HelpGoAbroad - Blog

Guarded like precious buried treasure, Luxembourg is nestled safely between France, Belgium and Germany. Due to its small area of 2,500 km2 and total population of only half a million people, most people struggle to locate the small country of Luxembourg on a map, and some aren’t even aware that it is an actual country. It is the world’s only remaining grand duchy, meaning that a monarch is the head of the state, known as a “grand duke” or “grand...

Making the decision to volunteer is a big one, and there are a myriad of factors to take into consideration. Choosing the right volunteer program is similar to buying a car. There are many options to consider, and you want your experience to be a positive one that will continue to help you in the future and provide you with lots of positive memories. There is no one size fits all experience, and each program has its pros and cons. The sheer ...

There is no denying how much technology has changed the way we live, with our dependency on smart phones, the connectivity through the internet and digitized photography. All of these developments have made the lives of travellers much more convenient, but what happens when this cyber simplicity becomes a little more complicated? When we are abroad, fixing a computer or maintaining our photo library can be much more complicated than back at ...

After I graduated from university and taught English in Hong Kong for a year, I backpacked around Western China, and boy, did I learn some hard truths. These truths were recently reinforced by another three-week trip around the region and I am here to share my hard-won gems of knowledge. I came, I saw, I survived, and with my help you will too. This is a remarkably beautiful area with plenty of tasty food to nom (including true Sichuan peppercorn...

Do you find yourself scrap-booking pages of the National Geographic, wishing you were a part of the La Tomatina festival in Spain or perhaps Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love? You’re clearly infected with the travel bug and suffering hallucinations of moving to Europe to soak in a culture that’s highly glamorized by Hollywood.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a textbook on moving abroad. However, as someone who worked and lived in Europe and Asia, I...

Tokyo is chic, modern, and vibrant. It is also one of the most expensive cities in the world. This is a city with one of the (if not the most) expensive meals in the world as well as the most pricey hotel rooms. While you can live in the lap of luxury and splurge on 35,000 Yen Kobe beef meals, not everyone has the means to spend on an extravagant lifestyle. If you are interested in touring around Tokyo on a budget, then this is the article f...

Australia’s world famous beaches are usually thought of as Bondi beach in Sydney, the Whitsundays in the North or the majority of the sun-kissed Queensland coast. Once you actually begin dissecting the beach scene Down Under, you discover just how many sandy secrets Oz has been hiding. Perth and the surrounding areas command the title of Western Australia’s hot spots for beautiful beaches, but just two hours north by plane is the veiled gem of th...

One thing you don’t think about when you travel is how often you say goodbye. When you’re on the road, whether you’re going on an around-the-world trip, going on an extended holiday or living abroad, you’re always going to be meeting people and eventually saying goodbye to them.     Relationships are fleeting when you’re on the road. Instant friends form over the tiniest similarities and commonalities. Sometimes these relationships turn...

The Midwest of the United States is known for a few things: incredibly friendly people, four discernable seasons, wide open spaces, and the Great Lakes. If you’re thinking about studying or working abroad in the USA, but aren't sure where you should be targeting, take a look at ten of our suggestions in ten states of the American Midwest:   Michigan     Capital: Lansing Largest city: Detroit Population: 9.9 million As the only...

Not all voluntourism opportunities are created the same. In fact, those very programs travelers think they are doing good end up doing bad. Not for the travelers themselves, but to local cultures, people, animals and the environment.  An abundance of volunteer vacation opportunities present themselves, particularly in SE Asia where volunteering is big business – but not all actually do the good which they speak of. There are a handful of vol...