HELLO
Welcome to our July newsletter - brought to you by a catering pack of Magnums and an even larger catering pack of industrial-strength deodorant.
We're frankly as hot as you, if not hotter, but we've cranked up the slightly dodgy-looking fan in our office so we could bring you another fun-packed career break newsletter. And fun-packed it is! We've got tons of stuff for you this month, with loads of reader contributions (which we LOVE) alongside our usual fab new career breaks, free stuff, competitions, blog, inspirational stuff, a powerful "message of the month" and the "actually funny this month" joke.
So take a pause from trying to persuade your boss to install air-conditioning, grab whatever's in the office freezer, and have a read!
SPONSORED: RALEIGH EXPEDITIONS TO COSTA RICA
If you fancy escaping to a land of mesmerising natural environments; stunning waterfalls, imposing volcanoes, tropical rainforest and mystical cloud forests, Costa Rica could be for you! On a Raleigh Expedition, you can experience the real Costa Rica as a Logistics Coordinator or Project Manager volunteering on 11 or 13-week projects. You could be working on environmental projects in national parks, or supporting remote communities on Raleigh's WASH projects. Need more inspiration? Costa Rica tops the Happy Planet Index which measures human well-being and environmental impact, placing Costa Rica as the world’s happiest place to live!
What are you waiting for? ¡Vamos! Click here to find out how you can take part!
FREE STUFF, DISCOUNTS AND COMPETITIONS
Glyd is a free app that helps you connect with locals when you travel. How is it pronounced though? We keep saying "Glid" but "Glide" would make more sense.
This travel and care app is only free for 30 days (boo) - after that, you have to buy a travel insurance policy with its American provider. Still worth trying though, if it keeps you safe!
Free ebook on South America - the box will pop up when you go to their site
Free travel sized samples when you spend £35 at Origin (thanks to Savvy Woman, from whose newsletter we nicked this)
30% off everything in the Lonely Planet shop from this affiliate
If you're under 35 and like talking, enter this fun competition to be the voice of the Youth Olympic Games - you get to fly to Buenos Aires if you win!
Win a trip to Brisbane - bit of an unusual competition as most fly you to Melbourne or Sydney, but Brissy is definitely worth a visit too!
NEW ON THE SITE
We mentioned all our fab courses a couple of months ago, but did you know there's also a page full of our course providers? We can't put all their courses on our site, but they have tons of them! Plus, all our course provider partner organisations are vetted and approved by us - which is really important because if you're spending all that money training to be a ski, snowboard or watersports instructor, or yacht crew, you want to be sure of getting a decent qualification! It's not just sporty stuff either, our partners have game ranger courses and even certificates in having a great career break!
See all our course providers here.
ON THE BLOG
We rounded up the 29 best apps for travel and put them into one handy blog post for you. The post is organised by what bit of travel it's for (eg money, safety, planning) and each one says what platform it's for. Handy, eh?
We also wrote a post called Why are travel writers so afraid to talk about the realities of travelling? This is an honest, no-nonsense post with thankfully "metaphorical" images so it's safe to read at work! Very useful too, seeing as no-one else is talking about the kind of stuff you really need (spoiler: toilet paper features).
And we've updated the following posts for you as well:
How I failed as a career breaker, and how you can avoid the same mistakes - a personal post from our site founder
How to write a travel blog (that doesn't suck)
8 excuses you'll use to put off taking a career break - this had a fairly thorough update to include links to our new(ish) pages, but sadly no-one edited the rather clunky title!
We're always looking for real career breakers, travellers, industry experts and bloggers to share their stories on our blog. If you want to be famous and featured, drop us an email. We accept anonymous submissions too.
PHOTO CORNER - YOUR MONTHLY DOSE OF INSPIRATION
We've got two for you this month!
Firstly, the biggie - the National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year winners - quite simply, the best travel photos in the world.
The winners of the Underwater Photographer of the Year have been announced, and there's some amazing stuff in all the different categories.
VIDEO CORNER
Testing travel apps at the airport is presented by two extremely annoying Americans so we didn't get all the way through it. However, a hack is a hack, so if you can tolerate the shrieking, you might find something useful!
TIP OF THE MONTH
No-one gets excited about checking their travel insurance policy, unless they've got a fetish or something. But it's really important - not just in case you come a-cropper (most career breakers don't) but to give you peace of mind. For example, if you might end up diving, snowboarding or even sinking a few pints, you need to know if your insurance covers adventure sports or if you going on the piss will invalidate it. Only last week we saw another crowdfunding campaign to get an injured person home after his insurance wouldn't pay up. Check your exclusions, people!
If you have a tip for us, email us or tweet us.
MESSAGE OF THE MONTH
This message was actually a conversation we had with someone in actual real life, on a rare day we were allowed to leave the office to go to a conference. The person in question asked to remain anonymous.
She is on a year's career break, partly due to physical and mental health problems. With regard to her mental health, she made the decision to take a career break before it got really bad. She says "It was a preventative measure - I could see how things were going and the effect the stress was having on me, so I made the decision to apply for a career break before it was too late." Meaning, we understand, before she got very mentally ill. She advises others in her position to do the same, so if you're very stressed and feel like your mental health is taking a battering, it's definitely worth approaching your HR manager and asking for a career break!
We're in touch with her and will hopefully be able to report back on her again in a few months. We'd like to thank her for her contribution and her honesty!
If you've got a question, feedback or just want to share your opinion on which way round the toilet paper should be hung, get in touch! We never reveal your name (unless you want us to!)
JOKE
Thanks to Julia on Facebook for sharing this joke (even though it's not hers)
Interviewer: What would you consider one of your strengths?
Me: I perform under pressure
Interviewer: Can you give me an example?
Me: *deep breath*
Mm ba ba de,
Um bum ba de,
Um bu bu bum da de
PRESSURE, pushing down on me
FINALLY
Oh dear. Last month we told you to go to Facebook to join in with our caption competition which we post every Friday, and it would have to be that week we completely cocked it up and posted it without a picture. Our head of social media has been put on half rations for the week as punishment, which means only 6 packets of custard creams instead of the usual 12. We promise we will take better care in future, so please head on over to our Facebook page and join in the fun!
Until next time,
Love,
The Career Break Site
xxx