HELLO
Let's cut straight to the chase - we've got tons of stuff in this month's newsletter which will give you the inspiration you need to change your life. Now that's not bad for a damp February afteroon is it?!
We've got our usual round up of free stuff especially for travellers, a competition, new career breaks, photos and videos, fantastic new blog posts, tips and useful stuff, and as always, the never-very-funny joke. Plus there's a new feature on the site for bloggers, which could get your name (yes, yours) out to a much bigger readership.
So leave Facebook alone for 5 minutes, tell your boss you're doing some very important work-related research from which you can't be disturbed, and get stuck in!
FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS
Thre's a new free travellers' app that lets you create a diary, post photos, find travel companions and record your trip. It's called Shutterbee.
Free books - available online.
Free SatNav for Android which works offline once you've installed your maps.
Free tracking software for your phone, tablet or laptop - very useful if you're careless or going to somewhere there's loads of thieves!
Classy? Sophisticated? Get free classical music MP3s every month when you sign up to this newsletter - and have lovely music to listen to on your travels.
Free online language courses - 12 languages offered. Now there's no excuse for not knowing the lingo!
Free personalised photobook from Snapfish - you just pay the postage. Nice way of preserving your travel pics!
COMPETITION
$30,000 worth of travel prizes when you donate to save rhinos - so it's win win! We checked with the guy runing it, and the competition is open to UK people.
NEW AND UPDATED CAREER BREAKS
Find all our new and updated career breaks here.
PHOTO CORNER - YOUR MONTHLY DOSE OF INSPIRATION
Incredible nature and wildlife photography
VIDEO CORNER
A grizzly bear playing with a bale of hay. Cute!
ON THE BLOG
This is one of the most popular articles we've ever published: How I overcame a crippling panic disorder to travel the world - and you can too. It's a searingly honest guest post from Bryony Holland, who includes helpful tips she hopes will inspire other anxious travellers.
Something new next - an interview with a personal branding expert. We've never done anything on personal branding before, and the expert, Lisa Orban, tells us how it can help us in a career, and how a career break can be part of that.
Finally, in the fun section, 8 travel photos you need to stop taking.
We have a huge archive of blog posts, from fun stuff and travellers' tales, to industry insights and career break tips. Have a looksee: http://www.thecareerbreaksite.com/blog.
ANOTHER NEW THING
We wanted to make it easier for people like you to submit guest blog posts to us, so we made this nifty little blog post submission form. Any blog post we publish gets shared here and on social media with a reach of thousands, so it's worth doing if you've got something interesting to say!
TIP OF THE MONTH
If you make a packing list, don't leave it at home when you set off for your travels. Tuck it in the top of your backpack so you can make sure you've got everything before you leave for the next leg of your trip. (This tip was provided by someone who's left half a pack's worth of stuff in various hostels around the world).
USEFUL THING OF THE MONTH
More fun than useful really, the date duration calculator, as its name suggests, calculates the amount of time between 2 dates. So you can tell people how many months, weeks, days, or hours your career break is - and how many work days you're missing!
JOKE
I was at a job interview today.
The interviewer said, "On your CV, it says that you are a man of mystery."
I said, "That's right."
He said, "Would you like to elaborate?"
I said, "No."
FINALLY
You may remember we're having a bit of a site revamp - you will doubtlessly be pleased it's steaming on ahead very nicely and we'll soon be able to share more career breaks and useful information with you! If you've got any suggestions for the new site, please do let us know as you are our most important visitor!
Until next time, Happy St David's Day to our Welsh readers, Happy St Patrick's Day to our Irish readers, and Happy Spam Appreciation week (yes, it's a real thing) to our tastebud-free readers.
Love,
The Career Break Site
xxx