HELLO
Welcome to our August newsletter, brought you by bemusement as to where the sun has gone, and a slight air of last-minute-ness as we forget what day it is with everyone being on holiday.
Today's shiny edition is packed full of fun stuff to inform, entertain and inspire you. We've got a ground-breaking blog post along, loads of useful freebies and offers, our usual photo and video corners, tips, messages and the peculiarly omnipresent joke.
We've also got a plea to you at the end, particularly if you're a man who likes talking about yourself (and if you're not, please forward it to one who does!).
So grab yourself a cold-brew coffee, minimise that dull spreadsheet you were working on, and get stuck in!
FREE STUFF, DISCOUNTS AND COMPETITIONS
Free ebook on round-the-world flights from vetted and approved company roundtheworldflights.com (so they know what they're talking about, obvs).
Free Lonely Planet "The World" book when you spent £10 at this online shop - again, very useful if you're planning to go round the world.
Digit is a free app that automatically helps you save money. You can set up a separate fund for your career break (loads of people tell us they SWEAR by this) and put money straight into it.
Where is my train is an app to help you navigate the Indian railways. Android, with offline mode available.
Mitty is an app that bills itself as the "only travel app you'll ever need". We'll let you be the judge! iOS and Android
Mobile passport app to get you through US immigration quicker - only for Americans and Canadians though
Free app to make free calls - you have to do stuff to get credits but might be useful if you want to make a free international call while abroad.
Win return tickets to the European city of your choice with KLM - this is a Twitter competition.
NEW ON THE SITE
We sorted out our destinations section, and for each one, there's a page of organisations who can help you get there!
We'll be showcasing them all over the next few months, but we're starting with the most popular destination for career breakers, which is Australia and New Zealand. It's mostly work programmes but courses and volunteer projects are available too!
See all our vetted and approved Australia and New Zealand organisations here
ON THE BLOG
First up, we have a ground-breaking post which is an interview with an amazing career breaker called Carly. We have never posted anything like this before. Why? Because it's not how her career break was amazing - it was about how it was so bad she ended up... well, we won't spoil it for you. Read it here: My career break went horribly wrong - this is why I'm sharing my story
We love us a listicle at The Career Break Site and our new one is a bit more inspirational than fun (although its author likes to think she's funny so please humour her). It's called 101 things you (yes YOU) could actually do on a career break and it's designed to show you that no matter who you are (or think you are), these are all real possibilities for you.
And we've updated the following posts as well (sometimes quite a lot).
A little anecdote from our site founder is called Travelling magical moments - it's the small things that matter. It's a light-hearted post with a more serious message about doing your own thing.
There are 7.6 billion people in the world. If only 1 in a million would want to have sex with you, that's still 7,600 people. Find out more about them in this article on who to have sex with on your career break.
How to ask for a sabbatical - and make sure you get one - is hopefully fairly self-explanatory, but it's an absolutely vital read if you want a sabbatical from work (rather than leaving your job).
10 differences between tourists and travellers is a humour piece, as is 49 people you will meet travelling. We've also got 6 1/2 fun ways to choose a career break which also has information and ideas you can actually use!
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
The Bird Photographer of the Year winners have been announced! You can see the entire shortlist, sorted by categories, here.
VIDEO CORNER
How to plan a gap year is not very in-depth but it is a really good starting point for those new to the career break experience. And it's by STA who really know their stuff when it comes to planning round-the-world trips!
TIP OF THE MONTH
Pack a travel sewing kit. Yes, we know they aren't very cool and they're a bit retro, but they will save you a ton of money and hassle if you can patch things up that have torn (plus you'll make friends quickly if you can mend their stuff too). Dental floss is stronger than normal thread (it's what we use to sew up holes in our cheap backpacks!).
If you have a tip for us, email us or tweet us.
MESSAGE OF THE MONTH
"What do I do? What is my first port of call?"
We get some variation on this fairly regularly. You want a career break but you don't know where to start! Most people don't even know what they want to do, so we recommend starting with this blog post: I want a career break but I don't know what to do. Once you have an idea of what you'd like to do, you can then choose and book your experience, then get on with sorting out your sabbatical, house, money and so on.
Our forthcoming book will have a step-by-step guide with more detail, but you're just going to have to wait until later in the year for that!
If you've got a question, feedback or just want to share your opinion on whether or not the milk goes in first, get in touch! We never reveal your name (unless you want us to!)
JOKE
Thank you to Allan in Switzerland for submitting this month's joke:
How did the hamburger introduce his sister?
Meat Patty.
FINALLY
We've got a couple of requests for upcoming blog posts. First, we want to know what you wished you had known BEFORE you went travelling. Just reply to this email if you've got a tip that could help someone else!
Also, we are looking for case studies for both the blog and the book - we're open to everyone but we're a little light on men! If you're a man and would like to share your story, please get in touch! Women are still as welcome as you've always been of course, we love all kinds of career break tales!
Until next time,
Love,
The Career Break Site
xxx