In the 1940′s a young man went on the road trip of his life through America and Mexico. As he was traveling, he kept a journal of his experiences, and later turned it into one of the greatest books of our times.

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is the quintessential example of art inspired by travel. Whether you are a master sculptor or make the occasional doodle, there is nothing like hitting the road to get the creative juices flowing. Getting outside your daily bubble and being surrounded by the romance of adventure is bound to bring out the Picasso in anyone.

For some of us, it is second nature to sit down and crank out a poem about a beautiful mountain range, but for others, it may take some coaxing to get the right brain in motion. Here are some tips to get the pen to paper, the eye behind the lens, and the fingers strumming the guitar.

Seek out your passions and get involved: What is your favorite hobby (besides travel of course)? Find that in the places you are passing through. If you love dance, find the local salsa club. If you love food, find a cooking class. It is a great way to experience the local culture within a context you already understand. It may inspire you to try making that new dish or show your friends the local dance move you learned when you get home.

Venture out on your own: If you are traveling in a group or with a travel partner, take some time to yourself. Wander through the local market and take photos, sit on the beach and sketch, or hum that song out loud that has been churning in your head. Travel is an emotional and personal experience, so take the time to hang out with you and channel the creative side lying within.

Do something that terrifies you: Unfortunately, everyday life can numb our brains; time to wake them up! Are you afraid of spiders? Eat one. Do heights make you weak in the knees? Take a hot air balloon ride. By getting the adrenaline going you will tap into your sleepy brain and get it thinking in a different way. It may even inspire that short story or painting about the time you faced your fears-and won.

No matter how you choose to express yourself creatively, it is guaranteed to enhance your travel experience ten fold. You will unknowingly be documenting your trip and participating in things you may have passed by.

Through June 6, Intrepid Travel is giving away a trip for 4 for showing us how creative and intrepid you truly are.

Tell us why you are intrepid through photos, song, video, or stories, and you could be on your way with three of your best travel buddies. Visit www.iamintrepid.com to submit your entry or vote for others and get inspired. We will also give you 15% off a future trip just for entering or voting! So get out there and tap into your creative side!

Each time this question is posed, I calmly reply “of course not.” As the months have passed, some of the lessons I’ve learned are easier to articulate than others. Nevertheless, here are five skills that I have tuned while traveling. I am sure that these skills will make me a more confident executive leader and apply to other travelers as well.

Separate the Wheat from the Chaff

At some point every executive has had to make a decision with less information than would be considered prudent. In a complex business environment, executives need strong analytical skills for sure, but the best leaders regularly listen to their intuition. As Malcom Gladwell describes in his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, we do that by “thin-slicing,” using limited information to come to our conclusion.

“In what Gladwell contends is an age of information overload, he finds that experts often make better decisions with snap judgments than they do with volumes of analysis. He also mentions that sometimes having too much information can interfere with the accuracy of a judgment, or a doctor’s diagnosis. This is commonly called Analysis paralysis.

The challenge is to sift through and focus on only the most critical information to make a decision. The other information may be irrelevant and confusing to the decision maker. Collecting more and more information, in most cases, just reinforces our judgment but does not help to make it more accurate.”

The book argues that intuitive judgment is developed by experience, training, and knowledge. Travelers thin-slice every time they choose to hire a tuk-tuk, accept a gift from a local, or share a drink with new friends.

Mystic Connection with Nature

Steven R. Covey wrote that “[e]very human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.” Further, he shares that “[t]he way we see the problem is the problem.”

It follows then that with an awareness of the true nature of universal timeless principles, we can alter reality. As a traveler, you are frequently vulnerable. We can choose to see power in this vulnerability or we can find weakness. Specifically, vulnerability exposes us to scams, theft, and crime. Vulnerability also inspires a heightened sense of awareness and curiosity that helps us embody true “presence” or appreciation or our surroundings.

Super Human Hops

As a traveler you are often faced with unique situations leaving few resources at your disposal. Even the best planned itinerary can result in flight cancellations, unexpected bus delays, or an unforeseen arrival during a regional celebration or workforce strike.

Finding solutions to travel surprises expands confidence in out-of-the-box thinking, and reinforces creative problem solving skills.

Having the confidence to hurdle over unexpected challenges makes the difference between an average worker and an exceptional team contributor.

Stomp Out Insecurity

Until your team feels trusted, understood, valued, and enabled, synergistic results will remain elusive.

Insecurity is that feeling inside us that prevents us from becoming deeply empathic listeners. If we are to cultivate empowered teams which operate over the foundation of high trust relationships, deliver passionate contributions, and produce synergistic results – insecurity must be at a minimum.

Through an exposure to foreign religions, manners, and cultural norms we naturally gain an appreciation for varied cultural views. This appreciation shifts the fulcrum allowing increased understanding and reduced fear. By eliminating fear we can stomp out insecurity.

Multiple Perspectives

As mentioned earlier, empathic listening is critical to success in an interdependent reality. To achieve empathic communication at least one party must be engaged in seeing reality from multiple perspectives. It is only by reflecting content and feeling, accurately and completely, that communication barriers are replaced with profound understanding. Having awareness and being centered in compassion are the first two requirements for such understanding.

Travel long enough and you will eventually find yourself a sleep-deprived, under-fed traveler whose fate depends on the services of an under-paid, under-appreciated, and under-educated world citizen. In these scenarios, empathic communication will often make the difference between a seat on a train, a room in a hostel, or a bite to eat and utter frustration. Through necessity travelers develop empathic listening skills.

In the end, travel creates executives equipped to achieve synergistic results through heightened awareness, empathic communication, and out-of-the-box thinking. With practice, these individuals can be shown to make quality decisions given limited information. Now that’s a leader worth hiring!

Matthew K. Sharp is the co-founder of Inertia Interrupted and is currently trekking, volunteering, diving and photographing the world with his wife, Luz.  You can connect with him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

“I always knew Easter Island would be amazing because of
the mystery behind the Moai statues. But when we got there and stopped
at the beach one day, we saw a row of Moai at the top of the beach.
Not only was it a gorgeous beach, but to be able to relax on the sand
and swim in the ocean while admiring the island’s history was just
magical. We actually used them as inspiration to build a sand Moai,
instead of a sand castle.”

Easter Island has become a popular place for career-breakers today. Planning your own career break? Check out our Meet, Plan, Go! Adventures page for more ideas.

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I decided I wanted to focus on areas that have been affected by natural disasters, with a few in particular in mind: New Zealand, Japan and Chile. My goal is to serve in at least six regions over my 11-month adventure.

So far, I have served in Christchurch, New Zealand,  and Ishinomaki, Japan.

Christchurch is a city where there used to be a city (as someone there put it), having suffered major damage from the 7.1 and 6.3 magnitude earthquakes that rocked the area on September 4, 2010 and February 22, 2011, respectively.

There I got hooked up with a local organization called Gap Filler, which “aims to temporarily activate vacant sites within Christchurch with creative projects, to make for a more interesting, dynamic and vibrant city.” They do all sorts of different projects, from a temporary movie theater operated by stationary bicycles, to artwork, to music venues. Instead of a vacant lot, there is something there.

The first project I worked on was simple but clever: a life-sized chess board that anyone can stop in and play at their leisure. Most everything was already there, we simply had to remove heaps of recycled glass (broken down and used for filler, like sand) and replace it with gravel (the glass had unfortunately been cutting a few people).

I also spent a couple days helping the staff build and set up the new Gap Filler headquarters, painting a mural and installing solar panels.

Considering the state of the city, a few days’ work felt pretty insignificant, but this outfit now has over a dozen gaps filled throughout the city. And with so many vacant lots, it’s nice to lay eyes on something beautiful, useful or peaceful instead of weeds and rubble.

In the northern hemisphere, Japan was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. This was not one town or city. Miles of coastline were affected, from small fishing villages to moderately large cities, ports and harbors.  Many of these towns were at or slightly below sea level, protected by seawalls sometimes 20 feet high. Most of these places now, especially the small villages, are just flat, open spaces.

I got connected with an organization based in the town of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, a coastal area in northeast Japan that was hit particularly hard. It’s Not Just Mud (INJM) started with one person who went up to Ishinomaki after the tsunami to help in the recovery effort. As he started blogging about his experiences, others began to join him, and the group expanded over time to become an official volunteer non-profit organization.

INJM started with helping people clean up and restore their homes – those that were still standing – that were damaged by the tsunami. In these cases the homes were typically filled with up to 12 inches of mud and muck. INJM would go into a house, remove the debris, walls, floor boards, and completely gut it out, scoop and shovel out all the muck, and slowly rebuild the house. The name of the group alludes to the people who they work with and the lives that have been changed – that it’s really more than just mud. During my first days working with INJM, we finished such a house.

Another day, our team cleaned up trash and debris, separating glass, metal, and other materials. There was no telling what we would find: roof shingles, glassware, silverware, CDs, appliances, clothes, and anything else you can imagine. Picture a giant wave pulverizing your house, crushing everything in a giant washing machine filled with houses and mud, then draining the water out as everything sinks into the earth.

Reflecting on these experiences so far I’ve discovered a few things.

First, the most overwhelmingly positive part of these experiences so far has been the people who I’ve met while volunteering. I connected with people on both projects who I expect to remain friends with for years to come. In fact, of the people I met, I’ve already stayed with two of them while traveling and met another in his home country, two months later.

As great as the connections have been, finding service opportunities in foreign countries has been challenging. You’d think it would be easy; at least I did. There was a major disaster, there is limitless work to be done, there should be plenty of places to get involved, right? Not so much.

There were a few things I found helpful in searching. First, local universities are often home to volunteer student groups, which can be a good place to start. Community centers can usually point you in the right direction as well. There are also several service/outreach organizations that coordinate international volunteer efforts, including All Hands Volunteers,  Go Abroad.com, Ecoteer, and ReliefWeb.

I feel fortunate to have had these opportunities. It hasn’t been earth-shattering so far – especially considering both locations, where people have been there for a year or longer in the trenches and I’ve only been able to help the effort for a few days – but it’s been great nonetheless. If you’re planning your trip, consider adding some service; you might get more out of it than you expect.

Chris Healy graduated from Fresno State University and spent nearly seven years working for the Sigma Nu Fraternity national headquarters office, traveling extensively throughout the United States for business and leisure. He left in January to embark on an 11-month, 5-continent, 25+ country adventure around the world, focusing on growth, connection, service and fitness. You can read more about Chris’ adventures at www.followchris.me.

I imagined a homestay as being a true cultural exchange.

I did my first homestay almost right off the bat, just two weeks into my journey through the former Soviet Union. It was part of a volunteer program that had me living with a family in St. Petersburg, Russia and tutoring the children in English. Unfortunately, the situation was a huge disappointment. Not only were the living conditions not as had been represented to me, the family didn’t even seem to want me there. The children had no interest in being tutored and during the entire four weeks I was there, no one in the family asked me a single thing about myself or opened up anything to me about their lives. I just felt like I was in the way.

My next homestay was part of the same volunteer program, this time living with a couple in Moscow. Overall, it was an improvement, but still not ideal. Living with an unmarried couple younger than me created an interesting dynamic and, as they were both working professionals, they had little time left over to spend with me.

Several months later, I took the plunge again, living with an elderly woman in Kiev while I took language classes. That was pretty much a disaster, with the woman just yelling at me in Russian every chance she got. I lasted two weeks.

Finally, I arrived in Armenia last month to volunteer again and try another homestay.

The fourth time must be the charm, right?

And it was – I lived with a couple about my parents’ age who went out of their way to make me comfortable and patiently practice Russian with me. Their son (who didn’t live with them) spoke fluent English and checked up on me weekly. I even introduced them to my parents back in Minnesota via Skype. I was sad to say goodbye to Stella and Martin when I left after five weeks.

After such a mixed experience with doing homestays, there are a few things I wish I had considered beforehand:

♦ I assumed that all homestay hosts are motivated by the “right” reasons – a desire to share their culture with foreigners and an inclination to learn about others. However, it became apparent to me that in reality some may just be motivated by the money they earn for being a host.

♦ I never really thought about balancing the atmosphere of a homestay with my desire for independence. In Kiev, my host always asked a lot of questions about where I was going or where I had been and she tended to watch over me as I was coming and going. I had to ask to use the washing machine and I couldn’t use the kitchen until after she had finished her meal. In Armenia, I sometimes felt like I was living with my parents again – something I haven’t done since I was 18. While I had a key to Stella and Martin’s place and they insisted I could come and go as I pleased, the homestay rules technically provided a curfew of midnight. Sure, I shirked this on occasion but I felt horribly guilty doing so.

♦ I wish I had thought more about the potential location of my homestays and pushed for more information before my arrival. Only my homestay in Kiev was centrally located. When I arrived in St. Petersburg, I discovered I was staying about an hour and a half outside of the city center, in an area that doesn’t even show up on maps of the city. Similarly, in Moscow, I was on the outskirts, about an hour out of the center, and in Yerevan, my homestay was in the hills north of the city center, a 30-40 minute ride into town by marshrutka (shared taxi). In each case, I received limited information from my hosts about how to get around and the groups that organized the homestays didn’t even provide a map for me in advance. I would have felt much more comfortable right off the bat if I had that basic information before I arrived.

In the end, while my experiences tended toward the negative rather than positive, I can’t say I wouldn’t recommend trying a homestay during your career break. Do your homework ahead of time, ask a lot of questions and think very seriously about your own personality and whether you will truly be comfortable living with a family for a week or two or longer.

Katie Aune is in the middle of a career break, in which she is spending a year traveling and volunteering in all 15 countries of the former Soviet Union. She is a former attorney, event planner and fundraiser who recently joined Meet, Plan, Go! as managing editor. You can follow her adventures at Katie Going Global.

Today’s Photo Friday was submitted by Facebook fan Donny Loeber. Donny took the photo in Kratie, Cambodia while on a round-the-world trip last year. You can follow his travels at Faraway Footprints.

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Check out our easy submission policy!

And American career breakers have unique insurance concerns because unlike long-term travelers from countries like Australia, Canada and England, we don’t have national healthcare to rely on. Having the right policy and understanding the benefits and limitations of your coverage is an essential step in setting your mind at ease so that you can truly enjoy your break.

So how does one navigate the labyrinth of red tape and fine print that surrounds travel & medical insurance? Currently, no one in the travel insurance industry is focusing on the unique concerns of the American career breaker – until now.

We are very excited to be partnering with InsureMyTrip.com to do so. We now have an exclusive “Career Break Insurance Line” where you can speak directly with an InsureMyTrip.com’s Customer Care licensed insurance expert. Everyone’s situation is extremely unique depending on your age, length of travel, and even what state you call home and the team at Insure My Trip is familiar with the needs of our audience and can help address them.

Offering all kinds of coverage from cancellation, to evacuation to major medical, travel insurance is a powerful tool to have, and InsureMyTrip.com has also provided this helpful insurance overview so you can become an educated consumer, choosing the right coverage for your special career break needs.

We are very proud to be delivering this important resource to you. And we have had the pleasure of meeting with the entire InsureMyTrip.com customer care team and can ensure you that they are dedicated to bringing you the best care and service – so you don’t get lost in the labyrinth of red tape.

As discussed in Monday’s post, How to Accrue Frequent Flier Miles, earning and redeeming miles can be a great way to save money on your career break.

All frequent flyer mile (FFM) programs publish an awards table for the required miles needed for a flight redemption.  The exact number, of course, depends on your origin and destination countries.  For instance, at the time of this writing, U.S. Airways, a Star Alliance member, requires 60,000 miles to fly round trip from North America to North Asia while United Airlines, another Star Alliance airline, requires 65,000 miles for the same round trip flight.

Also, different frequent flyer mile programs group the same countries in different zones.  United Airlines categorizes South Korea and Singapore in North Asia and South Asia respectively.  Another frequent flyer mile program will group both countries in the same zone.  It helps to check with the redemption table to where your miles can take you.  Awards table changes are almost guaranteed to change for the worse, usually the required number mileage increases.  It’s always best to use your miles before such changes are imposed because I rather have memories from a trip far away than looking at a black and white number on my computer screen.

Once you have the required number of FFM in your account, it’s now time to search flights for the availability of seats open to folks redeeming miles or known as award seats.

Your first inclination may be to check the airline’s website for availability.  This isn’t wrong per se.  It’s the easiest to do and if the airline website search satisfies your needs on the first try, you’re done.  However, this will not be the case in nearly every circumstance.

Likewise with crediting miles from an alliance or partner airline, those miles can also be redeemed for flights on alliance and partner airlines.  Most online booking engines don’t display the availability of partner or alliance member airlines.  For instance, U.S. Airways, a Star Alliance member doesn’t display availability on Lufthansa or Austrian airline flights.  To find availability on flights for U.S. Airways, you’ll have to call the airline agent to get this information and ticket it.

♦ If you’re willing to do so and your itinerary permits, add a connection of less than 24 hours to explore a city along the way to your destination.

Mike Choi is known as the resident world traveler in his office and blogs about his travels at thefitworldtraveler.com. With his knowledge of FFM, he runs a part time frequent flyer mile consulting shop at iflywithmiles.com to help those with miles see the world. After reading books authored by Rolf Potts, Mike’s been inspired to take a career break to travel long term.

As discussed in Monday’s post, How to Accrue Frequent Flier Miles, earning and redeeming miles can be a great way to save money on your career break.

All frequent flyer mile (FFM) programs publish an awards table for the required miles needed for a flight redemption.  The exact number, of course, depends on your origin and destination countries.  For instance, at the time of this writing, U.S. Airways, a Star Alliance member, requires 60,000 miles to fly round trip from North America to North Asia while United Airlines, another Star Alliance airline, requires 65,000 miles for the same round trip flight.

Also, different frequent flyer mile programs group the same countries in different zones.  United Airlines categorizes South Korea and Singapore in North Asia and South Asia respectively.  Another frequent flyer mile program will group both countries in the same zone.  It helps to check with the redemption table to where your miles can take you.  Awards table changes are almost guaranteed to change for the worse, usually the required number mileage increases.  It’s always best to use your miles before such changes are imposed because I rather have memories from a trip far away than looking at a black and white number on my computer screen.

Once you have the required number of FFM in your account, it’s now time to search flights for the availability of seats open to folks redeeming miles or known as award seats.

Your first inclination may be to check the airline’s website for availability.  This isn’t wrong per se.  It’s the easiest to do and if the airline website search satisfies your needs on the first try, you’re done.  However, this will not be the case in nearly every circumstance.

Likewise with crediting miles from an alliance or partner airline, those miles can also be redeemed for flights on alliance and partner airlines.  Most online booking engines don’t display the availability of partner or alliance member airlines.  For instance, U.S. Airways, a Star Alliance member doesn’t display availability on Lufthansa or Austrian airline flights.  To find availability on flights for U.S. Airways, you’ll have to call the airline agent to get this information and ticket it.

♦ If you’re willing to do so and your itinerary permits, add a connection of less than 24 hours to explore a city along the way to your destination.

Mike Choi is known as the resident world traveler in his office and blogs about his travels at thefitworldtraveler.com. With his knowledge of FFM, he runs a part time frequent flyer mile consulting shop at iflywithmiles.com to help those with miles see the world. After reading books authored by Rolf Potts, Mike’s been inspired to take a career break to travel long term.

Frequent Flyer Miles (FFM) can be an excellent way to subsidize airfare costs during your career break.  For those unfamiliar with FFM, they are a unit of rewards earned through an airline’s loyalty program by flying.  The objective of these loyalty programs is to retain customers by rewarding customers with miles, which translate to free flights with enough accumulated miles.

Mike Choi is known as the resident world traveler in his office and blogs about his travels at thefitworldtraveler.com.  With his knowledge of FFM, he runs a part time frequent flyer mile consulting shop at iflywithmiles.com to help those with miles see the world.  After reading books authored by Rolf Potts, Mike’s been inspired to take a career break to travel long term.

Check back on Wednesday when Mike explains how to best redeem your hard-earned frequent flier miles.

Photo credit: Vox Efx