Over 13 years ago, Charles and I walked onto a Malaysia Airlines flight bound for Kuala Lumpur via Taipei.
We spent the next year exploring Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Spoiler alert: Scroll down below to enter to win a prize package with 3 Lonely Planet books (Canada only)!
By then, we were bitten by the travel bug, and bitten hard.
To this day, I’m not entirely sure what inspired me to take that first step onto that flight. The inspiration may have come from stories from other travelers. Maybe it was the adventures promised between the pages of our guidebook. Maybe I was just born with the need to travel.
But we’d like to hear from YOU today.
We’d like to hear the reasons that get you on the road.
You can share a story about a person that inspired you to travel, or you can tell us something else that inspires your wanderlust.
We’d love to hear:Â What (or who) inspires YOU to travel?
Let us know in the comments below. We’re curious to hear!
Plus a Giveaway from Lonely Planet!
Even better, the folks at Raincoast Books are working with us to give away a prize pack of three great Lonely Planet titles: Ultimate Travelist, Lonely Planet’s Travel with Children, and How to Survive Anything.
The Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist is due for release October 6, 2015, but we got a sneak copy.
This is a big book filled with jaw dropping photos of some of the world’s most interesting destinations. Some of the places, like the Galapagos and Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, are well known but we found some off the beaten path destinations as well, like the Salar de Uyuni (the world’s biggest salt lake) in Bolivia. The only downside to this book is that we can guarantee that your bucket list will probably grow exponentially by the time you’re done reading.
You can pre-order the Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist on Amazon or your local bookstore.
Since we’ve traveled with our kids since they were tiny, and tackled five continents with them in the process, we were primed to like this book. This is an especially great book for those who are new to traveling with kids, with comprehensive coverage on kid-friendly destinations and trip preparation.
You can buy Lonely Planet’s Travel with Children on Amazon.
When How to Survive Anything first arrived, I set it on our coffee table. I was in the middle of sorting through piles of work, so it took me about a week before I had a chance to pick it up.
When that week was over, Cole (who’s 10) had read it cover to cover, and his sister Jordan (who’s six) had read a good chunk as well.
On top of that, every single person who came to visit us picked it up off the coffee table, and read it almost cover to cover.
So when I finally got a chance to pick up How to Survive Anything a week later, I was pretty curious as to what was keeping everyone so entertained.
Honestly, it’s a damn entertaining read.
Visually, the comic-book sketches make it read a lot like a graphic novel. Inside, there are sections on how to survive an eclectic mix of situations, including how to survive a spacewalk, an earthquake, and even locking yourself out of your hotel room naked. I hope never to need that last bit of information.
I’d highly recommend this as a coffee table book; it’s entertaining and funny, and it even gives some helpful practical advice.
You can buy How to Survive Anything on Amazon.
And now your chance to win!
So how do you enter? It’s easy.
See the Rafflecopter widget below?
Just go to the Rafflecopter form below and enter your name and email, or log in with Facebook.
The contest runs from midnight (PSE) Sept 25 2015 to midnight (PST) on Oct 10, 2015. The giveaway is open to residents of Canada only, excluding Quebec, aged 18 or over. The winner will be contacted via email.
The winner will get a copy of all three books!
- Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist
- How to Survive Anything
- Travel with Children
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Raincoast books supplied us with copies of the books for our personal use and the giveaway. As usual, all opinions are our own. This contest is open to Canadian residents only, excluding Quebec.Â