Archive for the Travel Category

March 3rd, 2009

How to Be Jason Bourne: Multiple Passports, Swiss Banking, and Crossing Borders 267 Comments

Topics: Geoarbitrage, Investing, Mini-retirements, Travel


Is it possible to become invisible without breaking the law? (Photo: gravitywave)

LOS ANGELES, MID-JUNE 2008

Sitting on a plush couch in the neon-infused nightclub, I asked again:

“What’s it about?”

Neil Strauss glanced around and looked nervous, which I found strange. After all, we’d known each other for close to two years now. In fact, he was – as New York Times bestselling author of The Game and others – one of the first people to see the proposal for The 4-Hour Workweek and offer me encouragement.

“C’mon, dude, give me a break. Don’t you trust me?”

“Guilt. That’s good. Use guilt,” Neil said. But the Woody Allen approach wasn’t working.

“I can’t let the meme out early” he said, “I trust you—I’m just paranoid,” he offered to no one in particular as he downed another RedBull. So I fired a shot in the dark.

“What, are you writing about the 5 Flags or something?”

Neil’s heart skipped a beat and he stared at me for several long seconds. He was stunned.

“What do you know about the 5 Flags?”

I was in.

The 5 Flags

Neil’s new book, Emergency, teaches you how to become Jason Bourne.

Multiple passports, moving assets, lock-picking, escape and evasion, foraging, even how to cross borders without detection (one preferred location: McAllen, Texas, page 390)–it’s a veritable encyclopedia of for those who want to disappear or become lawsuit-proof global citizens… Read More

Popularity: 35% [?]

February 2nd, 2009

How to Build an Upside-Down Fire: The Only Fireplace Method You’ll Ever Need 106 Comments

Topics: Travel, Uncategorized

Total reading time: 9 minutes.

How would you like to light a fire perfectly and have it burn for 3-7 hours without touching it or putting on more wood? It can be done, every time, but it requires forgetting everything you’ve learned about starting fires… Read More

Popularity: 15% [?]

December 2nd, 2008

BIG NEWS and Sneak Peek – Tim Ferriss TV Show Debut 12/4 346 Comments

Topics: Language, Mental Performance, Physical Performance, Travel

Finally!

The debut of my TV show — “Trial by Fire” — will air this Thursday, 12/4, at 11pm ET/PT on The History Channel. It’s been two years in the making.

I’ve been told that the times are 11pm ET, 10pm CST, 9pm MT, and 11pm PST. Double check to be safe on the History Channel schedule.

This could very well be the only time you are able to see this show. It’s a pilot and not guaranteed to become a series, so please tune in and also Tivo!

In this post:

1) The concept
2) Live Q&A following show
– join me after the broadcast to ask your questions and learn about how to pitch a TV show, the “reality” behind reality TV, behind-the-scenes details, omitted scenes, and more. The Q&A won’t make sense unless you’ve seen the broadcast.
3) Immediate competition and prize for rallying the troops (sooner is better)

The Concept

The concept is simple: I have one week to attempt to learn what is usually learned over 5-20 years. I either crash and burn — or survive by the skin of my teeth — in a final test (trial by fire) each time.

If it’s made into a series, which depends entirely on viewership numbers on Thursday night, I’ll deconstruct a new complex skill each week. It will show you exactly how I approach learning, and no fake TV drama will be required to make the stakes real.

This episode was shot in HD in Tokyo and the mountains of Nikko, where I rolled the dice on Japanese horseback archery, or yabusame: full gallop, no hands, no safety gear, with wooden poles lining the track on either side of the horse. Please don’t do this at home. I had access to the best in the world, and you’ll get to see some never-before-seen footage of a rare and brutal samurai sport few non-Japanese have ever attempted. The show preview is here.

Live Q&A After Broadcast Thursday

I’ll be holding a live Q&A on this blog after both broadcasts (11pm ET for ET, CST, MT; 11pm PT for PT). Note down questions during the show on things you’d like to know. No-holds-barred. Just keep an eye on this blog and my twitter page for more details.

Immediate Competition to Rally Troops

This is a one shot, one kill affair. To become a series, this show needs massive viewership on Thursday to prove to History Channel that people want more.

The competition, limited to the next 48 hours, is simple: promote the below links and leave a comment here with 1) what you did to spread the word, and 2) what challenge you think I should tackle next.

Some options: Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, blogs, FriendFeed, etc. Bonus points go to people who act sooner vs. later.

The links:
The preview (first choice): http://tr.im/1rak
This post (second choice, if video is removed): http://tr.im/1re6

Prize to best promoter: my favorite travel bag in the world, the $500 retail Victorinox Swiss Army 25″ Trek Pack Plus. I used an older version during my 15-country world trip in 2004, and the latest model is even better.

Thanks in advance for your help with spreading the word! More to come soon! Woohoo!

Popularity: 15% [?]

November 10th, 2008

How to Surf Life: Attorney Turned Surf Guru 94 Comments

Topics: 4-Hour Case Studies, Mini-retirements, Travel


(Photo: envisionpublicidad)

Many a false step was made by standing still.
-Fortune Cookie

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
-Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back


RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Twenty feet and closing.

“Run! Ruuuuuuuuuun!” Hans didn’t speak Portuguese, but the meaning was clear enough—haul ass. His sneakers gripped firmly on the jagged rock, and he drove his chest forward towards 3,000 feet of nothing.

He held his breath on the final step, and the panic drove him to near unconsciousness. His vision blurred at the edges, closing to a single pin point of light, and then… he floated. The all-consuming celestial blue of the horizon hit his visual field an instant after he realized that the thermal updraft had caught him and the wings of the paraglider. Fear was behind him on the mountain top, and thousands of feet above the resplendent green rain forest and pristine white beaches of Copacabana, Hans Keeling had seen the light.

That was Sunday.

On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, Los Angeles’ posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice… Read More

Popularity: 8% [?]

October 8th, 2008

From Tesla Motors to the “Patriot Hack” – Martin Eberhard on Protecting Your Privacy Online 57 Comments

Topics: Travel


I found Martin Eberhard, co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors, in the pages of 2600.

I was deep in the throes of palate nirvana at Stumptown Coffee in Portland (good coffee is not bitter) when I came across a curious article in 2600: The Hacker Quarterly.

Nursing the best dark brew I’ve ever had, I moved from a great article on free global phone calls to another on the language of gang signs, ultimately landing on a column signed not with an anonymous pseudonym but by Martin Eberhard, co-founder of Tesla Motors.

The subject? Engineering a “patriot hack” to protect privacy online. This, I remember thinking, should be interesting… Read More

Popularity: 2% [?]

October 6th, 2008

Two Short Videos – How and Why to Be Unreasonable, The Art of Tweaking 71 Comments

Topics: Filling the Void, Travel


Just take a right at…. huh? (Street signs in Wales)

In the wee morning hours of September, I took my first trip to Wales to experience The Do Lectures, which is held in tents in the Cardigan wilderness.

Not only did I get to sleep under deer skins in a high-end geodesic dome (not kidding), I got to dropkick my brain reading Welsh and drink the best peppermint tea I’ve ever had. Fun times indeed. Even water buffalo came to the party (again, not kidding). I put some pics at the end of this post.

My 15-20-minute presentation — the first video below — was titled “How and Why to Be Unreasonable.” The Do Lectures have a clear environmental focus, but I’ve never done anything large in conservation or enviro-activism, so I decided to explore more universal principles of doing big things.

Here’s the thumbnail description:

“Case studies of how to think big and test assumptions to accomplish the impossible, whether launching a #1 bestselling product, setting a world record, or changing the world”… Read More

Popularity: 3% [?]

September 22nd, 2008

Why Language Classes Don’t Work: How to Cut Classes and Double Your Learning Rate (Plus: Madrid Update) 114 Comments

Topics: Language, Travel


Coffee shops vs. classrooms – who wins? (Photo: eye2eye)

This is one of several articles planned as supplements to the original “How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour.” This piece focuses on acquisition of new material; for reactivating “forgotten” languages and vocab, I recommend also reading “How to Resurrect Your High School Spanish… or Any Language.”

Let us begin…

From the academic environments of Princeton University (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian) and the Middlebury Language Schools (Japanese), to the disappointing results observed as a curriculum designer at Berlitz International (Japanese, English), I have sought for more than 10 years to answer a simple question: why do most language classes simply not work?

After testing the waters with more than 20 languages and achieving conversational and written fluency in 6, I have identified several cardinal sins that, when fixed, can easily cut the time to fluency by 50-80%… Read More

Popularity: 4% [?]

September 15th, 2008

Rolf Potts Q&A: The Art of Long-term World Travel… and Travel Writing 50 Comments

Topics: Interviews, Mini-retirements, Remote Offices, Travel

rolf potts
Rolf Potts is one of my favorite writers, and his book — Vagabonding — was one of only four books I recommended as “fundamental” in The 4-Hour Workweek. It was also one of two books, the other being Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, that I took with me during my 15+-month mini-retirement that began in 2004.

He interviewed me for Yahoo! Travel almost a year and a half ago, and I’m thrilled to have the chance to interview him about his long-awaited new book and the art of travel writing.

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to pull the trigger and embark on long-term world travel?
Have you ever fantasized about getting paid to do it?

Let Rolf give us a look at both… Read More

Popularity: 4% [?]

July 30th, 2008

12+ Gems of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Plus: 200 Tweets – My Thoughts on Practical Twitter Use) 114 Comments

Topics: Filling the Void, Mini-retirements, Travel


The unbelievable Oregon coastline. (Photo: liquidskyarts)

Six weeks ago I conducted my first social media travel experiment. I posed a simple question and let your responses to me on Twitter and this blog dictate exactly what I did on a 12-day roadtrip with my brother from San Francisco to Vancouver, Canada.

No packing or planning was done before jumping in the car (the best proof of this: I needed a friend to FedEx my passport to Seattle so I could get into Canada).

I’d done the trip from SF to Mexico several times, often meticulously planned, and this trip — my first up through the northwest coast — was both more fun and less stressful. Here is the progression of my “tweets” (Twitter entries), beginning with the first question… Read More

Popularity: 8% [?]

July 1st, 2008

Swimming the Amazon: 3,274 Miles on the World’s Deadliest River 63 Comments

Topics: Interviews, Physical Performance, Travel

martin strel amazon

February 8–Inahuaya, Peru

The more dangerous the trip gets, the more momentary we all become. Songs sound better, foods taste better, and seventy-cent-a-bottle cane whiskey is fun to drink.

Last year on April 8th, Slovenian marathon swimmer Martin Strel became the first man to swim the entire length of the Amazon River from headwaters in Peru to the Brazilian port city of Belém: 3,274 miles. It took him 66 days with a support crew of near twenty people following him in a boat for protection.

He’d already conquered the Danube, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze. In 1997, he became the first to swim non-stop from Africa to Europe, and he did it in 29 hours, 36 minutes, and 57 seconds… without a wetsuit. WTF? Seven swimmers had attempted it before and all had failed.

The Amazon was different. As the “Fish Man,” as the locals called him, reached the finish line at Belém, he had to be helped to his feet and ushered into a wheelchair amidst a cheering crowd. His blood pressure was at heart-attack levels and his entire body was full of subcutaneous larvae. But he lived to tell the tale.

I recently caught up with Martin about how he trained for and accomplished this feat… Read More

Popularity: 14% [?]