Travel The World For Free!

Author Tells Travelers How To Travel On The Cheap

Something a little different this time. Instead of telling you about the adventures of Carol and myself, I have decided to tell medical health travelers - and other travelers with wanderlust in their hearts - just how to roam the world for free, meals not included.

Read the following article by Tukshad Engineer (is that a cool name or what?) very carefully and afterward, I will tell you where to get more information.

How To Travel The World For Free by: Tukshad Engineer

It sounds like a dream doesn't it? Hopping onto a plane and taking a flight to the destination of your choice. Imagine collecting your flight tickets to New York, London, Goa - or wherever takes your fancy - and not having to pay a cent for them.

For a few people, this dream is actually a reality. How? Simply put they have discovered a little travel secret - namely that a lot of companies will actually pay the travel expenses for you to oversee their package or document from one country to another. Now this may bring to mind images of having to smuggle a microfilm past some dodgy Russian customs ala James Bond, but the reality is nowhere near as exciting or dangerous - which is great news for the budget traveler.

The even better news is that with a little know how, any adult can act as a courier and score free and deeply discounted flight tickets to the destination of their choice.

It's completely legal and can save you thousands in saved airfare every year. Courier companies are continually on the lookout for willing travelers to carry their items overseas. There is nothing sinister about it and nothing is hidden from the authorities - the traveler is paid with a deeply discounted (and sometimes free) air ticket.

According to a survey by the Air Courier Association the standard saving that travelers get when they act as a courier is 85 percent on the normal flight price. There isn't a travel agent in the world that will match such a discount.

So what are your responsibilities as a courier? Well it's as simple as turning up to the airport on time and meeting the courier companys representative at the destination airport. As soon as you walk through the customs area at your destination, your job is over.

What are the drawbacks of this deeply discounted travel? Well for a start you're probably only going to be allowed one carry on bag as your luggage - so learning how to travel light & pack efficiently is essential. It's also important to have some degree of flexibility in terms of when you're able to fly, though usually you can get many flights comfortably in advance. You also need to be at least 18 and obviously have a valid passport.

Assuming you're ok with these drawbacks, you can really fly to just about any destination at incredibly low costs. You can learn more about how to be a courier at http://www.global-ebooks.com/TravelFree.htm or if you are looking for more budget travel tips check out http://www.my-online-powerpack.com/traveldiscount.htm
Ready to go? The whole world awaits you!
About The Author
Discover how to travel at great discounts & even for free at: http://www.global-ebooks.com/TravelFree.htm. For the best travel newsletter in the world today including destination reviews & regular deep discounts send me a mail to tukshad@global-ebooks.com

Top Nine Factors To Look For In A Staffing Service

Be Wary And Do The Math

On my first entry I gave information about what factors medical travelers should look for in a staffing company. But since that was a while back I decided to update them and run them again.

Therefore, if you are a health care professional, doctor, nurse, occupational therapist, physical therapist, including COTAs and PTAs, and you want to see this country on someone else's dime, then there are a few precautions you need to take before signing up with a staffing company.

1. How long has the staffing company you are considering joining been in business?
   This can be important in getting you the location of the assignment you want. Some states, like North Carolina, seem to have joined in one massive plan to bar travelers from getting sent to any health care facility located there, nevermind trying to get prime jobs at locations like the beach or mountains. I'm not saying it can't be done. One of our first assignments was in Fayetteville, NC. But since then we have been unable to get an assignment back there, not with the company we are with now, nor with others we have checked into. A company that has been around longer may have better contacts with employers and know exactly where the location of the best housing.
2. How are you paid? Do you get per diem payments as well as hourly? How much do they allow for housing and does the company have a housing division or does your recruiter do double duty as the housing department? Hourly pay rates run all over the board, so check with at least three staffing companies. Do the math. Some staffing companies have a complicated pay system. They may pay you hourly wages at one rate, say $18 per hour, plus an additional $3 or $4 an hour untaxed rate. They will try to tell you this untaxed rate is equal to a higher pay than if they just paid you $21 an hour. Moreover, if you take the insurance they offer, your pay will be at a lower rate even though you may be contributing to the medical plan costs. Not all companies do this, but many do. So be careful and do the math. Have the recruiter give you a concrete example you can understand.
3. Where is the staffing company's main office located and do they have any satellite offices in other states? Once again, this will tell you their sphere of influence as to their ability to get you a staffing job.
4. Do they reimburse for travel from one assignment to the next?
   Some medical staffing companies pay for the entire move. Others pay only a set amount regardless of how much it costs you.
5. Does the medical staffing company pay for continuing education courses?
   Throughout the year you will need to earn a certain number of continuing education points. The amount depends on the state licensing requirements for the state you are in or for the states in which you are licensed. Some companies do not specifically pay for continuing education but may give a stipend each month that you can use for that purpose. It can get expensive going to seminars. You have to figure in not just the cost of the course, which can run to several hundred dollars, but also travel costs, meals and possibly hotel expenses.
6. Do they offer a medical plan? Believe me, you will need to have good medical coverage while you are traveling. In my other entries I chronicled our debacle with my wife's injuries. And recently, my wife was coming out of a patient's room and slipped on a wet floor and reinjured the same ankle she broke back in December and injured her shoulder. The medical plans offered by the various staffing agencies are all different. Some will pay the entire amount for the traveler and if there is a spouse or other family member, the traveler will have to cough up some money for the addition. Remember, nearly all of them reduce your pay if you take the insurance.
7. Does the medical staffing company offer any earned paid time off in addition to paid vacation time? You will want to take some time off aside from vacations. Some staffing agencies let the traveler earn a paid day off for X amount of weeks worked. This allows you to take sick days and still get paid. Also, find out how their vacation plan works.
8. You will want to retire one day. Most experts say the way to wealth is to start early and don't touch your money. Does the medical staffing company offer an investment or retirement plan?
   If a 401K plan is offered this can be one of the best ways to start building you nest egg. As a suggestion, while you are on this working vacation try to read up on how to invest your money. If nothing else, when a financial expert talks to you, you will be less likely to be taken for a bad financial ride.
9. During the interview with the potential health facility find out what their patient load per medical professional is per day. Prior to taking an assignment you will interview with the department manager, among others, usually by phone. One of the most important questions to ask is how many clients they see per day. Generally, 8 to 10 clients for an occupational therapist, for example, is considered a full day. If the interviewer says they see 10 to 16 per day, drop the phone like a hot potato. You don't want to work in a sweat mill where the financial bottom line is more important that people.

Medical Convention Turns Into Vacation

Health Travelers Seek Fountain of Youth In St. Augustine

Wow! Who knew there was so much to do in St. Augustine? One of the benefits of being in the medical profession is that you have to take continuing education courses.

As medical travelers, people who take temporary assignments in cities or states away from their homes, you get the opportunity to take continuing ed courses in cities that you might not get the chance to visit otherwise.

My wife the Traveler decided to take a recent course on "modalities' offered at the University of Florida at St. Augustine. Medical professionals will know what it is but I am mostly clueless. She told me what it was, but it went in one ear and out the other.

My wife is a traveler. I am her husband and chronicler of our adventures. She is with a staffing company that finds her a job, hopefully in a city and state of her choice, but not always. Sometimes the job opening of choice is just not there. The staffing company also finds the apartment, pays the rent and utilities and pays her an hourly wage.

And I have to tell you, it's not a bad life - mostly. There are adjustments, which I have discussed in earlier blogs and will continue to enumerate in future articles.

Back to St. Augustine. We had this planned for a couple of months. The seminar was to be held on a Saturday and Sunday and she would get about 12 points for the course, more than enough to meet state licensing requirements for continuing education for the year for her license in North Carolina. The Traveler holds three state licenses - North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

The Traveler took off Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. You should know that when you are a traveler, you only get paid when you work. I don't know of any staffing company that gives you sick days. There may be some. We haven't looked at every medical staffing company - though it sometimes seems like we have.

Some companies give you vacation days which you can accrue in a variety of creative ways, but generally you can't take off in the middle of an assignment and get paid for it. In some cases the establishment you are assigned to may not let you have the time off, so prepare carefully.

But Carol prepared for this and told the facility before she agreed to come on board that she would need time off to attend the seminar.

Moreover, we wanted to make a mini-vacation out of it. So we left Thursday evening after she got off work and drove into St. Augustine, about 370 miles from Southern Alabama - opps! - I mean Pensacola, FL.

This left us with Friday to explore the nation's oldest European established city.
We decided to first take a tour to get the highlights of what to see and do. Besides, parking was at a premium around the city.

But you can park at one of the stops of the various tour companies and park there for free and ride around the city, get off and on anytime up until about 4 pm. There are a couple of tour offerings in St. Augustine. The Red Train had a sign in their parking lot that you had to be out by 5 p.m. or your car would be towed.

We were out by 4:30, but when we passed by a little after 5 p.m. sure enough a tow truck was hitching to some poor visitor's car. We saw the guy exit from the train just as it arrived and run to his car. I think he was able to talk the guy out of towing it off.

For the Red Trains, operated by "Ripley's Believe It Or Not," we parked at their operations station, took the entire 1 hour and 15 minute tour and then got off somewhere in the Old City on the second time around.

There are literally hundreds of shops offering just about everything along the quaint street of St. George.

We got to hear three different guides since we rode the train at three different times and they all tell the same information but the facts may differ a little. Nonetheless, it is still informative, and to me, interesting.

As we drove around the public square in the old city in the open air trains, the guide is easily heard by passersby. The Square, where the British used to sell slaves, was holding an arts and crafts fair. One guy objected to one of the tidbits of information the guide was giving and loudly proclaimed on the sidewalk as he followed us that, "He's a liar! That's not true!"

I don't quite recall what particular nugget of tour-guide wisdom he didn't like. It didn't matter to me. I take everything they say with a "grain of salt" anyway.

There is just too much information to talk about in a single blog. The history of the place, the various buildings and their stories and the sights alone make it an interesting place for me.

The original "Ripley's Believe It or Not," where the show hosted by Actor Dean Cain shoots some of the scenes, is located in St. Augustine, and is one of the stops on the tour.

And of course, The Fountain of Youth, that Ponce DeLeon was searching for, is there and is one of the stops on the tour. It's the reason St. Augustine was discovered in the first place.

I guess I should say discovered by Europeans, because it was already discovered by the people living there, the Timucuan Indians. Sadly, there are none in existence today.

If you go to St. Augustine, you will hear a lot about bloody battles, coquina walls, and Henry Flagler. All are important in the history of St. Augustine.

The Red Train tickets are good for three days and I rode the train several times while the Traveler was taking her seminar. I got off a various locations and walked around and took a lot of pictures.

The trains run pretty frequently and one hits a Train Stop about every 15 minutes.

While strolling around the Old City, we bought chocolate from a little chocolate shop that makes their own candy. Carol purchased a gift for one of our two daughter's upcoming birthday, an original gift made in the Southwest of buffalo bone.

All in all we had a great time and plan to go back to St. Augustine again to see all the stuff we didn't have time for the first visit.

Self photo taken at St. Augustine

McGuires Irish Pub

Shots of McGuire's Inside and Out.

When Irish Eyes Are Smilin'

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, They Must Have Just Come From McGuire's

As a traveling couple, the Traveler and I try to eat home cooked meals as much as possible. We have sort of reversed traditional roles. She works to bring home the bacon while I, the Chronicler, take care of the house and cooking and just about everything else.

My goal is to see to it that all she has to be responsible for is going to work for 8 hours. When we decided for her to take a travel assignment and me to stop truck driving, this was the agreement we came up with. And so far it works pretty well.
We mostly avoid the chain restaurants in favor of the unique in hope of a serendipitous experience.

One Saturday recently serendipity smiled on us with a wonderful eating experience at McGuire's Irish Pub in Pensacola.

But we eat out once, sometimes twice, a week - usually on the weekends. We have hit a few local restaurants here in Milton, FL that are pretty good. Usually, we try to find local restaurants in whatever city we happen to be living to try the cuisine.

The most amazing thing you notice when you walk into McGuire's is all the money hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling is thick with signed dollar bills stapled to the rafters like some sort of tempting carpet. The signatures carry some notables such as Janet Jackson and George Carlin to mention a couple.

The estimates of bills range from 250,000 to 500,000 dollars hanging from the ceiling. But keep your hands off! A news article stuck on the wall near our table told about a young man who decided to help himself to more than 20 of the dangling dollars and then tried to spend them at a nearby liquor store.

As I said, all the bills are signed - with a black magic marker. The liquor store owner recognized the signed bills and called the cops. That young man was soon singing the blues after stealing the green.

I couldn't help but be impressed with the pub's ambiance. Irish theme music was playing in the background. Loud enough to hear but low enough to allow conversation. You might be able to remain stoic when "Danny Boy" was played but you would just have to shed a tear when "Amazing Grace" came on played by bagpipes.

However, you'll cheer up when you hear "Clancy Lowers The Boom" or "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." The place also has lots of dark wood and souvenirs scattered around the 20,000-square-foot restaurant.

But it doesn't feel large. The place is divided into a number of small, cozy rooms with dark wood tables placed around the walls and little cul-de-sacs. The friendly waitress was dressed in turn of the century style with a black dress that went to her ankles, a white blouse and a shamrock green vest.

As we have traveled about the country we sometimes encounter restaurants in the city we are in that tout themselves as being Irish or British. We usually try to stop and check out the cuisine. Mostly we are disappointed by tasteless, overpriced fare.

One menu item I have tried in several European themed restaurants is the shepherd's Pie. Until McGuire's, I have been disappointed.

Man! I don't know if I can describe it! A steaming boat shaped dish topped with at least an inch of lightly baked, fluffy potatoes. Underneath it was filled with ground beef, potatoes, corn and carrots in a savory seasoned gravy. Prior to the main course my wife and I ordered the 18 cent bean soup. Delicious. Yeah. Only 18 cents if you order a main course.

My wife ordered one of the 20 varieties of large gourmet, ground steak burgers. We traded bites. It, too, was tongue teasingly tasty, (if I'm not being too alliterative). Though I preferred my shepherd's Pie.

I also drank an light ale, which went down smoothly. They have a number of ales and wine. In fact, McGuire's offers ales, porters and stouts brewed on the premises in its traditional oak and copper brewery. Currently, the restaurant brews five regular beers on a rotating seasonal basis.

But McGuire's is particularly noted for its fine steaks and has won "One of America's Great Steakhouses Golden Spoon Award" seven different times since the restaurant's opening in 1977 as well as numerous other food awards and awards for fine wines.

In 1977, McGuire's was started as a turn of the century New York Irish saloon. As you enter the doorway from outside over the entrance is written "Cead Mile Failte" and is Gaelic for "One Hundred Thousand Welcomes."

When you leave McGuire's you'll be well fed and your eyes will be smilin' whether they are Irish or not and you might even hear the angels sing. Oh, by the way, if you sign a dollar bill to attach somewhere on the ceiling, you get to be an adopted Irishman or Irishwoman.

'Til next time, travelers.

Thank Cain and Mobile for Mardi Gras

When I hear about Mardi Gras celebrations I used to think of New Orleans. Well after this assignment in Pensacola I will think of Mobile, Ala. After all, that's where Mardi Gras began in this country.

Didn't know that, did ya? I didn't either. But during Mardi Gras season, roughly from the middle of February until about the first week of March, Mardi Gras celebrations are all over the news - if you live around the Gulf Coast.

Moreover, it is a big celebration in Mobile, Ala., and people come from all over to see the various parades. For some reason the news media in other states don't seem to mention much that Mobile is where the big party started in this country.

In 1703, when Mobile was a colony for French soldiers, the military men decided to celebrate surviving a particular bad bout with yellow fever. Party favors, however, were hard to find in the New World, so the men decided to paint their faces red and for a few hours act crazy. It must have been a lot of fun because it became and annual event, according to various sources.

There was a hold put on Mardi Gras festivities during the hostilities of the Civil War. Afterward, Mobile was occupied by Federal troops, and there was little revelry. However, in 1866, a man by the name of Joe Cain felt it was time once again to bring back the merriment of Mardi Gras and decided to do his part to put life back into the town.

Cain decked himself in full Chickasaw Indian regalia, proclaimed himself Chief Slacabamorinico, climbed aboard a coal wagon with six spirited (figuratively and literally) friends calling themselves "The Tea Drinkers," and road his one-mule, one-float parade through the town.

Mobile during the Festival of Lent has never been the same since. But how did it get to New Orleans? According to various sources, Mardi Gras was transformed into a parade event in 1840 by a group known as the Cowbellion de Rakin Society, the first of many of Mobile's so-called mystic organizations who journeyed to New Orleans in 1857 to help a group there set up a Mardi Gras celebration. And the rest is history.

The Mobile Mardi Gras is considered to be more family oriented and less crazy that the one in Mobile. In addition, small towns all along the Gulf Coast celebrate Mardi Gras with their own parades.

Finding out about local history and traditions is just one of the fascinating benefits you get as a medical health traveler.

Carol's assignment will be up here in April and we plan to travel to the Tampa Bay area. We have the assignment but I will hold it in surprise until my next entry. One of the interesting bits of information is that if you do a good job at your place of assignment and you like everyone, the medical facility will most likely ask you to hire on.

But don't let it go to your head. It's flattering, to be sure, but unless you really like the area and the pay is adequate for your needs, keep to your goal to travel. You may never get to see the country on someone else's dime again.

Here's the answer to last entry's puzzle question. It's kind of a long answer. But for Wintergreen Life Savers Roll Candy to sparkle, you have to have it really dark. When you bite down hard on the candy, which is made up of a combination of mint flavoring and crystalline sugar, the energy stimulates a component in the flavoring to emit light. The component in wintergreen is methyl salicylate. There you have it.

Happy Trails travelers, 'til next time.

Sebastian the Wonder/Travel Dog

You Will Lead A Dog's Life If You Take A Pet While Traveling

If you are up in some snow-bound state, you may just love it. Or you may be looking out at the two feet of new fallen snow, on top of the 6 feet you already have, and hold that hot cup of coffee with both hands and think, "Man, I'm freezing my keester off!"

That's why we decided to spend the winter in a warmer climate this year. That's a choice you can make when you're a traveling health care professional. My wife, the Traveler, works as an occupational therapy assistant and we travel the U.S., taking on different assignments in almost what ever state she wants to work.

And what do I do, you may ask? Since I am not a trained health care professional, I grab what jobs I can, which are few, and try to work the internet.

This past weekend was gorgeous. It could have maybe been a few degrees warmer, but it was still wonderful. We are in the Pensacola area of Florida, and up until last week, it was really a courtesy to call it Florida. It's really Southern Alabama, and while not as cold as farther north, it still gets pretty chilly, especially in the morning.

Navarre Beach is called "Florida's Best Kept Secret." I didn't make that up. It's on the sign when you enter the town. But I believe it.

On Sunday my wife and I hit the beach at Navarre and the scenic beauty was postcard picture perfect. The sand was fine and looked like snow, the ocean was a clear aqua marine darkening to deep blue as it went away from shore and the sun was a welcome sight in this part of Western Florida that experiences more of the four seasons than they do farther South.

We have been in the area since mid-January and for the most part it has been cool, cloudy and rainy, with intermittent bouts of frost.

Some of you are probably saying, "Poor baby," in a very unsympathetic tone. You're the ones freezing you keesters off. But we were almost 500 miles farther south prior to this assignment in Avon Park, a small town about 70 miles south of Orlando, right about in the middle of the state.

It was great! High 70s, low 80s in December, surrounded by orange, grapefruit and tangerine groves. The place we were staying at was right on a lake. I walked out to the orange trees and picked oranges that tasted as sweet as sugar. I noticed when I went shopping at the Wal-Mart there that the store had oranges from South Africa. Why would anyone buy them when the town is surrounded by orange groves? Many homes have trees with the lush fruit growing in their yards.

So the transition from Avon Park to Pensacola was a drastic change. They plant a few scrawny palm trees up here only because it's Florida and people expect to see them. They don't see to do well. I noticed that the temperature was usually about 8 to 15 degrees cooler than farther south. Not good, since we didn't bring any winter clothing with us. Afterall, we were going to be in Florida for the winter. I heard more than one visitor to the Pensacola area say something like, "This Florida! Why is it so cold?" I didn't have the heart to tell her it's really southern Alabama.

Why did we go Western Florida, you might ask, knowing that it had cooler temperatures? Good question. We have a dog. Sebastian the Wonder/Travel Dog. He's part Bassett Hound and part something else. He was a pound puppy when we got him for our daughters. But they have grown up and moved away, but we still have the dog.

When we decided to travel we couldn't bring ourselves to get rid of the dog. Most people seem to want a puppy and he was fully grown. He 's now about 7 years old.

For the health care professional who decides to hire on to a staffing company for travel assignments, I urge you to not take an animal with you. If you do make it something really small, weighing only about 5 pounds. That way you can always hide it under your shirt if you have to.

We have run into more discrimination with our dog than I would have though possible. It is extremely difficult to find a place to live.

Most staffing company's will do the finding of a place to live for you, but it will not always be what you would like. They will tell you they find a safe place close to where you will work. But that doesn't always happen, particularly if you have a pet.

And places that take a pet charge you extortionist prices such as an extra $25 a month for the pet and pet deposit that can range from $300 to $500 that is not refundable! Moreover, the staffing company will not pay the pet deposit, nor the extra fee for the dog. That will come out of your pocket.

And most places put a 35 pound limit or less on the pet. Our dog's head weighs that much. However, I may not like it, but I understand why apartment rentals do this. I know from having had a cleaning business for a while that people live worse than their animals, and pet owners as a whole have brought this on themselves. I personally see to it that Sebastian gets a bath once a month and gets regular flea and tick treatments. And he gets his annual shots. He actually gets better medical treatment than I do.

But do yourselves a favor. Don't take an animal with you while traveling. You will get better, luxury places to live and it will be easier for the staffing company to find housing for you. That's how we ended up here in Western Florida.

We wanted the Tampa Bay area after Avon Park, which was actually cut short after only 8 weeks of a 13 week assignment. Every where we have been prior to this has asked Carol to extend for a short time and we thought this would be the case also.

But they hired a permanent employee and cut the contract early. My wife's staffing company said there were no openings in the Tampa Bay area - that they had contracts for. There were openings, they just didn't have the contracts and were apparently not interested in trying to get any. However, they did have an opening in Pensacola and there was a small house with a garage they could get for us in the nearby town of Milton and they would take the dog.

That settled it. We decided to go to Pensacola. It's kind of funny. The day after the Traveler agreed to take the assignment, the house was rented the day before. It seems the owner was tired of waiting for the staffing company to get a sucker, I mean a traveler, in the area and rented it. It seems we were a victim of the ol' bait and switch ploy.

More next time. Here's the answer to last week's puzzle question. Because air moves in layers. Rain often occurs when a higher warm air mass overwhelms a cool, dry air mass at ground level. Humidity is measured at ground level and when the rain from the higher layer falls through the dry air layer, the humidity on the surface rises, but need not rise to 100 percent. In the reverse, when the moist layer is below the high pressure system, the humidity can reach 100 percent on the surface even if the uppper air layer is dry. (Puzzles supplied by Imponderables, the Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life, by David Feldman)

Think about this for next time:Why do Wintergreen Life Savers sparkle in the dark when you bite into them?

Happy Trails, 'til next time, travelers!

Carol and I share a fun moment on St. Martin in the top photo and in the bottom we spend the last day of 2005 as the sun sets on the west coast of Florida at Madeira Beach. The next morning we saw the sun rise at Vero Beach on the east coast.

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me The News

Traveling can be a lot of fun. You get to live and see places on someone else's dime that you might never see otherwise. But there are some complications.

Remember this, if a staffing company offers you a high hourly pay, it means that most likely you will lose out in other areas, such as per diems, car allowance and amount allowed for housing.
After going through several staffing companies, we opted for one with a high hourly pay and per diems, but little or nothing in the way of benefits.

With this said, we jump back to last entry with Carol, the Traveler, in the doctor's office with an ankle sprain that's not doing too well. We waited almost five days before going to the doctor, hoping the swelling would go down. It didn't. And of course she missed work all this time. She was working for a rehabilitation center for the elderly in Avon Park, FL.

One of the first orders of business you should do in a new assignment is look for a doctor that takes you insurance plan. You don't want to have to start looking for one after the emergency erupts. Be ready ahead of time. Of course, we weren't ready, but it didn't matter much since we didn't rush off to the doctor when she first injured her foot.

The doctor we found, located in the near by city of Sebring, looked at her ankle and sent her down the street to the hospital for X-rays. More waiting. Then home. Now keep in mind, he did nothing for her foot, but told her to wrap it and keep it iced and elevated and take acetaminophen for pain.

Next day, we get a call to come in and see the doctor about the Xrays. He says he sees a chip in the ankle bone and wants her to see a specialist. We get an appointment in a couple of days and get to see the doctor. She looks at Carol's foot and the X-rays and agrees there's a chip but it will heal fine.

She gives (only in the euphemistic since of give - it cost a couple of hundred bucks) her and inflatable boot that makes her kind of walk like Frankenstein's Monster, but she is able to WALK. She also says she wants Carol to have a CAT scan to make sure there is nothing else going on inside.

So, doop-de-do, we go back to the hospital for the CAT scan. More waiting. About a week later, we get called back in. During the intervening time the doctor has given her a prescription for a mild pain killer, which we decline to get. Instead we went the Ibuprofen route instead, hoping to reduce the costs.

Eventually, the swelling goes down, the foot, which was purple faded back to its normal healthy coloring. It took almost two months. When we got the bill, it came to over $3,000. Now, keep in mind, no one touched her foot - except maybe the guy taking her X-rays and CAT scan; no one massaged it, or put pain killer on it or even an ice pack. Moreover, although the doctor we initially went to was covered under our medical savings plan, the guy who took the X-ray was not. We had no control over that. But the company refused to pay. It didn't matter. There wasn't enough in the account to cover everything anyway.

The point of all this is that we were healthy and hoped the medical savings plan would have enough in it to cover most of our emergencies. Who knew a fractured bone would cost so much?

When signing up with a staffing company there are some that will supply the traveler with free health care. The spouse and other dependents have to pay for their own. The one we are with did not offer free health care. They did have a health plan, but we decided against it.

But the extra money we received in lieu of the health benefit should have gone into a health plan, not just a medical savings plan. So make a list of what is important to you when deciding on which staffing company to go with - i.e. benefits, pay, amount spent for housing, medical coverage and retirement.

We went with the company we chose because it paid $1500 more a month than the last company we were with. They almost starved us to death, plus they did not even have free health care. They were making a bundle off of my wife. Well, maybe not a bundle, but they were making a lot.

We reasoned it out this way, we found out what the staffing company was getting per hour for my wife's expertise. Then we subtracted what they were paying in housing and pay, which is about all they were offering. This way we knew how much they were making. We went to another company and made more than $1500 per month more than with the last company. To us, that's a significant amount of money.

That's all for today. Here the answer to last entry's trivia question: One answer could be that they are tougher than people and are not crybabies. But a more scientific answer: penguins' feet are kept from freezing by their unique circulatory system. Arteries carry warm blood toward the toes, while veins next to them carry cold blood back in the opposite direction. The two bloodstreams exchange heat so that the circulation level can remain low enough to conserve heat and just high enough to prevent tissue damage and frostbite. Penquins feet have few muscles, Instead, their feet possess a vast network of tendons, which do not become as painful as muscles when cold.

Til next time think abou this: How can the relative humidity be under 100 percent when it is raining?

(These questions and answers are all furnished courtesy of "Imponderables, The Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life" by David Feldman.) If you want to try and give an answer, send it to me at Loosenutbtw@yahoo.com. I'll put the best answer, if not the correct one, in the next entry.

Answers next time and more travel adventures. Happy trails, travelers.

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
- Voltaire

"Expect the unexpected" is a phrase that really makes no sense. You can't know everything that is going to happen and therefore you can't really prepare for it.

There we were enjoying the gorgeous weather in Sarasota, while others much farther north were experience brutal cold, snow, ice and high heating bills. It could almost make one feel guilty, almost.

If you believe in some sort of divine retribution, what happened next might seem like punishment for our feeling so good about our circumstances. My wife, the Traveler, stepped down off a curb that was slanted into a ramp for the handicap and misjudged the distance to the street. Afterall, she was gawking around at the stores, the decorations, the architecture and the people as I was.

I had just started to take a picture of something, I don't remember what, when Carol disappeared. Actually, she dropped from sight like falling through a manhole cover. She didn't really fall through a hole. She turned her ankle as I was looking slightly away and dropped down. I thought she had just stumbled and offered my hand to assist her up. But she couldn't stand.

I felt like an idiot afterward. My wife had fallen, and rather than be concerned, I was being very nonchalant about it. An unknown woman came up and offered assistance. We didn't get her name, as the Traveler and myself were worried about looking foolish. To that unknown woman we say, thank you very much for your assistance. Sorry we didn't say something then.

What you do in life comes back to you. Her offer of assistance will come back to her in a blessing.

The Traveler's right foot swelled up like a cantaloupe. For those of you wondering what to do when you sprain an ankle, use the RICE method. That's rest, ice, compression and elevation. Rest the foot - don't keeping walking on it; pack ice on it - not directly on the skin. Use a cloth to protect the skin. Don't keep it on any longer than 20 minutes; keep the ankle compressed with an ankle wrap; and of course, keep the ankle elevated.

We couldn't expect that she would turn her ankle, but we did have some money in a medical savings plan that we hoped would cover any doctor's bill that might come up. We waited about three days, three days of missed work, before we went to a doctor.

He looked at her foot, recommended X-rays, for which we had to go to a nearby hospital to have it done, and sent us home with instructions to take acetaminophen for pain and use the REST method. We were to come back the next day for the X-ray results.

That's enough for now. More next time. In the meantime, think about this:

Why don't penguins in the Antarctic get frostbite on their feet?

You'll get the answer next entry.

'Til next time, Happy trails, travelers!

Another image of Sarasotas St. Armands Circle. The clown in the left middle section is juggling various items at the time we visited. The top photo is the nearby marina.

If You've Got the Money, Honey, I've Got the Time.

Everyday you get out in the same rush hour traffic. You see the same people at work, and you see the same patients and the same scenery and pretty soon there is a rut in the roads and health care facility where you work with your name on it. It's worn there by you doing the same thing day after day.

For some people, routine is a blessing. But for others, get out the prozac. If you are among the latter, you may be ripe for working as a traveling health care worker. There are literally dozens and dozens of staffing agencies for doctors, nurses, therapists - both occupational and physical, and therapy assistants as well as in almost every area of health care.

I am not going to recommend one over the other. This series of entries will help guide you in finding, and choosing one that is a fit with you.
As a traveler, you will work for a rehabilatation facility of some kind for about 13 weeks, sometimes longer. Then you can move on to another place in another city or even another state - all on someone else's dime.

Typically, the staffing agency finds you a place to live and makes sure it is stocked with everything you need to live pleasantly. Depending upon where you take an assignment, you may get a nice one bedroom apartment close to where you will be working. Or it may be an extended stay hotel with a kitchenette. A lot of it will depend on whether you are alone or traveling with a spouse. (Wait until I get into the benefits of traveling with a spouse who is also a health care worker. You can really bring in some bucks!)

And the pay is typically better than if you hired on permanently at a facility, but the benefits you get at some places may not be as good. If that is important to you, the intangible benefits that you don't see in your paycheck, then you need to ask questions of the staffing agencies, because many of them have more benefits than others.

But I will tell you this, what a staffing agency gives you in one area, they typically take away in another. For example, when you sign on with a staffing agency and go to work for a health care facility, the staffing agency pays you, not the facility. So if you sign on with an agency that offers great benefits, like paid medical and car allowance and per diems, they will usually offer you a smaller hourly pay.

I can't stress enough how important it is to compare what the various agencies offer. Some are great and others will take you to the cleaners, while making it sound like they are doing you a favor.

But first, how do you go about finding an agency? The first step is to go to a search engine like, Google, or Yahoo or MSN and type in "traveling health care jobs." One of the best sites showing job availability is Absolute Health Care found at www.healthjobsusa.com.

What's one big drawback to being a traveling healthcare worker? Medical coverage may be slim to none. Everyone knows adequate health plans are expensive, and many companies that were giving it to their employees as part of their benefits have begun to ask them to chip in some money by reducing their pay.

And that's how we get into the $3,000 mis-step my wife took in Sarasota, FL not too long ago.

I know I said I would get into it in this entry, but I think I will save it for next time. Right now you have enough on your plate to digest.

Happy trails 'til next time.

Life Is A Highway.

Recently, Carol and myself were traveling south along the Gulf of Mexico Highway. It was this past December and we were just tooling around checking out cities around Florida. We're travelers. Or I should say, Carol is the traveler and I am her go-to man, the person she goes to to ease her path while she works as a traveling occupational therapy assistant. I'm also her husband.

I used to drive a tractor-trailer long haul and I did it for 12 years. I've been in all the states in the contiguous United States, but I've spent most of my time on interstates or, sometimes, U.S. highways. The back-country roads or scenic highways I, like most truck drivers, stay off of them. So now I was getting a chance to see some of the more quaint bucolic areas that I missed while driving. "Life is a highway/I want to drive it all night long. . . " kept rattling around in my mind as we drove through Anna Maria Island, Holmes Beach, Bradenton Beach, Longboat Key and into Sarasota.

As we came into Sarasota, the song switched to, "Money, is divine. . ." by Pink Floyd. The mansions and varying architectural styles, the millions of dollars in cost and the beauty of the landscape was boggling. Now don't get me wrong. Not only have I been in 48 of the US states, I have been in 7 countries in Europe and Asia, and of course, Canada. I even lived for over a year in Germany. So I'm not some country bumpkin. But I sure felt like one.

We came to Florida because we wanted at least one winter where the weather was mostly warm and sunny and we could wear shorts and sandals. And for the most part, we got it. We drove through the trendy shops of St. Armands Circle and continued on our scenic route. The air was warm, the sky a baby blue, and we felt like we were on vacation.

Nearing the marina, we rounded a curve and there, in a park-like strip of lawn, standing at least 5 stories high, was a statue of the sailor kissing the nurse that immortalized magazine covers and denoted the joy people felt when World War II had ended. Right about that time the tune in my head switched to Glenn Miller's "In the mood, " because the atmosphere suddenly had a 1940s feel.

We parked and explored a little and then went back to St. Armands Circle. It was decorated nicely for Christmas. We enjoyed ourselves, walking through the shops, eating pizza at a sidewalk table and generally feeling like we were on vacation. That's the one aspect of being traveling health care workers that we wanted to feel - like we were on vacation.

Everything was fine until we, or I should say, Carol, took that one step - and then things went downhill after that. It was a $3000 misstep that I will tell you about next entry. I will also give some tips to travelers to help make their traveling easier. No need to reinvent the wheel if somebody has already made one.