has been sitting right there on our mission page for 6 months:

In short, we’re the travel community that gives a damn about making the world a better place — and means it.

We just need to focus completely on that one thing.

Attracting a community of travelers that give a damn about impact.

Do you?

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Applying for Jobs, and Passions

I think my friend Jon Sterling has the process of weeding people out down to a science…

If you want a job with Oh Hey World — please do NOT send a cover letter, send a few slides about your passions instead. Prove you give a crap about something, as there clearly aren’t enough people in the world that care about anything.

Are you one of them?

Prove it.

enthusiasm

[photo via http://www.marketingsavant.com/]

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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An Interview with Adventure Traveler Richard Bangs

Today I have Richard Bangs here to talk about his travels, work and lifelong passion for adventure travel. When you talk about lifelong travelers, there are few more seasoned than Richard….

Below is a bit more about him, from his own mouth.

1) You have been called the father of modern adventure travel. How would you identify contemporary adventure travel?

richard bangsIt really should be the “bastard child of adventure travel.” The real fathers are the mythopoetics a generation before me. Once a province of the improbable, “adventure travel” was something seen in the pages of National Geographic, not available to the average Jane or Joe. The only adventure travel on Main Street was when a well-planned vacation went wrong. Then the likes of Edmund Hillary, Tensing Norgay, Jacques Cousteau, Thor Heyerdahl and others of that ilk changed it all by showing it was possible, accessible, and with enough passion, practice and will, it could be undertaken, and relished. I was a beneficiary of these pioneers, and enjoyed the confluence of airline deregulation, political borders smoking away, and a period of relative affluence which allowed a new generation to seek and delight in adventure travel. I started Sobek at this magical intersection, and, with alacrity, began to chronicle our explorations. What a magnificent ride it has been.

What, then, is contemporary adventure travel? It has a broad sweep, as it really includes any experience that stretches the legs, the arms, the spirit, the mind in the course of a journey. Rather than horizontal tourism, in which the traveller often returns burned and spent, this is dynamic, interactive travel, with forward momentum, returning the traveller fitter and with a deeper understanding of the world and ourselves. So, that means anything from an extreme climb to a safari to a Himalayan trek to a cruise to the Galapagos to a hike down the local creek, to, dare I say, a stimulating travel read on a website or in a book.

2) What was your first adventure you experienced?

Here’s a story of my first adventure: My father never really cared much for the outdoors. He preferred a cozy chair and a fat book, a night at the movies, maybe a ball game on TV, certainly restaurant food. But one weekend when I was a small boy he took me camping. I don’t remember where he took me, but it was by a river, a swift-flowing stream, clear and crisp. I have a faint memory now that my dad had a difficult time setting up the tent, but somehow worked it out and he was proud of the task. With some soda pop and our fishing poles, we went down to the river to have one of those seminal father-son bonding experiences.

The air told me first that we were someplace special. It whooshed, delivering the cool message of a fast river on a hot summer day. Then a muffled sound came from behind, back at camp, and we turned around and could see through the trees that the tent had collapsed. My dad said something under his breath and started up the hill, then turned back to me and said, “Don’t go in the river!”

They were the wrong words.

At first I put my hand in the water to swish it around and was fascinated by the vitality, the power that coursed through my arm, into my chest, and up into my brain. I looked in the middle of the stream, where tiny waves burst into a million gems and then disappeared. It was magic, pure magic. I stepped into the river to my waist and felt the water wrap around and hug me and then tug at me like a dog pulling a blanket. Another step and the water reached my chest and pulled me down wholly into its vigorous embrace. I was being washed downstream.

Effortlessly, the current was carrying me away from confinement, toward new and unknown adventures. I looked down and watched as a color wheel of pebbles passed beneath me like a cascade of hard candy. After a few seconds I kicked my way to shore perhaps a hundred yards downstream. When I crawled back to land I had changed. My little trip down the river had been the most exhilarating experience of my life. I felt charged with energy, giddy, cleansed, and fresh, more alive than I could remember. I practically skipped back to the fishing poles and sat down with a whole new attitude, and secret.

When my father came back, he never noticed anything different. And I didn’t volunteer anything. The August sun had dried my shorts and hair, and I was holding my pole as though it had grown as an extension of my arm since he left. Only my smile was different—larger, knowing. I grew in that little trip, like corn in the night.

3) Which adventure has marked you the most?

It was the attempt to make the first descent of the Baro River in Ethiopia. A young man drowned, and it haunted me to the degree I almost left the field. But then I recognized a hard truth…that it is better to go forward and be in the ring and perhaps suffer the consequences than to never step at all and die on the inside.

In Edmund Burke’s 1757 essay, “Of the Sublime and Beautiful,” he posits that terror

is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.

If there is a common element to the code of adventure it is the frisson that comes from touching the maw. At the moment of plunge into a giant rapid we are febrile but also unlocked in a way that never happens in the comfort zone, so that the slightest tap makes us shiver to the bottom of our beings.

In Hemingway’s classic story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, a milquetoast of a man finds an instant of bliss as he fearlessly (and fatally) faces a charging buffalo. I would like to believe that the day of the drowning there allowed a lifetime deep and rich and connected, if only for a flash, and that it was better than a dull and deadly senectitude.

4) How many hours do you sleep per night? And how many hours are you thinking about a new adventure? What drives you?

Sleep? I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

I’d rather do adventure than think about it; but then again, there is adventure in the conceiving and planning, so perhaps the answer is 25 hours.

What drives me? A Land Rover or a Prius, depending on the destination.

5) You have written over 19 books, which one has been the most challenging one to complete and why?

Books aren’t really challenging; rather they are chances to explore beyond the physical experience, hopefully unearthing some measure of meaning. I find great joy in these flights of examination…perhaps a kind of therapy. Having said that, I would guess my favorite tome is The Lost River, as it is the most personal, and a tribute to family, friends and the merits of terror.

6) Tell us about how you founded the first multi-national river running company and leading first descents of 35 rivers across the world. Which river did you like the most?

I started my career in my late teens as a river guide on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Then, I decided to take what I learned to Ethiopia, to make the first descents of a number of rivers that fall off the Abyssinian Plateau, including the Omo and the Blue Nile. We called our little adventure Sobek Expeditions, after the ancient crocodile god worshiped along the Nile, hoping he might look kindly upon us and grant us safe passage. For the most part, it worked, and we went on to explore wild rivers around the world, from the Yangtze to the Zambezi to the Euphrates to many others. Which is a favourite? That’s like asking a Dad his favourite child….they are all different, and all wonderful and talented.

7) You have proactively been promoting adventure travel on the Internet, how do you see the future of communicating travel online?

With its power to break the tyranny of geography, to allow people anywhere in the world to virtually travel to wild places through the portals of their screens, and its capacity for information exchange and communications, the Internet can be a more effective tool than anything yet devised to preserve the wilderness. The ledger is long of wilderness areas gone down because there wasn’t a constituency to do battle. Arizona’s and Utah’s Glen Canyon, entombed beneath one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, is the poster child. A basic problem is that wilderness areas are hard to get to, and the numbers who see them, experience them, fall in love with them, are too often too small to make a difference. That’s where the Net could be the instrument of awareness, appreciation and activism that no oversized nature book ever could. For the first time we can showcase the beauty and magic of a wild place to a global audience, and millions can participate in a journey through it, without ever breaking a branch or stepping on cryptobiotic soil. To a degree National Geographic has done this for over a century; and Discovery and others have done this on television and video. But those were passive receiver experiences, where a publisher, editor or producer added his or her own vision to the primary experience, passing it along to a quiescent audience. Now, for the first time, a worldwide audience can receive the data unfiltered from the primary reporter, in all its raw and brutal honesty. And members of that same audience can become players, become active on some levels, participating in the experience by asking questions, suggesting ideas, and sharing information.

It is the most powerful intercommunications tool yet, one that tears down the media power towers, erases the information filters of middlemen, and allows anyone to jump into the thick of things and asseverate a voice and opinion. I’m convinced that when the time comes for a call to action to stop the compromising of sacred and magic places, the patronage for preservation will be that much greater for the Web. A few years ago we lost a fight to save Chile’s crown jewel of a wild river, the Bio-Bio, from the concrete slug of a private big dam; but then only a few thousand had ever seen the river. Now more people than visit all the parks in the world, regardless of wallet size, physical abilities, age or weight, can be introduced to a far-away wilderness in a more immediate way, and that means that many more who can fall in love with a wild place, grasp its issues, and perhaps lend a hand when it needs many.

8) Which social media platform do you think will be the most influential long term?

Life is larger than 140.

www.ohheyworld.com

and

www.youtube.com/richardbangs

9) What is your next adventure?

The country that doesn’t exist: Somaliland

Come join me!

10) Is there a place you haven’t been yet and can’t wait to go?

Everywhere, and then some.

A big thanks to Richard for sharing his successes and projects; if you’d like to connect or find out more about Richard’s recent travels, you can find him on his OHW profile.

Richard on Twitter and RichardBangs.com


We regularly feature inspiring travelers who have taken the leap into travel as a part of our travel inspiration interview series. If you’re a traveler keen on being profiled here, sign up for an OHW account and fill in your profile — then shoot Shannon an email (shannon at ohheyworld dot com).

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Meet Joe Lima from ShareTrips

Today we’re talking to Joe Lima, the co-founder of ShareTrips.com; a social booking travel site. Being a co-founder of a tech company in the travel industry, one of my personal interests is learning more about other entrepreneurs building travel tech companies. Joe is one of the founders in this massive travel vertical.

Without further adieu, here is a bit more about him…

1) What do you do?

Joe LimaAlong with Lee Heyne, I am the co-founder of ShareTrips. ShareTrips.com is a social travel booking site that allows people who are traveling together to share in the experience of booking a hotel stay. Through our patent-pending collaboration technology, people in different locations can simultaneously view and interact with a shared webpage of hotel search results. Through our website, travel companions can research, select and book a hotel collaboratively. Travel companions can now collaborate online in real time as well as book online.

2) Why do you do what you do?

I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve experienced in my life. Having emigrated from Cuba at an early age and from a family of limited means, I never dreamed I would have the life I have today. I don’t take my opportunities for granted! I’ve been lucky enough to spend over 10 years in the very dynamic travel industry and I wanted to use my experience to solve some of the many problems I encountered in the industry. And problems are just opportunities in disguise. As the “travel guy” amongst my friends, I was always the one booking the travel. This meant coordinating with my travel companions via emails, phone calls and texts. A very tedious and time consuming process. Once I left Hotwire, I had the opportunity to tackle this problem and ShareTrips.com was born. Online collaboration, meet travel booking.

3) What are you most excited about right now?

We just recently launched ShareTrips so I am really excited that we reached that milestone. The current version of the site is our Minimum Viable Product or MVP so we have a lot of features and products waiting in the wings. I’m really excited about the functionality we currently have on our test server. Unfortunately, I can’t divulge what it is, but that functionality will take our site to the next level. To be one of the first to know, connect with ShareTrips on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn as we announce new features on social media.

4) What’s next for you?

Professionally, we have an extensive product road map as well as a marketing plan that we’ll be executing in the next few months. In addition, we’ll be announcing the names of our Advisors, a set of industry veterans with extensive experience in travel and technology. Personally, I like to travel so I will be using ShareTrips to book a trip to Buenos Aires and another trip to Fiji next year. It’s been a while since I’ve been to both places and a return trip to visit friends is in order.

5) What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I am passionate about education and I am the kind of guy that puts his money where his mouth is. I am the benefactor of the Joseph Lima Scholarship at UC, San Diego, a scholarship for students who come from families of limited means and are the first in their families to attend college. I believe that an education is the path to prosperity for both the individual and our society. The cost of an education is increasingly becoming out of reach for even the middle class and our politicians can’t seem to find the will to alleviate the problem so private citizens such as myself need to take action. By sponsoring a college scholarship, I am doing my small part to ensure that our citizens and our country continue to benefit from a well educated society. My hope is that others as fortunate will follow suit.

If you’re keen to connect with Joe further, you can find his current location on his OHW profileA big thanks to Joe for sharing his motivations and current projects. If you’d like to connect on social media with Joe:

ShareTrips on Twitter and Facebook

Joe on Twitter / LinkedIn

We’ll be featuring a number of other travel tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks. If you are an entrepreneur in the travel vertical, and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “travel tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld).

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Travel Inspiration: Thoughts from Lauren Juliff

Lauren has mastered something the vast majority of the world has mastered too — how NOT to travel. Whereas most people master it by literally NOT traveling…anywhere. Lauren has mastered how not to travel for another reason entirely — somehow, someway, crazy things happen to her at every turn. I first met Lauren while I was in Chiang Mai early last year. While I didn’t get to know her that well in Thailand, partly because she is shy around people she doesn’t know well (as am I), I’ve had the good fortune to talk in more depth over drinks with both Dave (we did an interview with him, too) and Lauren in Seattle, and again in Portland over the past few months – and got to know her a bit better. Her curiosity for the world is fully apparent through her writing and talking to her about her journeys.

lauren juliff

Read on to hear more straight from her own voice…

1) What do you do?

I’m a physicist turned full-time traveller, blogger, freelance writer and editor.
In 2011, I left England on a one-way ticket with the intention of spending a year travelling around the world. It took just a couple of months for me to realise that I wanted to pursue this lifestyle for the foreseeable future. It’s been just over two years and I’ve never been happier.

2) What was your biggest obstacle to traveling and how did you overcome it?

For much of my teenage-to-adult life I’ve suffered from anxiety in one form or another. It was at its most debilitating around seven years ago where, for an entire year, I was unable to leave my apartment, couldn’t keep a job or go to lectures, destroyed a relationship, lived on one apple a day and had panic attacks on an hourly basis. I was out of control, dangerously thin, and my life was a mess.
Turning it around was one of the hardest things I’ve done and I still can’t believe I’ve somehow managed to morph from the girl who couldn’t step outside without having a panic attack to someone who can now travel around the world — occasionally even fearlessly!
Travel has actually been fantastic for my anxiety, and I’ve had fewer than ten panic attacks during the two years I’ve been on the road. Being completely in control of every aspect of my life has definitely had a calming effect.

3) What are you most excited about right now?

I’m writing a book! Over the past two years I’ve had some of the most ridiculous travel experiences:
In Bali, I was attacked by monkeys and fell off a bicycle into a rice paddy.
In Cambodia, I fell over, spraining my knee and infecting my leg, was attacked by jellyfish, had an allergic reaction to some sandfly bites, had a fish swim into my bikini bottoms and poured a margarita over my laptop — all within the space of a week.
In Laos, I had a woman die on the boat I was on, and accidentally ate cockroaches.
In Thailand, I was, erm, violated during a massage, abandoned at the Burmese border by my bus, had the brakes on my scooter fail as I was riding down a mountain and ended up on a sinking boat in the middle of the ocean.
The list goes on…
I’ve recently decided to compile all of these incidents into one big guide to how not to travel the world.

4) What’s next for you?

I’ve just moved to Sayultia, in Mexico, where my only plan is to live cheaply on the beach with good food, sunsets and lots of writing. This is my first time in Latin America and I’m aiming to spend just over a year working my way down towards the bottom of South America.

5) What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

Educating and helping others who are struggling with anxiety. I gained control of my anxiety without the help of medication or therapy and so I now actively participate in online communities and on health blogs to share my techniques and success story. So many people think that the only way out is to throw money at pills and therapists so I love to share the alternative route that can often be just as successful.

A big thanks to Lauren for sharing her successes and projects; if you’d like to connect or find out more about Lauren’s recent travels, you can find her on her OHW profile.

Lauren on Twitter
Never Ending Footsteps travel blog


We regularly feature inspiring travelers who have taken the leap into travel as a part of our travel inspiration interview series. If you’re a traveler keen on being profiled here, sign up for an OHW account and fill in your profile — then shoot Shannon an email (shannon at ohheyworld dot com).

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Has traveling given you more of a feeling of being part of the world? How?

Question number 7…

Has traveling given you more of a feeling of being part of the world? How?

Of course.

worldpieces

Credit: MCT

You can’t feel part of the world, if you don’t know what the world is and how it works. If you never travel, and you tell me you “know” the world and are “part” of it — I’ll tell you you are full of sh*t. Knowing your hometown, or even multiple cities in one country is not truly knowing the world. There are 194 countries in the world, each of them very different. You may be part of your own country, but not the world.

I think being “part” of the world, involves understanding it.

As a result, I don’t believe anyone who doesn’t travel can truly be “part” of the world. The world is a moving target. It changes constantly, so requires traveling constantly to understand it. That said, very few people are truly “part” of the world because very few people have spent time in every country.

Obviously, the more cultures and countries you’ve experienced, the more a part of the world you’ll feel.

[Photo via http://www.jpost.com/]

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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In what ways has travel taken you out of your comfort zone?

Question number 6…

In what ways has travel taken you out of your comfort zone?

I was always an introvert growing up. My public role at Zillow forced me to the middle in that introvert / extrovert spectrum. Still, to this day, talking to total strangers, and getting help from them is outside my comfort zone.

Guess what actually traveling entails?

Talking to total strangers. Asking them questions. Getting advice from them. Paying them for taxi services. Over and over.

Guess what actually having fun while traveling entails?

Hanging out with total strangers. Learning about them. Seeking out groups of people to hang out with. Over and over and over.

You get the point. Traveling requires constant interaction with others — most of whom you’ve never met before. That’s uncomfortable for many people, me included.

Some of the things I’ve done outside my “comfort” zone…

  • Going to a VERY Christian service in Ghana
  • Hiking Mount Kilimanjaro
  • Hanging off the back of a jeep in Ghana with 6 others (15+ inside the Jeep)
  • Being on the beach of Tangiers (in Morocco) – and getting the “What the hell are you doing here?” look by everyone
  • Almost getting robbed by a taxi driver in Hanoi
  • A spanish man in Barcelona attempting to steal my wallet WHILE shaking my hand

Travel forces you out of your comfort zone on a daily basis — because you’re not surrounded by your longtime friends on a daily basis who can help you. While you are traveling, if you want to make something happen? Guess what? You have to figure it out yourself.

comfort zone

Source: http://www.onefabulouslife.com

[Photo via http://www.prepbeijing.com/]

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:
TwitterGoogle Plus