Why It's Great To Travel

Why We Should Travel

Ask a hundred people what they would do if they became a millionaire overnight, and at least half of them will include among their imaginary spending plans “a nice holiday somewhere hot”. Some will be able to take or leave the hot weather, but in the main the holiday will play an important part. We love our holidays, as they allow us to recharge our batteries and have a good time away from work concerns and other stresses. While some people will choose to take their holidays at home, there are enough of us who simply insist that a holiday must involve travel. Why is this? Well, there are a few reasons.

1. A change of scenery – With the best will in the world, spending a holiday at home gives too many reminders of work. Waking up in your own bed makes it all too easy to get the irrational fear that you are late for work. Sitting watching TV in your own living room gives way too much of a feeling of a surreptitious sick day – you spend too much time wondering if work is going to call and ask you to come in. Let’s see them do that if you are a few hundred miles away – or further. On a holiday abroad – or even just in a different state – you get the chance to unwind completely in a different setting. That change of scene can make a huge difference to your ability to relax.

2. A change of culture – The old saying goes “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Many people have had their own hilarious interpretations of this phrase in times gone past, many involving lions and Christians and almost all thinking they were the first person to make the joke. The key point about the original saying is that when you holiday somewhere different, to get the full benefit of it you should attempt to experience the things that locals do as a matter of course. The huge number of cultures in this world makes it interesting, and seeing things from a different perspective is never a bad thing.

3. A change of cuisine – We all know what we like, and many of us would go further, saying that we “like what we know”. While there is some truth to the suggestion that we all deal better with things that we are used to, the enjoyment of a holiday is often greatly increased by sampling the local cuisine. Of course, cuisine has become diverse even in single countries – most of us will have heard the possibly apocryphal story of a young boy holidaying in Italy, tugging on his mother’s sleeve and saying “Hey Mom, look! They have pizzas in Italy, too!” – but there is nothing like eating food made the way it was meant to be made, by people who have been eating it for years.

These are just three reasons, and undoubtedly you will have some of your own – feel free to share those, because people are like nations – we each appreciate different things.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to AhmedDawn.com site. This article originally published on the above website on May 1, 2009.

Why You Should Not Get Too Attached To Developed Property

When Buying To Let, Don’t Develop For Living

Many real estate investors fall into a simple trap on their first development. Having purchased a property with letting it out in mind – or even the idea of selling for a quick profit – they behave too much like themselves. That may sound wacky, after all we are all told often enough to “be [your]self” when we are young, so why change? The problem comes with the fact that a buy-to-let real estate property may look wonderful to you when you are done with it – but you are not going to be letting it to you. It is all too easy to become personally involved with the development and make a mess of it. So remember to take a detached approach when it comes to development.

One thing to remember about real estate development is that it tends to involve homes. Even if only subliminally, a house conveys to us the feeling that it is for living in, and when we come to develop it we often do this based on what we would like to live in. This is fine, in small measures. To put it another way, you need to be able to look at the house and feel that people would be at home there. It is not about standing back and thinking that you would feel at home, because you are not going to be living there. Adding idiosyncratic touches to the development because you feel it gives the house some character may well be an artistic approach, but remember that your idiosyncratic touches will make the character of the house your character.

This is not to say that a new development should be bland and consciously inoffensive. There needs to be something innovative about it if you are to realize a profit. To get an idea or two, it is helpful to view a house or two in the same area, houses which are selling for close to the price you hope to realize. By doing this you will be able to see what kind of stamp you want to place on the property when it is finished. Location is important when it comes to the kind of touch you want to put on the house. If your development is in a neighbourhood that is by tradition the place for retired couples, then developing a classic bachelor pad or a house for a young family is obviously going to lose you profits.

It doesn’t need to be rocket science – you can do some very simple research and find the ideal development property, then with a few simple touches have the ideal house or set of apartments to sell to the local market. Don’t make the mistake of getting too attached to the house, or to your idea of what it should look like. The chances are the potential buyers will have tastes which differ with yours. Save those touches for when you develop a property for living in. that is when you will need them.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on July 11, 2009.

Welcome To The Simple Personal development Blog

Let the Simple Personal Development Journey begin

You never stop developing, as a human being, because everything we experience in life has some effect. It is like an endless cycle of change, going through life learning from experience, learning from what we hear, what we see and what we do. We are the sum total of our influences, mixed together with our own personal opinions and instincts – so anyone who says that they have done all their developing for a lifetime is, quite simply, telling a lie. Personal development has become one of the world’s true growth industries, as people realize that they are open to improvement and look to achieve it.

How do we affect our development the way we want to? Well, we need to take our lives in our own hands and decide what we want to do, and where we want to go in life. What are we scared of? Why? Why do so many of us accentuate the negative points of our lives and our personalities? Why can’t we celebrate what we do well, and improve the things we may not be so good at without being too hung up on the fact that we have weaknesses? It is so self-defeating.

The self-help industry has made millions and millions of dollars from people who are uncertain about themselves and due to low confidence will listen to anyone who tells them that they can make their problems disappear. But the simple truth is that a lot of the books that get sold on the premise of making people happy, confident, slim, attractive or witty are filled with platitudes that do not really get us any further along. If we are going to go with platitudes, then why not start with “Real self-improvement comes from inside”? It does, after all.

Self-improvement is not a simple matter, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the question of self-confidence. What we need to remember is that we are all unique human beings, with our own particular strengths, weaknesses and our own idiosyncrasies. If you buy a book that worked well for other people, that doesn’t mean it will work for you. You are another person, a different person, and the solution that works for you will be a solution that addresses you more directly, and allows you to target your areas of difficulty. By basing your self improvement on that of others, you are selling yourself short, and do you not deserve better?

Personal development is not an easy, quick fix; it is an ongoing process that requires your input and your time. It is, to use a cliché, a journey that you take along a road that is longer than you can imagine, and the fact that it takes this time and effort does not mean that it is not worth doing. It also doesn’t mean that you are worthless now. Being hyper self-critical is not constructive, so give yourself a chance.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com site. This article originally published on the above website on April 27, 2009.

Will Brazil Win Best Global Financial Crisis Recovery Title?

Who’s Getting Out First?

First Published Date : August 6, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

The global financial crisis has been such a major story in the last eighteen months that there can now be few people who do not have op inions on it, and fewer still who do not know what it is. The crisis, it would be fair to say, has cut into just about every nation’s news broadcasts, including even those not heavily touched by the crisis itself. What this has led to in many cases is a widespread “who’s more doomed?” contest, where the damage done to different economies is compared in what has, at times, been a pretty unedifying show of blood-letting. It hardly needs saying that speculating on the level of doom does little to encourage recovery.

Among the top ten economies in the World, there are none which have not been touched by the crisis. It is, after all, a global crisis and affects international trade. Yet some have been more seriously affected than others, with recession becoming depression in more than a few – including top ten ever-presents the United States and United Kingdom. Bank bailouts have had some effect – witness the perkiness of Goldman Sachs after their bailout – but in the countries which were at the forefront of the bailout plan there is less sign of immediate recovery. Does this mean the bailout has failed?

It seems certain that without the money at that time, numerous banks would have gone bust and that the overall effect on trade and employment could have been extremely damaging in the long term. It is also arguable that the extent of the crisis was at its heaviest in countries such as the States and the UK, and that was why such a large bailout was needed at the time. Whether this will see the countries concerned hitting the recovery path with renewed vigour in 2010 depends very much on the continued composed distribution of bailout money, and the lessons of this crisis being learned by banks and governments.

There is also something of a race afoot to see who has dealt best with the crisis and which of the countries which entered a recession has done the best job of pulling out of it. Canada was put forward as a strong contender – and certainly seems to be storming ahead of its closest neighbour the US in terms of getting to the light at the end of the tunnel. Its recovery may not, yet, be as strong as that of Brazil, which has recently announced some very impressive figures. If backed up, these would make the BRIC alumnus a strong contender for the title of “Best Recovery (2009)”.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega announced on July 29 that the giant South American nation is already leaving the crisis behind, with the economy growing at a rate of 4% and set to maintain that level of growth for the year going forward. It is true to say that Brazil’s government took speedy but not reckless action to turn its economy around, and we now must wait for further details to emerge on how successful this has been.

Global Travel Made Simple

Welcome to Global Travel Section

This is the new global travel section from award-winning Canadian author A Dawn. It will focus on just about anything and everything to do with travel. As the title suggests, it aims to focus on traveling simply, as well as safely, to a range of popular destinations as well as a few which are off the beaten track. 

There is an old saying that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. And, while you understand what Robert Louis Stevenson was getting at when he said it (and what the Taoists were getting at when they said “the journey is the reward”) it is not necessarily accurate. Sure, there is a real enjoyment in the anticipation when you are traveling to somewhere you really want to go, but is the anticipation really better than the arrival and the experience when you are there? That surely depends on how artfully the holiday was sold to you. There are many of us who feel that although Stevenson and the Taoists were entitled to their opinion, the arrival and the holiday are the best bits.

Traveling is something that many of us have a real thirst for. The Germans have a word for it: wanderlust. It is a desire to journey, to explore, to experience something of the world away from your home. Not everybody has it. Some call it “itchy feet”, which seems somehow disparaging. Wanting to travel does not mean that one does not love their home – it just means that we want to visit other places too, and see how people do things in another environment. Is it better there? Not necessarily, but it is interesting, and brings a bit of variety to life. You can never have too much variety, surely?

Of course, both the journey and the holiday can sometimes fail to live up to expectations. As much as we enjoy a break from the norm, sometimes that break can come at the expense of things which we value highly or have simply come to expect. Holidays are mis-sold by people who misunderstand your requirements, or they are rated highly by someone whose taste differs from you. There are pitfalls for even the most experienced traveler because, when it comes down to it, we do not have omniscience and sometimes that “charmingly dilapidated” holiday cottage is actually just derelict. Sometimes “local character” is actually a high crime rate. But as often as not, it can just be a matter of taste.

Whatever one is looking for in a holiday, there will be countless Travel Now Simply1places that compete to offer you the ideal break for your needs. If you want to go skiing, for example, there are countless mountain ranges filled with ski resorts. Will you go to the one that is close to home? Will you go to the one with the global reputation for perfect snow and excellent après-ski? Will you go to the less-heralded, less expensive resort that is off the beaten track but has excellent write-ups wherever you look? There are a lot of choices to make.

Choices like these will be covered on this site. As the title suggests, Travel Now Simply aims to give you tips on how you can take a trip wherever you want to go, at short notice and with a minimum of extra considerations. After all, you go on holiday to relax, so you do not want to add unnecessary stress to the issue. We will feature tips on where to go, what to do while there, how to save money and how to travel safely – and much more besides. Whether you find it better to travel in hope, or to arrive, you will find plenty here to satisfy your wanderlust.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Travelnowsimply.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com site. In the future, I plan to write more travel articles on this site . This article originally published on the above website on April 27, 2009.