A thirty something British expat, Julia Fallon describes herself as a reluctant explorer, a wobbly, stiletto wearing cyclist and technology geek all rolled into one. She followed her boyfriend over to Amsterdam and tells us how she is learning to love and live the Dutch way of life.

I’m sure you’ve never heard this before: where are you from?
I’m from England – I lived in a small village in the South, surrounded by fields but an hour from the seaside and an hour from London.  I’d describe myself as quite English – I also have a habit of saying things like ‘oh golly’, and ‘blimey’.  Since moving to Amsterdam I find my English-isms have surfaced even more which has my expat friends laughing and the Dutch staring blankly at me.

And what did you do there, then?
I was working in London.  Other than working, I was saving for a motorbike (Honda CBR 600rr since you ask), I studied Russian (it’s such a beautiful language) and I am also a budding photographer so I would quite often be seen playing tourist in London laden with camera bags and walking boots. I also did some volunteering for the Science Museum’s “Science Nights” where they let hundreds of children sleep over – sleeping in the Space Gallery is awesome!

How did you end up in Amsterdam?
As with so many, I moved for love! My boyfriend took a job in Amsterdam and so I gave up my job and moved over too.  The UK isn’t a great place to live at the moment, and sad as I am to say it I thought the quality of life would be better abroad.  I know a lot of people who dream of living here – I wasn’t one of them but I’ve totally fallen in love with the place now!

Have you lived abroad before?
Nope.  I’ve always wanted to live and work abroad but never quite found a compelling enough reason!  I dream of being the travelling type but actually I’m the homely type – the only thing I’m currently missing in that picture is a big open log fire in my living room, and a cup of Chocomel, hmmmm……

So what’s so good about Amsterdam?
The pace of life is just so enjoyable and a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of London.  I love the fact that it’s a really beautiful city steeped in history whilst at the same time being vibrant and modern.  I also really enjoy the liberal and balanced culture – generally speaking everyone seems happy with life.  If you try to stand out too much, they say ‘doe normaal’, which means ‘just be normal already!’ – what I guess I mean is that it’s a very levelling society to be a part of, where you can easily find yourself cycling to work next to the CEO of any given Dutch company.

And what don’t you like?
The service in a restaurant can be slow, the weather is quite often four seasons in one day and the cobbles are unkind to my beautiful collection of stilettos.  But, as I write that I’m already shrugging my shoulders Dutch-style and saying out-loud ‘Ah, but what can you do?!’ Hang on, I can’t let you go without my standard rant that you can’t get Sky TV out here so I’m going to miss the fabulous F1 coverage they have planned for 2012 season!

Do you feel like an insider or outsider?
An outsider, but you know I really like that as it reminds me to appreciate where I am! I was walking home the other day and glanced to my right and saw the side of the Rijksmuseum – every time I see it I have the same feeling of awe and pride as I do whenever I see Big Ben, or Buckingham Palace in London.

How do you support yourself?
I’m in my six month window of settling in, enjoying myself and being a full time Lady of leisure, but I’m still keeping my eyes out for the perfect job!  In the meantime I’m practising my photography as well as learning to cycle in a straight line.  I’m also doing a course in Dutch, one in programming software as well as learning more about social media… which is how you found me so I must be making progress!

Any advice for wannabe Amsterdammers?
Oh that’s an easy one! Walk (or bike) everywhere, join a meetup.com group and start socialising but don’t forget about the rest of the Netherlands and well, just relax and enjoy yourself!  You have to cruise the canals to get the best view of the city, keep your eyes peeled for little gems hidden down tiny side streets, and every so often you’ll find a cafe at the top of a high building – a bird’s eye view of Amsterdam is rare but beautiful!  Oh and don’t take the Dutch too seriously, they are very good at keeping a straight face when actually they are joking with you…

Is the move permanent?
It’s semi-permanent, we’d like to settle down here for a few years before considering moving anywhere else.

Finally, tell us about something typically Amsterdam (or Dutch)
Typical Amsterdam? That’s got to be cycling:  Everyone has a bike, in fact I think the average person owns two.  The cyclist is king of the road, cycles paths weave the city and you’re not a local until you can cycle with an umbrella, mobile phone and a friend balancing on the back!

Typical Dutch?  That has to be dairy!  People here don’t buy sandwich’s off the shelf but a loaf of bread and a pack of sliced cheese does the job, no need for condiments, a knife or even a plate.  Oh, and expect to see people drinking milk in business meetings!

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Julie writes at Expatriating Julia where she describes her journey from Britain to Holland, learning a whole load of new stuff along the way. She can also be found at Foursquare and Twitter @expatjulia.

Images courtesy Julia Fallon and Leo-seta

I have written and had accepted a couple of guest posts in the past week or so. The first, 11 Cheap Places to Volunteer in South America, is a long promised follow up to a similar post I did a while back on Central America.

The South American piece covers all the countries in South America except Suriname and French Guiana and suggests inexpensive ways backpackers can hook up with local organisations to both save money and do some good.

Suggestions include a 24 week Amazon internship in Guyana, where volunteers will find themselves working with local Amerindian tribes and ex UK Special Forces, and a sustainable living project in Ecuador where your dinner will either be grown in the garden or carried in by a donkey called Bonita.

Over at Tend To Travel, Amer the travelling architect wants to know more about our favourite architecture. I chose the Apollo Temple, a building near our home in Didim, Turkey.

Commissioned by Alexander the Great in 334BC, the builders milked 700 years of overtime out of the project until work was abandoned due to the growing influence of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Despite never being finished and knocked about a bit by earthquakes, the temple is still an imposing sight and well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Read more at Art of Backpacking and Tend To Travel.

The top five most amazing treks to do before you die feature lush surroundings and unspoiled beauty. A few secluded, low-key areas have not experienced the heavy tourist traffic inflicted on other popular locales. Uncover cheap international flights to any of the dream destinations listed below using careful research and a lot of patience.

Pakistan – Darkot Pass
Skimming the Swat and Kohistan Valley in Pakistan, Hindu Raj is the third range of the Hindukush Mountains. Darkot Pass takes you through the Yarkhun Valley into the tourist area of Hunza. The walk is relatively easy and stunning scenery provides plenty of photo opportunities. Visit the area between April and June, known as the local summer season. December through March is bitterly cold, while July through November marks the monsoon season. Heavy rains during this period make travel impossible.

Tibet – Pethang Ringmo
Separate from the maddening crowd and explore the third mountain face of Everest. Few climbers have ventured to Kangshung. Pethang Ringmo path takes you past noteworthy sites like Karma Valley. At 14,000 feet, the forest is one of the highest in the world. The trail also offers expansive views of Everest and Chomo Lonzo mountain ranges. Guided tours are available, but you must arrange for transport to Tibet. Look for cheap international flights through Nepal as a cost saving measure.

Greenland – Polar Route
Set aside 10 days for the 100 mile Polar Route. Once used exclusively for snowmobiles, the trek connects a defunct United States (US) military base with the world’s northernmost shipping port. Grass and mushroom fields give way to flowing streams. Huts ranging from simple wood cabins to heated buildings provide free nightly accommodations. Reservations are not required. For a surreal experience, listen to the sounds of glaciers cracking in the bay.

Ethiopia – Simien Mountain Trail
A plethora of wildlife thrives within the Simien Mountain National Park. Multiple stone columns and gorges dot the 83-mile journey. Gelada baboons mingle among human guests, while giant vultures coast through the sky. Certain sections of the mountain are home to walia ibex, a member of the goat family. Amhara tribe members offer an eye opening view on history as the first Africans to resist European attempts at colonization. Park guides offer basic information, and most are non-English speakers. Hire a private local guide for additional piece of mind. The trip can be grueling and water sources become extremely difficult to find.

France – Pyrenees Traverse
Pyrenees Traverse connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The route is popular among locals looking to avoid tourist traffic. Small town hospitality occasionally interrupts scenic mountain beauty. Dormitories and huts provide simple overnight accommodations, while towns offer delicious cuisine. Lower elevation equals minimal acclimation issues.

As we become an increasingly global society, very few corners of the world remain a mystery. Hurry to see the listed locations before they become tourist traps. Airlines offer cheap international flights to every corner of the globe.

We have finally decided to come out to play with the rest of the planet and got ourselves a Facebook page.

I’m not sure why I put this off for so long but I’m glad we have beaten some members of the world’s more remote tribes in signing up for the social medium. Even this family – who less than a year ago were pointing to the sky and wondering just where the hell that big metal bird came from – have a Facebook page and are wondering whether to bother with G+.

Even they got on Facebook before us

Though we only officially launched our page today, looking at the number of Likes on other blogs The Working Traveller feels like a lonely saddo. Thanks though to Sayra Grissel’s Liking us yesterday we have cancelled our plan to move to a bedsit, buy a cat and eat meals for one in front of the TV.

A wide range of emotions (well, four) have gone into making this page. A week ago I was throwing things around the room and showing admirable restraint in not sending out alternating tweets of self-pity and rage. Then, yesterday, I got that feeling most of you must have felt five years ago when you got your first Like. I felt like Sally Field.

“I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”

There are a lot of things I still need to learn. I’m not quite sure what someone talking about us means or if I’m entirely happy with this for that matter. I don’t even know how to Like someone. If I go to your FB page when not logged in I can see a LIKE button. If I click it I am asked to login. Once logged in, I can no longer see the LIKE button. Things like this would have inspired Joseph Heller but I look for the nearest brick wall.

We are still thinking up ideas how to best use our FB page. Some of the things we do on The Working Traveller may work better on Facebook or prove complimentary to what we do here and on our other sites.

Already added is a feed from our sister site, the Jobs Abroad Bulletin. All the jobs abroad and volunteer work programmes posted there can now be accessed on our new page.

A much shorter version of our JobSpy column might work well. I’m always spotting and bookmarking jobs abroad on other sites, along with useful links and articles that by themselves won’t suit a full length post here. Perhaps we should put some more of my crappy travel photos there too.

Once we’ve moved beyond the beginner stage and are more comfortable with this new format I’ll set down some ideas on our welcome page. Until then please check out our new page, and make us feel LIKE Sally Field: http://www.facebook.com/workingtraveller

A lot of travel bloggers are chasing sponsored or press trips at the moment. Tour boards and travel businesses are increasingly aware of the benefits of arranging transport and accommodation for writers. In return most bloggers are happy to experience a new destination at little cost to them.

There is quite a bit of useful information out there on the subject already. The latest article I have seen is by Ryan Brown of Just Chuckin’ It. Writing at TravMonkey he recounts how finding a naked stranger asleep in his hostel bed led to getting taken on as the persona of the Nomads’ mascot camel.

We haven’t taken an organised press trip but we have had some success with our own more informal approach of negotiating accommodation and tours in exchange for advertising space on our websites.

By bartering we alleviate the need for the hard sell often required to prise money out of advertisers. Using this method we have stayed in beautiful cave hotels in Cappadocia, saved a fortune in Beirut and sailed and snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

And when we trade advertising I mean advertising. The advertising is separated from the main editorial body of our websites in a way that should be obvious to everyone. I usually ask the advertiser to write a description to accompany their advert but if asked to do it I can write ad copy with none of the conflict of interest increasingly associated with press trips.

We also mention the places we stayed in at the bottom of related articles, as can be seen in this lament for a lost hat that pretends to be a photo post about walking through the Siq to Petra.

Finding suitable businesses to trade with

Depending on the value of what we are after we offer advertising for three, six or twelve months in line with our normal rates. With several websites to play with and a level of disorganisation that rarely allows us time to approach paying advertisers we can afford to be generous and usually offer more than we are asking.

To start with we ask for three nights’ accommodation and if we are happy with the arrangement sometimes propose doubling the length of time advertising is displayed in exchange for a few nights more. Some, but certainly not all, hotels take us up on this. On occasion we have also been asked to write a fair review on TripAdvisor (one of the things we learnt on our last trip was how important this site is to hostel owners).

When looking for suitable advertisers we either settle in somewhere and walk or ring around or we use the email bomb method. It has been a while since we attended a travel or gap year show but, despite not being particularly well prepared, we have had some success here. In these post Wordpress and Blogger days I suspect competition will be more intense.

The mailshot works particularly well for accommodation. If a hotel has a room that is going to be empty anyway this is a very cheap way for them to advertise.

It pays to be flexible when arranging dates. The cost benefit ratio is less attractive to a hotelier on dates he expects a full hotel. Our offer has been declined over peak dates like Easter but accepted by the same people to stay a couple of days later. Generally, we are most successful when trading out of season. If you are not having much luck try asking for media rates.

Typically to find prospects we use TripAdvisor, HostelBookers or Google, where we may type something like Cheap and central Barcelona hotels. We try to find the right name to approach (either the owner or sales manager in bigger businesses) via websites but this isn’t always possible.

Face to face works better for tours and trips. Sometimes we make a concerted effort to make appointments to discuss business. On other occasions deals have unexpectedly fallen in our laps.

Towns or resorts with a heavy presence of touts suddenly become a win win situation for those looking to trade as potential advertisers will flock to you. At worst touts are politely silenced and much less likely to have another go at us on our next pass through their territory. At best we get a free tour or tours to play with.

Be careful though not to get involved in tour wars. On one occasion we inadvertently got caught up in a dispute between two neighbouring businesses.

After getting what we thought was a negative response from one company we were approached by a tout from next door. Thinking only to shoo him away we were surprised to be offered a couple of tours. After accepting and placing their advertising, company number one unexpectedly got back to us with their affirmative offer. Next day, having explored our site further and spotting his competitor’s ad, we were woken by a phone call from the screaming boss of company number one complaining about his rival.

Adventures in advertising

We are lucky enough to have been mentioned in a couple of Lonely Planet guides and tend to throw that into any email (if there are two words that get the attention in the world of hostel owners they are Lonely Planet) but other bloggers will have their own USP.

Whatever advantages you have going for you be honest about it. Experience has taught us to be as clear as possible with our very distant Lonely Planet connection, especially when dealing with people who do not speak English as a first language.

Before we rewrote our introductory email to avoid any further confusion, one hostel owner thought we worked for the publisher. Luckily we were still a few days away from arriving at his hostel and were able to give him the option of backing out from the deal we had made.

On other occasions I have been asked to take photos or design a website for the hotel. Though I was happy to oblige with my limited photography skills I still have no idea why I was asked. Designing websites is a possible idea for the future.

Though many businesses do, do not expect everyone to get travel blogging. The tendency to think in terms of more traditional media can lead to confusion in what you are offering.

Mostly though, our interaction with our new advertisers is overwhelmingly positive. Aside from staying for free, often in rooms a step or two up from what we could usually afford, we have gotten to know some people we otherwise wouldn’t have. Through them we have gained an insight into how a hotel is run and can better appreciate the difficulties and effort required to keep tourists happy on their holidays.

In return we like to be generous with our advertisers. Most are small businesses that we are happy to promote and long after we are no longer carrying their advertising we will recommend them without fear of conflicting interests.

Much of the advertising we placed on our last trip has now expired but – with a long gap until our next trip and bout of trading – where possible we prefer to give more than we initially promised. Perhaps future advertisers will take note and be more willing to trade with us or maybe the Universe will reward us in other ways.

Disclaimer: one of the links in this article paid our bills this week while others may have helped alleviate our costs in the past.

Where: Paris, Toulouse and Bordeaux
Who: FrogPubs

FrogPubs need help pulling some of the one million pints of bitter, lager, wheat beer, ginger, spicy and fruit beers served each year in their seven English pubs across France.

Popular with expats and anglophiles, each FrobPub has its own microbrewery producing beers with names like Inseine, Dark le Triomphe and Parislytic to accompany restaurant food and British sports on the TV.

Gap year students are provided with a structured training programme and health insurance as they learn lessons in greeting and serving customers, driving sales and maintaining a clean environment. Staff are need both in the bar and in the kitchen.

FrogPubs aim is to equip you with the skills to enable everyday jobs to become second nature, freeing up your time to be charming and confident, and devote yourself to making sure their customers really enjoy themselves.

Full information: www.frogpubs.com

The first time I saw an elephant outside of an enclosure I was incompetently riding around Ko Samui on a motorbike. This was my second time on a bike. Though encouraged I hadn’t crashed into a stationary milk float this time I found working down the gears difficult and needed a runway longer than that required by a 747 to come to a halt.

The thing about elephants is they are quite big. Despite plenty of warning from first sighting the animal in the distance to actually stopping I still perhaps got a tad too close.

When music teacher Frano Selak gave away the £600,000 he won in the Croatian lottery he made headlines around the world. But his win wasn’t the first time Selak had made the headlines or the event that has had him dubbed the world’s luckiest man.

In 1963, Selak was blown out of an airplane when the door blew off. 19 people died but Selak landed in a haystack and survived with minor injuries.

This wasn’t Selak’s first brush with death. The year previously Selak’s train to Dubrovnik derailed into an icy river. 17 passengers died but Selak survived with hypothermia and a broken arm.

Though he never flew again he has since emerged largely unscathed from numerous near death experiences with other forms of transportation. In 1966 he was again plunged into a river, this time on a bus journey. Nearly 30 years later another bus hit him but caused little bodily harm.

Cars have failed three times to kill the man. In the first incident, his car caught fire on the motorway. He escaped seconds before the fuel tank exploded. The next time he wasn’t quite so lucky losing his hair when flames blew through the vehicle’s air vents.

In his last brush with death in 1996, Selak swerved off a mountain road to avoid an oncoming UN truck. Seconds before his car hit the bottom of a 300 foot drop he jumped clear, landing in a tree just in time to see his car explode.

After selling his home on a private island and his giving away the lottery win Selak, now in his eighties, moved into a small house in Zagreb to live the simple life with his fifth wife.

Considering his four previous marriages to be as much disasters as his near death experiences, Selak commented: “I never thought I was lucky to survive my brushes with death; I thought I was unlucky to be in them.”

Image courtesy ktylerconk