HELLO
How are you today? We've noticed lots of new faces around lately (which, unlike at Plastic Surgery Addicts Anonymous, is a good thing) and we'd like to say welcome to you and please let us know if we can help you with your career break plans.
We've got some fab competitions, super freebies, new career breaks, new stuff on the site, and pictures and videos for your inspiration. The "Useful thing of the month" has made a welcome return too! And there's also the ever-present joke, which will come as neither surprise nor delight to most of you.
So grab your turmeric latte (or whatever the young people are drinking these days), turn off your notifications, and have a read!
SPONSORED: GLOBAL TRAVEL ACADEMY
Travelling abroad is exciting, inspiring and the best experience of your life, right?! Unfortunately, if you leave home unprepared or uninformed, it can easily all go wrong. That’s where Global Travel Academy can help. They offer quick and fun online courses that teach you the skills necessary to travel abroad safely, confidently and effectively. These courses are perfect for first-time, solo or nervous travellers, and volunteering career breakers.
Choose from the Certificate in Travel Health & Safety or the Certificate in International Volunteering. Or do both!
FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS
Win a trip around the world visiting sustainable tourism sites in this travel writing competition (warning: video starts automatically). This is an amazing competition with values very close to our own!
Free app from FairFX for travel money, currency cards etc - helping you manage your money on the move. (The money itself is not free, unfortunately).
Free course worth $600 on small business growth for digital nomads from Business Backpacker (who also has a free ebook on working and travelling). Thanks to Hilton Jones for giving us the heads-up on this!
Win a Clear Skin Travel Pen if you follow and retweet Love My Skin on Twitter. Useful for those of you who always seem to get spotty on the road!
Win a travel pack from Microbz in another Twitter giveaway - it contains microbiotic products which are a godsend for those who get Delhi belly (which is everyone).
A new free app called Sidekix helps you find more interesting routes around cities - fab for urban explorers!
NEW AND UPDATED CAREER BREAKS
We've added some innovative travel courses, snowsports courses and a wide variety of volunteering placements this month.
Click here to see these, and the rest of our fab career breaks!
**NEW SECTION** NEW ON THE SITE
We used to have just one section for volunteering on the site, but there are so many different kinds, we've now added lots of sub-categories too! You can still view all our volunteering projects and all our volunteering partner organisations but now you can also look at these volunteering projects:
Go and have a look and see what tickles your fancy!
ON THE BLOG
No new posts this month as we've been busy lining up more interviews for future months! So here are our most popular recent posts:
Read this interview with Tony Restell if you want to get a job - vital if you're planning to get a new job after you return from your career break. Tony shares all sorts of valuable insights into social networking for recruitment.
How the hell can you afford a career break? is a post that obviously struck a nerve! Money is the single biggest concern of career breakers and this post shows you how to make the experience affordable.
The top 5 sabbatical mistakes that everyone makes (and how to avoid them) does exactly what it says on the tin! We used people (anonymous) real experiences to put this post together.
6 1/2 fun ways to choose a career break is one of our older posts but remains popular as it shows you some different ways of making an important decision.
Do you want to be featured on the blog? We're always looking for people to interview or write a guest post. Drop us an email and wow us with how cool you are!
PHOTO CORNER - YOUR MONTHLY DOSE OF INSPIRATION
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year finalists have been announced and OMG, they are amazing!
VIDEO CORNER - IT'S STILL HERE!
Footage of rare white giraffes in Kenya. They look really weird, a bit like they forgot to put a shirt on!
TIP OF THE MONTH
There's been a lot in the way of natural disasters lately, from hurricanes in the Caribbean, to earthquakes in Mexico, and a volcano possibly about to erupt on Bali. To make sure you're up to date with the situation in any country (including political situations and visa rules), sign up to emails from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. You can choose which countries to get updates about, and you'll be the first hear if something happens, and get advice on what to do.
If you have a tip for us, email us or tweet us.
QUESTION OF THE MONTH
We had someone phone us this month saying they'd like to volunteer. That's not even the vaguest enquiry we've ever had! With a few probing questions, we discovered that the lady in question wanted to volunteer in the UK. Now, that's not something we really cover - all our UK stuff is mostly courses (watersports or TEFL). It is possible to volunteer full-time here, and the National Trust are one of the few organisations to offer placements - but the reason we don't have much on it is because it's a rare choice for a career breaker (most of you go abroad). Rare, but not unheard of!
USEFUL THING OF THE MONTH - IT'S BACK!
A great big map showing the wifi passwords of airports and lounges around the world (and which ones have free wifi). Save yourself some roaming data!
JOKE
A limbo contestant walks into a bar...
...and is disqualified.
FINALLY
We've all got a mate who's always complaining about how they hate their job, how their life sucks, etc. Well, you can be the one to help that mate! Forward them this newsletter and fingers crossed, it'll inspire them to take a trip into the unknown! Then if they're still complaining, at least they'll be on the other side of the world where you don't have to listen to them.
Just hit "forward"! And thank you!
Until next time,
Love,
The Career Break Site
xxx