Travel & Adventure Archives - Page 13 of 26 - Sonia Marsh

Get A Free Vacation In Spain While Speaking English

May 22, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 14 Comments

The "Crazy" Vaughan Town"Anglos and Spaniards — The “Crazy” Vaughan Town”Anglos and Spaniards

(Part One of Volunteering with Vaughan Town.)

Lock 15 “crazy” Anglos together with 13 “shy” Spaniards in a remote Spanish hotel and what do you get?

28 freaked out Spanglos by the end of the week.

If you’re longing for an unusual experience where you help people practice their English through games, one-on-one conversations while walking through the Spanish countryside, delicious three-course meals with wine, a beautiful hotel room and nightly entertainment then Vaughan Volunteers may be just the program for you. Now here’s the amazing part; all of this is paid for so you are only responsible for your airfare to Madrid, and any extras you wish to purchase.

Last year, while attending a writers’ conference in Orange County, California, I was fortunate to discuss volunteering abroad with a fellow writer. She asked me if I’d heard about the Vaughan Volunteers program in Spain, and said she signed up for the Fall. At first I was surprised as this lady was in her late seventies, and I thought you had to be young to sign up. I soon find out that this is a popular program for volunteers of all ages and backgrounds, and that they encourage non-teachers to sign-up. They are looking for different accents so that Spaniards can learn to communicate with British, American, Canadian, Australians an other native English speakers from around the world. It is mainly sponsored by Spanish companies, who pay the fee for their employees to improve their English conversation skills. Those fees pay for the Anglos to attend.

Needless to say, I am anxious to sign up, however, the program fills up quickly as it is extremely popular.

I book my ticket to Madrid and stay at the EuroBuilding 2 Hotel (photos), where the Vaughan Town headquarters are located. I land at Barajas International airport early on Saturday morning, which gives me sufficient time to do a quick tour of Madrid’s famous, “Mercado de San Miguel,” a must for all foodies with its selection of tapas, breads, cheeses, meats, sweets and drinks. Who would have thought Spain was still suffering from a recession after seeing the local crowds enjoying a Saturday outing with children, parents, grandparents and friends. Check out the mojitos served in the mercado.

On Saturday evening, the Vaughan Volunteers program starts with a festive tapas reception to meet the other Anglos; most of us are from the UK , the US and Canada. I am surprised to find out that many of the Anglos are on their 4th or 5th volunteer program.

Sunday morning we meet our “Spaniards” transfixed to the sidewalk, gripping onto their suitcases and loved ones. They are searching for a friendly Anglo “date” to sit next to on the bus ride to a small village called Torrecaballeros, one hour and fifteen minutes from Madrid.

100_2320 — I sat next to Maria Jose, my new Spanish friend

I put myself in their place. How nerve-wracking to speak English to Anglos from all over the world, with such diverse accents. How long will it take for them to feel relaxed?

Check out the video of my beautiful hotel room with a view over the pastures of TorreCaballeros.

We arrive at the gorgeous “El Rancho” hotel on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. The weather is sunny and warm, and after placing our suitcases on the stunning hotel lobby mahogany floors, and admiring the paintings and interesting artifacts from Africa, we order a cafe con leche at the bar, and the bonding continues.

Please tune in June for Part Two.

Pete and Marisa, are the two wonderful organizers of our week at El Rancho.

MGS FINAL COVER Small — Click on cover to go to Amazon

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

What I Did To Make My Life Happy

May 5, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 8 Comments

Not My Dream, But My Life

“My Gutsy Story®” Jennifer Barclay

I spent my fortieth birthday not being whisked away to a Spanish city for a romantic weekend, as had been hinted in what now seemed the distant past, but weeping and shaky with my parents. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

My life had seemed to be coming together, at last settling into year two with a nice man. We were talking about moving somewhere beautiful together. Then he changed his mind.

For a while, the only option was falling apart at the seams.

All I’d wanted was a simple, comfortable happiness at the centre of everything: helping me to be the person who sang tunelessly as she cycled to work in the morning, had good friends and a fulfilling job and got out into the countryside on the weekends. I’d lost not only the potential love of my life, but my love of life. I hated being a miserable me who cried herself to sleep on friends’ couches.

How did other people manage to stay in stable relationships? What was I doing wrong? Gradually, I started to think of a better question: how could I take action to make myself happier?

I was suffering from more than heartbreak, clearly. It hadn’t felt like I was in a rut, but now when I asked myself what I would really like to do with my life, I realised I’d been putting up with things because I thought they were temporary. I had to replace the plans I’d made with my ex, and come up with new ones; the age of forty seemed a good time to take a good, hard look at what I wanted.

Why wait for someone else to change my life? In fact, I was lucky: now, there was only myself to consider. I’d so often compromised for a partner.

Two years earlier, I’d been invited for a weekend in the country where I was surrounded by happy couples with beautiful children. I’d felt inadequate for two days, and the dinner on the Sunday evening was offering much of the same. Then one of the father-husbands asked me if I’d been on holiday that summer.

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘My job’s always busy during the summer. But next week I’m off for a week on my own in Ibiza.’

His jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a dreamy look. ‘I would kill for a week on my own in Ibiza.’

All those people in their seemingly perfect relationships had others to think about. I only had myself. In fact, I almost had a duty to think about myself, and how to be happy on my own.

Holidays on Greek islands always gave me huge amounts of joy. My love of Greece started when I was a child on family holidays, and continued into my university years when I travelled around with a friend. I’d spent a year there after university, when I’d been feeling a little lost career-wise and didn’t know what to do. Then, Greece had been the answer – could it be the answer again? In recent years, holidays on Greek islands for a week or two snatched from my busy working year always left me feeling rejuvenated and wanting more. I wondered about going for longer, perhaps a month: two weeks of holiday and two weeks working remotely from there.

My boss took some convincing, but finally I had a month on a Greek island to look forward to; a month to swim in the sea, walk in empty hills, sit in the brilliant, warm sunshine; a month to think – but not too hard – about who I was and what I wanted to do next with my life. In the meantime, I’d put relationships on hold, and I’d start escaping from the never-ending cycle of work, beginning with a freelance day per week, taking a pay cut to invest in my future.

On my first morning waking up on the island of Tilos, with a view of deep blue sky and mountain from my bedroom window, and the glittering sapphire sea through my bathroom window as I brushed my teeth, I knew I’d done the right thing. In fact, it felt like the cleverest thing I’d ever done. Happiness is easy sometimes, as a Greek friend had once said.

I’d work in the peace of the morning, with sweet smells from the next-door bakery wafting up onto the terrace. At lunchtime I’d plunge into the sea, maybe doze a little in the sun as I dried off. After an afternoon of work, I’d walk around the bay, admiring the light and inhaling the fragrance of herbs on the hillside – herbs I’d pick to sprinkle over a simple dinner. In the evening I’d sit out in the balmy air and look up at the stars.

Halfway through my month there, I was snorkelling in a pretty pink-sand bay with my new friend Dimitris, when he found a fat red starfish and put it in my hand. I felt its feelers on my skin, then let it float gently down to the sea bed. Swimming back to the same spot ten minutes later, I saw it had fallen upside down and was slowly, slowly turning itself the right way up. Perhaps that’s what I was doing.

It was hard to leave Tilos at the end of that month. But I’d got my mojo back. And I thought of it not as an ending, but a beginning. Strong again, I decided what to do: not what was sensible or expected, but what felt right for me. The taste of freedom, working from home on a sunny Greek island, showed me the way forward. I could do it.

I used to have recurring dreams of Greek islands, especially in winter when things looked bleak: I’d see myself walking in sunshine on a wild hillside with clear blue water below, into the whitewashed alleyways of an old village. Now that’s not my dream, but my life.

JENNIFER BARCLAY is the author of Falling in Honey: How a Tiny Greek Island Stole My Heart, and blogs about Greek island life at www.octopus-in-my-ouzo.blogspot.com. Her first book was Meeting Mr Kim: How I Went to Korea and Learned to Love Kimchi, and she is the editor of many travel-related memoirs. Having worked as a literary agent and then an editorial director at a publishing company, she now works freelance from her home office as a writer, editor, writing coach and agent (www.jennifer-barclay.blogspot.com).

Join Jennifer on Twitter: @JenBarclayBooks

Facebook

FIH_CVR2 — Click on cover to go to Amazon US

UK: KIndle

UK: Paperback

US Kindle:

US: Paperback

SONIA MARSH SAYS: What a beautiful, uplifting story to start a new week,, and a new chapter life, Jennifer. Your phrase,

“I decided what to do: not what was sensible or expected, but what felt right for me.”

is so uplifting and motivating. I truly believe that travel allows us to “re-connect” with ourselves and find out what’s important to us.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS FOR JENNIFER BELOW AND SHARE USING THE LINKS. THANK YOU.

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

VOTING for your favorite April 2014 “My Gutsy Story®,” starts on May 1st, and ends on May 14th. The WINNER will be announced on May 15th.

PLEASE VOTE AND SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.

Our 200-Mile Trek Across the UK

April 21, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 9 Comments

Trekking across the UK

“My Gutsy Story®”-Alana Woods

In April 2013 I was in the UK helping my oldest daughter cope with three children under 7: two boys, 6 and 2, and a new baby girl. After the birth I stayed on because daughter and her man were getting married on 1 August in Italy and daughter had asked me to stay handy.

End of June saw my husband John touching down at Gatwick and after a week of the boys and him getting re-acquainted we took off to do a few weeks travelling. No point getting under the son-in-law’s feet.

We spent a week touring Ireland visiting John’s ancestral roots and then headed back to the UK to undertake a walk we hadn’t long known about. The famous Alfred Wainwright’s Coast to Coast walk. John had seen it on TV in Australia before flying over. You cross the UK from the Irish Sea to the North Sea, starting at a little village called St Bees and finishing at Robin Hood’s Bay.

The 200+ mile walk takes you through the Lake District, over the Pennines and across the Yorkshire Moors just a little way down from the Scottish border.

We knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. We’d booked through a company called Mac’s Adventures and their website lists it as 4 out 5 in difficulty. But we figured We’re Aussies, we can do it.

And we were right, we made it, no disasters. But, and it’s a big but, it was a real test of stamina. And that’s taking into account the best weather the country had seen for years. That meant no armpit-deep bogs to sink into—only ankle deep—no soaking wet clothes to peel ourselves out of every evening, and no howling gales to pitch ourselves against.

And thank goodness for that, because just walking those distances—up to 16 miles a day—up and down mountains was shattering enough.

Tradition is that you take a pebble from the beach at St Bees and dip your boots into the Irish Sea. Then at the end you drop the pebble and dip your boots in the North Sea.

Start at St Bees copy — Start at St Bees

Second day in we were in the Lake District and despite what I’ve said above the weather was horrible. The guidebook advised against tackling peaks in bad weather so we took the low route. But at Loft Beck there’s no escaping a stiff climb from one valley to another—in icy sheeting rain, with gusting howling winds. About half way up I had to give myself a stern talking to. I was darned if I was going to be the one they had to send in the rescue helicopter for that day.

The second day in and the weather is foul,

we’re scaling Loft Beck and the wind it does howl,

what I would give

to be sure I will live,

is everything I’m carrying to survive.

The rain stings with little bullets of ice

that hit my exposed bits like pellets of rice,

it cascades down the rocks

soaking my socks,

I have doubts I will ever revive.

The wind roars and blows,

I can’t stem the flow from my nose,

snot flies to every point in the land

because I daren’t spare a hand.

All I want is to safely arrive.

We had two truly shattering days in the walk. The first was the last day in the Lake District, the 16 mile Patterdale to Shap leg, with no tea houses, pubs, shops or anything else to ease the pain. My God! There’s the last peak, Kidsty Pike, then there’s traversing Haweswater reservoir which the guidebook describes as “Soon you’re panting like a hippo on a treadmill” at the end of which you leave the Lakes national park and start picking up a few C2C signs. By then, if I’d had the breath to say it, I would have been calling “My kingdom for a tea house!” We were total ruins by the time we reached that night’s accommodation, much too tired to eat.

The Pennines and moors gave great expansive views and lots of boggy ground to skirt. An unexpected sight were the Nine Standards, ancient sentinels against no-one knows who or what. I imagine one day they’ll be cordoned off like Stonehenge but for now we cheerfully sat on them while taking a lunch break.

By the time we arrived at Ravenseat Farm, several hours on from the Standards, we were gasping for the tea and scones the farmer’s wife, Amanda, is famous for. We weren’t sure she’d be open because she’d given birth to her 8^th baby less than a week before. But she was! Serving everyone herself. Now there’s a gutsy story for you! I loved the ‘Warning. Free range children’ sign at the gate.

The Yorkshire Moors were a delight. Comparatively easy up-and-down-dale walking with long stretches of rolling tweed colours. We were a couple of weeks early for the moors in all their purple heather glory and I was sad about that. It would have been a memory to keep forever.

For all its fame the Coast to Coast isn’t an official walk so there are no signposts in the national parks, and they make up quite a percentage of the distance. In the Lake District successive walkers have built stone cairns to indicate the path but it’s not foolproof. We wandered off non-existent paths numerous times, sometimes following other walkers who were going somewhere entirely different!

The last day was the second of our shattering walks. The North Sea came into view miles before we hit the coast and the first town of any size we spied was Whitby with its abbey ruins standing proud and alone on the cliff. But there was still a hell of a way to go and by the time we saw Robin Hood’s Bay we were almost too tired to make the steep descent to the sea where we found the tide out and had to walk half way to France to reach it!

Would we do it again? Not on your Nellie! Got nothing to prove by repeating it.

But it has given us a taste for more walking. I think that’s pretty gutsy of us.

ALANA WOODS … intrigue queen. As a novelist, that’s me. I toyed with ‘thriller queen’ as an author description but my novels are much more suspense intrigue.

I’m a storyteller from way back but not a prolific producer. It can take me years to be satisfied with the quality of a story and how I tell it.

I have two suspense intrigue thrillers, a short story collection and a writing guide published to date, and I’m reworking a third thriller that should be out this year.

Quality is the name of the game and it’s what I strive for. Website: http://www.alanawoods.com

Please join Alana Woods on:

Twitter
Facebook

She has published 4 books:

Amazon links: These are Georiot links that send people to their local Amazon store:

— Imbroglio: http://georiot.co/IMBROGLIO

— Automaton: http://georiot.co/AUTOMATON

— Tapestries and other short stories: http://georiot.co/TAPESTRIES

— 25 essential writing tips: guide to writing good fiction: http://georiot.co/25WritingTips

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

Exploration, Freedom and Being in Control of My Life

March 17, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 10 Comments

Age of Exploration

A “My Gutsy Story®” by Rachael Rifkin

Growing up, summer vacations meant hiking in Mammoth Mountain. After the first couple consecutive years, I was ready to go somewhere else. We used to go other places—Palm Springs, Big Bear, San Francisco, Arizona, Utah. We even went all the way to Disney World when I was seven. So I began looking through the AAA book for some new ideas. Maybe my parents had forgotten what else was out there.

They hadn’t. I’d point out a place and my dad would say, “What are we going to do there?”

“We could do anything! What do we do in Mammoth that’s so fun? We hike.”

“Exactly. Let’s go back to Mammoth.”

And so it went until I graduated from high school. I had been accepted into a couple of Southern California schools so my parents and I went to visit them. Every campus I visited left me with a funny feeling. I was always eager to leave.

I had also been accepted into UC Santa Cruz. My parents did not offer to take a trip up there. That made my decision easier; Santa Cruz it was.

“But it’s so far away and you haven’t even visited the campus,” my parents said. My grandmother sent me a newspaper clipping of an article that talked about the increasing dropout rate among UCSC students due to feelings of isolation. I balked.

If I had visited UC Santa Cruz before I went, I probably wouldn’t have liked it. But it had one thing going for it that the other schools didn’t—it was over 400 miles away from where I grew up. I was ready to be somewhere else.

Santa Cruz was beautiful. The campus was in the middle of a forest, with the occasional deer family wandering about. I loved navigating my way around the campus and city. I walked and took the bus everywhere. I explored.

I didn’t really like UC Santa Cruz though. Turns out, I did feel isolated. There wasn’t a lot to do and I was surrounded by people who went out of their way to appear unique. Instead, it was just a different kind of sameness. By my sophomore year, I was contemplating my escape again. This time I wanted to go somewhere I liked. I wasn’t going to just escape for the sake of escaping anymore.

It didn’t take me too long to figure out where I wanted to go. I had always wanted to go to the Netherlands. I had grown up reading Anne Frank’s diary and knew that she adored her adopted country. The first thing she hoped to do after the war was become a Dutch citizen.

I wanted to go to the Netherlands to see what she saw in the Dutch and walk through the same space that she had shared with her fellow Secret Annex housemates. I just never thought I would go. My parents certainly weren’t going to take me. When I was younger, it never occurred to me that I might eventually be able to go on my own.

I decided to look into studying abroad in the Netherlands. They offered study abroad programs at three colleges, one of which was an international school. I started the process, but it didn’t feel real. I couldn’t believe I might actually go somewhere I really want to.

I collected recommendations and transcripts, wrote essays and mapped out how taking this semester abroad would affect my ability to graduate on time. Every time I handed something in, that little excited feeling would build in my chest.

My parents worried about my safety but they weren’t going to stop me from going. They knew my aversion to paperwork, so I think they were hoping I’d forget something and not be able to go. But by the end of the school year I was all set. I was going to study abroad in the Netherlands from August 31, 2001 through December 15, 2001.

To me, the Netherlands represented exploration, freedom and the fulfillment of a long-held desire. I’d be on my own in a way I never had been before. It meant I had to trust myself to navigate a new country. Even better, it gave me the opportunity to get to know myself anew, without the weight of parents, friends or American culture on my back.

Rachael in the Netherlands — Rachael in Rotterdam is on the far right. She still keeps in contact with the people she met in the Netherlands

For the first time, I felt in control of my life and it inspired me to do other things I wanted to do. As soon as I got home for the summer, I rearranged my room so it had a better flow. I asked my friend to teach me the guitar. I got an internship at a local paper. A high school friend introduced me to the guy who would become my husband.

Over in Holland, I continued to take risks, and the more I took the easier they became. When I had moments of self-doubt, instead of giving in to them, I’d take a deep breath and remind myself that taking a chance was always worth a try.

I enjoyed my classes and how open and direct Dutch people were. I learned how other cultures viewed the U.S. I traveled and made friends that I still have today. I got to know my husband over the phone and fell in love with him. And I finally visited Anne Frank’s house, saw where she hid and what she saw in the Dutch people.

In short, I found a place of my own. Now when I travel, my journey is about discovery, not escape.

RACHAEL RIFKIN was inspired to become a ghostwriter/personal historian by her grandfather, who wrote a memoir about his time serving as a medic in the Korean War. Her blog, Family Resemblance (www.lifestoriestoday.com/blog), features selections of her grandfather’s memoir and stories about the traits we inherit, whether genetically or environmentally, and the qualities we only find in ourselves.

SONIA MARSH SAYS:

You really captures the essence of travel: exploration, freedom, fulfillment, trusting yourself and the opportunity to get to know yourself. I think you are going to help those who feel trapped and want to try new things in life. I like your statement:

“For the first time, I felt in control of my life and it inspired me to do other things I wanted to do.”

Please check out Rachael’s:

Website, and join her on
Twitter: @Letters2Ruthie
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/lifestories2day

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

PLEASE VOTE AND SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.

Next Expat Stop-Tanzania by Yelena Parker

March 3, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 9 Comments

Next Expat Stop- Tanzania

“My Gutsy Story®” by Yelena Parker

Have you ever shared your story with new and somewhat eager listeners and got the reaction: “Wow, that was such a brave thing to do!”? Last year I started feeling as if anything I had done that was remotely brave was in the too far distant past. I wouldn’t quite call it a mid-life crisis but more of a realization that something has changed. Then, in a serendipity moment, there was a tweet in my timeline “When was the last time you did something that was the first time?” Indeed.

My “gutsy” story began almost exactly 15 years ago when I left Ukraine with $600 dollars in my wallet and a one- way plane ticket to study for a Master’s in Business Administration in California. On my first international flight to Amsterdam, before connecting to San Francisco, I sat next to one of those American men who came to Ukraine in search for his fiancée. We talked about his desire to find love in an obscure small town where women have no prospects and my dream to see the world on my own. This was before I knew that the flight etiquette strongly advises against engaging into annoyingly long conversations with people who you are stranded with. I was chatty, naïve and ready to take on the world. What I didn’t consider at that time that it was a gutsy move. When you have nothing to lose, an opportunity to come to the US on a scholarship, work and study, with a chance to see if you can make your American dream come true, is really a “no brainer” – at least that was how I saw it.

Fast forward and my dream has become more global than I could have ever imagined. Getting an MBA in Silicon Valley during the dotcom crash was far from perfect timing. While we were learning about innovation and planning for rapidly and ambitiously building our big international careers, the economic climate changed dramatically. One day my fellow students and I had visions of choosing any cool company we wanted, and the next thing I knew I was working as the lowest possible status of sales rep generating leads by walking door to door to sell copiers in the spookily empty tech parks along highway 101.

Having got over the disappointment that many over-educated and underemployed MBAs experience, I fell into a sales operations career in high tech, pretty much starting at the very bottom. In retrospective, it was the best move I could have made which took me to see the world and led to opportunities to work and live as an expat in Switzerland and United Kingdom. None of these moves I thought of as brave at the time. Once you are on a serial expat path, new relocations get easier. You already had to adjust once or twice to a new environment, pick up the pieces of friendships left behind, introduce yourself to new people and learn or improve a foreign language. You are a chameleon, an international wanderer and a global citizen. Surely you can do it again!

Last year I looked at a career map that my accidental mentor put together with me 6 years earlier over coffee. Senior manager responsibilities- check; director level- check; expat assignment- check; executive education program at Oxford University-check; vice-president role at a smaller tech company- check. All done. 3 years ahead of schedule. What’s next? I have finally uncovered that it takes more guts to change direction and do something completely out of character when you have something to lose.

I quit my job and focused on writing a book about expat and life abroad success. Over the last year I kept comparing experiences of my friends, women expats, who made their own moves without fear. And there it was, “Moving Without Shaking”. At the same time, I started reevaluating what the meaning of work was for me. Should I join the movement of solopreneurs? Should I go volunteer while I am thinking about what to do next? What do I really know a lot about, besides running sales operations in tech and going to school abroad? I looked for what I truly had become passionate about in my 15 years of corporate adventures and living abroad.

I wanted to do something for the first time again but it had to be not for my career. March 1 I am starting on a volunteering journey in Tanzania. I have signed up with African Impact, a wonderful organization placing many volunteers in programs all over Africa. The first community project is based in Moshi, on the foothills of Kilimanjaro, and focuses on women and children empowerment. The second project is for a community in Zanzibar, teaching English, and helping the local school. The local communities are in need of educational resources that we often take for granted. My first career was in teaching English at a university level in Ukraine. This is an opportunity to take everything that I was good at before I started my journey abroad, add in the business experience and give back in the form of time and knowledge. I was able to move abroad because I met an American professor volunteering in Ukraine, willing to help me with a scholarship abroad. It is my turn to see if I can help someone in one of the countries that my academic mentor is passionate about. I am excited about the learning opportunity, the chance to make a real impact in people’s lives, the challenge and the longest break from paid work I have ever had.

YELENA PARKER is a founder of expat and executive coaching consultancy, Moving Without Shaking Ltd. She is a serial expat, living in the UK, her fourth home country, as of this writing. She blogs about expat and life abroad success at www.movingwithoutshaking.com

Her first book, Moving Without Shaking, is coming out in spring 2014.

Check out Yelena’s Website

Follow Yelena on Twitter: @yelenaparker or @movingwtshaking

SONIA MARSH SAYS: You are living life to the fullest and stepping out of your comfort zone. I am sure you will have so much to share after your experience in Tanzania, and I cannot wait to do a Gutsy Google+ Hangout with you for an update when you return.

***

Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

VOTING for your favorite February 2014 “My Gutsy Story®,” starts on February 27th, and ends on March 12th. The WINNER will be announced on March 13th.

PLEASE VOTE AND SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.