San Benedetto Del Tronto Italy: The perfect place for a vacation in Italy

Ok so the title isn't exact because after all what is "perfect?" In the event you are looking for a great place to take your family in Italy, then this is it. The travel guides you read will tell you everything you need to know about Rome, Venice, Florence and the rest but if you have seen them already or if you want to take a vacation where the Italians go then San Benedetto Del Tronto is the spot you're looking for. This isn't the only Italian destination but it is one of the better ones. There are many things that make this city perfect for a holiday but the simplest reason is that it was designed that way.

The lungomare or seaside is designed so that the tourist hotels and a few bars are on the road that is parallel to the beach opposite the beach of course. (The first picture is one of the many hotels, the second is the view from the front of another hotel) Just on the other side of the road is the bike path where if you're not careful you will get run over by one of the many bicycles that are constantly taking advantage of having their own road. Just past the bike path is the sidewalk and this isn't a narrow two and a half foot wide sidewalk, this is near twenty feet in some places, so there is plenty of room for people to walk up and down without feeling crowded and without having to dodge cyclists.

Along the sidewalk are, alternating between chalets (restaurants), bars (a bar in Italy is a place to buy an espresso and other snacks along with some alcohol but not a bar you would find in America,) parks and playgrounds for children. This is much to be said about how clean, neat and tidy this quaint seaside village is. If you were to fly above the beach in a helicopter you would see how square and organized it looks. The chalets all have umbrellas to rent on the beach and they all have different sets of colors that make the beach look colorful and festive.

I wish I could give some sort of review on a few of the restaurants but sadly, I never at on this beach. The only thing I was able to eat when I got here was a few gelatos or Italian ice cream. I spent many Euros on ice cream and the best gelatos I had in Italy were when I was in this region of Italy. It was rare to find a place that didn't make outstanding, flavorful and inexpensive gelatos. Average cost of a small two flavored cone was €1.50, medium three flavored cone €2.00 and large three or more flavored cone was €2.50. Gelatos are well worth their weight in gold, that might be a bit redundant for those of you who have had one. Warning: The fruit flavors are made with the actual fruit instead of flavoring and they are slightly addicting. Just because they are healthier for you than standard American ice cream does not mean you won't gain weight. Overall satisfaction of my time in San Benedetto, complete and total satisfaction! I feel in love and plan to go back one day. I actually like destinations that are full of locals and natives rather than tourists and travelers.

Aso Valley Italy Pictures: A little slice of Heaven

The pictures will speak for themselves. These are pictures that surround the home we are staying in which is located above the Aso Valley in Lapedona Italy. I learned that Lapedona is so small that Italians living less than 10 kilometers away don't even know the town exists. In small villages like this and due to high gas prices (nearly $11 a gallon) it is much cheaper (and healthier) to use the local bakery, butcher and market for all other goods, than it is to drive 20 minutes down the hill (Altitude is at 1000ft) and go to the supermarket. That is a fact I love, the meat is by far the best, most tender and well priced meat I have ever had. I also love the bread we get from the bakery which is next door to the butchers. So with out further ado, here are some of the most beautiful pictures I have ever taken, not because my camera rocks but because I am living in heaven on earth.

Can you travel with your pet?

As with all questions there is always an answer but as you read this posting you will soon realize the answer to this question is frustrating, incentivizing and plain dumb. The frustrating part is the fact that everyone has a set of rules and by everyone I mean each country, airline and even veterinarian so to keep your head straight you need to know all the answers to the questions you don't know yet, understand?
The incentive isn't really meant for you or I but for someone looking to get into a niche business here is one with hardly anyone to compete with. That industry needs someone to gather up all the information there is, get all the different players together and give them a home where people all over the world could find the answers they need. Like a wiki for traveling pets. Now the dumbest part comes down to cost. Why in HELL does Delta airlines want to charge me nearly $500 to fly my tiny little toy Yorkie from San Antonio Texas to Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico? Now I pointed the finger at them but they aren't the only one. Some airlines refuse to take animals on their plane which is fine but if you do why would you charge so much? They put my pet (also known as my four legged daughter) in the bottom of the plane with the rest of the luggage and packages. Now tell me, isn't the occasional pet flying from point A to point B extra income for them? I know they get paid to ship packages so the space on the bottom of the plane is being sold just as the seats up top are, but why charge more for my dog to fly on the plane like a furry package than they do to ship a box the same size and weight? They take the same care of their packages as they do animals, they all get unloaded put on a conveyer belt and set aside until the owner or delivery guy gets there. Why does my dogs plane ticket cost more than our two tickets? My wife and I will have over 150 pounds of luggage that they will charge us an extra $50 for, make sense? My dog weighs 4.3 pounds, if you include the kennel she'd have to fly in it would be roughly 12 pounds. Again, why is the airline charging so much? Is it a deterrent to shipping pets or traveling with pets?

Now I would love to has over all the points on what frustrated me or explain how a person with a bit of time could go about making money off this niche but what I really want to talk about is the money!!

I really don't like money, I could honestly say I loathe it. People don't NEED MONEY, American society has made money the only way of payment for anything and I think that has lost some of the warmth of society. Don't understand where I am going with this? Then let me break it down for you.

In the beginning of man, was there money? Was there any sort of currency? Look it up, go ahead I know you're going to Google it anyways so I'll just wait till you confirm what I'm saying...

Ok so when a man wanted something another man had he would "pay" for the item but it wasn't always with trinkets because some people aren't interested in trinkets, I'm not. Men would trade services, supplies or work for whatever it was they wanted. Now I understand that I can't expect this world to still trade in animal pelts, weapons or other outdated form of currency but I do think that if I do something for a person I think that we could agree on other forms of payment. I am starting my new life of travel blogging and being a digital nomad by selling everything I own, giving away anything that is still useful and leaving my comfortable (barely middle class life) existence in the states for a life of learning, adventure and exploration and in my travels the need for money can be replaced with an internet connection, roof and a small portion of food. Now the reality is that I will need some sort of income during my travels so I do plan on moving this blog to its own domain and with a completely different look and I also plan on building up my network of websites to help produce some semblance of income. In between now and then I plan on trading my talents for room and board by using the helpX and work-a-way websites. I have mentioned them in previous posts and I will probably continue to write about them for months to come because they are the only reason I will be able to afford this life change.

So I've explained my money issue? Probably not, so this won't be the last rant I have on the subject so stay tuned.

Now back to the original question, can you travel with your pet? The answer is yes. You definitely can travel with your pet if you have a good stream of income and stay in each country a short/long enough time to get the next country's paperwork ready. I promise you if you do travel with your pet for too long you will easily become the subject matter expert (SME) because people with money don't want to blow it on dragging their pet around the world to see things the pet could care less about. On top of that, all of the work needed to travel with them is too expensive, tedious and time consuming makes the idea of taking them overwhelming. If you plan on sailing around the world and you have a pet that is cool with boats, then take your pet. You can leave your pet in the boat when you dock and they never have to go through customs. Problem solved and again it is solved with money. So to do the most annoying thing ever, I'll answer a question by asking a question (my wife hates that.) Why would a person want to travel the globe with their pet? My answer would be because some people can afford to live their dreams with or without a pet. We have decided to send our dog to my sister's in east Texas, Tekila can stay with her and when Brownie and I settle and get a home base then we will pay the bounty for our daughter. She'll just have a vacation of her own. So good luck to you, whichever category you're in because either way it goes if you have a pet and want to see if you have enough money to accomplish your goals with your pet, then you will still have to do all the leg work that I did since every situation is different it will literally take someone to collect all the information, decipher it and explain it to the rest of us before this process will get any easier. Right now it's so hard to figure it out that a lot of people give up, I think that was the plan all along.

It Starts

Ok, so I'm last minute but who cares right because the only person waiting on me is me. So I'll start this blog out with the answer to the question that everyone will ask when they happen to find this site, and the answer is "because you have nothing better to do but daydream!" The question, for those of you who couldn't tell was "Why add this to your favorites?" Don't get upset! I only say it the way I see it and it's not personal. I am risking everything I have to travel the world and become the only person in my family to become a “digital nomad” and up to this point in my life, I have never been paid to write anything nor have I made any “real” money of my gaming network. So if for no other reason than the fact that I have either giant brass balls or I'm the dumbest most naive person on the planet.

I truly feel that with the right mind set you can make it anywhere. The United States may have been the “promise land” or the “land of opportunity” but it's not the only place you can find opportunity. It all depends on what you are looking for and perspective, for me it's all about opening my eyes to the world around me. I have wanted to travel the world since my first taste at 14 when I took a church trip to Monterrey Mexico. That first trip gave me a bug that I have never been able to get rid of. I joined the military and get another taste of it but I was married to a woman that wanted to stay close to home so I moved back home. Times have changed and the world is even smaller now that I'm in my mid 30's and I have realized one fact that makes life very, very hard on me, I'm fucking lazy! Pardon the rough language but I can't be nice about that, I have taken a good long look at my life, accomplishments and future possibilities and to be honest with you it was pretty depressing. I have done a little of this, a little of that and a lot of nothing! I was a welder out of high school but I would have had to travel to make real money in that job but I would have had to travel alone and the ex wasn't having any of that. Then I joined the military, we knew I'd have to travel and be away but it would only be a "short" time and it was a small sacrifice we would make to ensure college money, health care for the kids and security for my family if anything did happen. Those were a great 4 years but to be honest, I would have only stayed in if I could have gotten an easier job than a mechanic (it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that in the military the three toughest jobs were cook, cop and mechanic because none of us got any sleep) and they if they would have sent me to Germany but they wouldn't give me both so I got out. My ex joined the Air Force shortly after I left the Army (I won't try to explain all the questions this posting will leave you with, but know that not all of my decisions were effective in creating the outcome I had intended.) After the divorce I moved back home to San Antonio where I met the woman of my dreams. If this was a romance blog I would add in all the details but to keep from boring my readers we will just say that I found a beautiful and great woman that I don't deserve but I wouldn't give up to save my life.

My wife "brownie" is much like I am as in she is a nomadic soul, always looking for a change intrigued by new things and always ready to learn something else. She was born and raised in Guadalajara Mexico and came to the United States to study English. To my surprise my lovely wife is much smarter than her beautiful green eyes tell, she learned English in 6 months, which to me was amazing considering she couldn't complete a sentence in English when we met. Brownie brought out this trapped soul of a traveler that I had buried so deep once I started having children. My youngest daughter is 14 and if I could be an active participant in her life then I would stay in the states until she turned 18 but I'm not, so we're leaving. Brownie and I have been on the move since we met. I had a really nice job at the cable company when she and I hatched (Well actually her dad was in the business and brought it up to me) an idea to import silver jewelry to the states from Mexico and wholesale the jewelry to mom and pop businesses.

We gave up our apartment, second car, all of our home furnishings, everything! We sold everything then turned around and put every cent we had into jewelry and we were going to make it or break it. To be honest with you, we found out there was another option too, survive and have fun. I have been to 27 of the lower 48 states and 7 different countries and I have made up my mind that I will not stop moving until I have been to every country (wonder if I'll ever get to Cuba) in the world. All of the things I saw, people I met and things I did are all just a memory for me and some are slowly fading from my memory too which for my family early memory loss is normal.

So this blog will be my journal to document my travels and to keep safe the memories that I am so prone to forgetting like names, dates and images. I was born in an insignificant little town in the heart of east Texas, raised on a farm to be nothing more than a good salt of the earth hard working man. I feel that after all this time I have lost that direction, the one my father tried to point me in when I was a child. My father may have been a redneck hippy which may sound like a contradiction of terms but it's true. He worked hard and smoked a lot of weed. I have fought being like my father my whole life, I always felt that I didn't have to have a job where I get blisters, sweat or break my back unless it was something I enjoyed. So at this point I realized I have wasted space, time and energy in this life. I don't have a child that depends on my care and support any longer so I am going to expand my mind to its limits. I am going to be a full time travel blogger. I am going to be a digital nomad. I am going to be a full time webmaster. I am going! This is my motto! This is my creed! Follow along and see how my roller coaster rolls!

First step towards becoming a Digital Nomad

Ok, well here I am sitting in the garage of my wife's aunt blogging about how I am off to travel the world, write about it, and build my online business to become something more than just a hobby. This is my first phase of becoming a digital nomad. My wife has sold nearly everything we own minus my T.V and the bed but they will go soon. We haven't sold our truck yet either which is stress inducing. Money is the root of all evil but it is needed when you want to leave your home and travel. I am learning what the phrase "necessary evil" means, because when most people decide to do something like this they save money and a lot of it but me... I like doing things the hard way I think because I got fired six weeks before we had planned to leave. I haven't gotten any unemployment, not another job, not even part time work. All the money we have is what little savings my wife and I had (which wasn't the three months of bills that most financial guys say you need to have either) our tax refund (which is small when you don't have any children and you don't make six figures) and the money from all of our household goods and Brownie's clothing. So the truck selling and making a little money on it would ease some of our money worries, so hopefully it will sell soon. It's not like it's a piece of junk either. It's a 2007 Toyota FJ, bright yellow and I love it but apparently not everyone does so it has taken a lot longer than I had hoped. I have been pressuring Brownie about buying the plane tickets even if the truck hasn't sold yet because it is inevitable that it will sell it's just a matter of time. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll finally buy them tomorrow.

"Buying plane tickets is an art form if you like to be frugal. The fact of the matter is that you have to put in time to find cheap flights, and I don't mean you have to buy the tickets one or more months in advance, I mean that you have to look at ticket prices from every website you can find every couple of days for months."

Seriously!!!

So now we have all of the boxes filled with our "sentimental" items saved at my daughters house here in San Antonio. I used the word sentimental but what I mean to say is shit. I love my wife but she is attached to a lot more things than just me, she really doesn't like to be limited clothing selection either which has stressed her out with this move to Europe. This is something I will have to write a post about but more in depth because I am sure there are a lot of people that have this fear as well so we will see how she handles it. She has faced this challenge once before, when we first got married I bought into the silver jewelry business like her father and we traveled for two years living out of our 2002 Nissan Sentra. This will be even harder for her since we are starting out as “helpers” on an amazing site called HelpX (go to this site to understand how we plan to live for the next few months) which means we will be staying in people's homes and traveling using busses, trains and taxis. Did I mention that my wife is a shop-a-holic? Again, this topic will be a more in depth posting to help people like my wife to see how to live the way you want in every way.

The hardest part about this trip so far has been dealing with my wife's fear. She has stressed out about money and to be honest with you she has the reason, we don't really have a lot of money and we are risking everything so maybe I'm the one that is crazy because I am so ready for this that I almost drool. I am so hungry for a life with more meaning. We really wanted to travel but couldn't afford to live out of hotels or hostels for that matter, so we looked for alternative means. Websites like Work-A-Way and HelpX are exactly that, alternatives. These sites connect people from around the world to help each other and exchange services. For example; “Jean in France just bought an old farm home and they want to convert it to a bed and breakfast style hotel so they post that they need help. These people are called hosts. Other people looking to visit France will see the posting and if they have any of the skills that Jean needs help with they start communicating with Jean and eventually become helpers.” This is our cheap way of traveling in Italy for the next six months. During which time I will work on this blog and hopefully entertaining as many people as I can along the way. My goal is to become financially secure through my gaming network and blogs. I never thought I was a good writer but I have learned that blogging isn't writing in the literal term. Journalists apparently aren't fond of bloggers that think they are journalists and visa versa, but what do I know? Up until this point I didn't have a dog in the hunt.

Today is the 18th of April and I want to buy our plane tickets today for the 1st or 2nd of May, let's see if that happens. The plan is to meet up with Brownie's brother who lives in Ireland right now. He wants to meet up with us as soon as we get there because he is moving back to Mexico in July and we haven't seen him since he moved to Ireland two years ago. Right now I want to meet him in Dublin and then fly to Rome Italy and meet up with our first “host family” which is also our first job. We start our first summer camp job in Italy on the Adriatic coast the third week of May and we'll be there until the last day of June. Our job at the summer camp is supposed to be teaching Italian children to speak English. Brownie and I are bringing our favorite game, Catch Phrase to play with the children and help make learning English fun during summer so we're super excited.

So here we go... We're nervous, excited and even a little scared but fear is a healthy response when you put every dollar your worth at risk. What's the payoff you may ask, well let's ask that question again in another six months.