Chris Sherrod here. I’ve traveled a lot. Went to France and Venice Italy last summer. London, Paris and Edinburgh the summer before that, and Panama the summer before that. I’ve traveled and still did business.

I was talking to Bryant last week who for the last six months lived in Thailand, Indonesia, and Mexico. He was showing me picture of Thailand on his iPhone and the fun he was having. He had stopped in the USA for a little while to visit and go to a couple of seminars.

Is the voice of discontent inside you begging for more time and freedom to travel and experience life? If it is you should go check out the Exit My Job program that
launches today.

Bryant Jones, who’s official business title is “Chief Adventurist” has created a program that will help you design a Mobile Entrepreneur lifestyle. A life where you can travel, work or live anywhere. Here’s what it’s about…

It’s about working inspired.
It’s NOT about working to prove something.

It’s about having a lifestyle that fulfills you.
It’s NOT about building empires or having more “stuff”.

It’s about the rich experiences in life.
It’s NOT about getting rich.

It’s about having a business that provides you income.
It’s NOT about having a business that provides you a JOB.

You know there are people that will not desire this life, and that’s ok…

Because you and I know, having the freedom to experience this life, all the majestic places, and interesting people that make up our planet, is to have real abundance and wealth.

So go check it out now, because I am sure it will not take long to fill up. ExitMyJob.com

Bryant is a guy that lives what he teaches, and has been running his own mobile business from four different countries in the past year. He can show you how travel, work and live anywhere too… ExitMyJob.com

In mid July while staying at our home exchange in Rennes France Nan and I went to see the Chateau’s of valle de la Loire in English the Chateau’s of Loire Valley.  Wine country and big fancy almost castle like homes.

My favorite was Chateau Chambord.  It has the biggest park of Europe surrounding it.  The Chateau is huge. Hundreds of rooms.  A really nice double helix spiral staircase where there are two different ways up and you can see the other stairs while climbing up.  Really cool.  Nan and I both walked up separately and watched each other on the other side.

It is famous for Chambord the liquor.  Found out that a great many things are named after the Chateau and have nothing to do with it.  Planes, cars, vacuum cleaners, food…you name it.

The drive to the valley took a bit longer than we thought and I didn’t bring my laptop since it was just a day trip.  We decided to stay the night at a Chateau.  I always bring my USB Flash drive just in case and that night after dinner I borrowed a computer and was able to check my email, make changes to a website, and twitter.  I did everything in about 5 minutes.  My USB Flash drive holds my web browser and my settings so I don’t have to remember anything.  Just plug and play.  If any major work needed doing my team would take over.

So when you are traveling decide even if you need to bring a computer.

I create a free website at TravelUSBDrive.com with the software I use, where to get my USB Flash Drive if you don’t have one and some other travel tips.  Enjoy.

My cousin Milena is traveling around the world and I just found out she is writing for her home town newspaper in the travel section.  She is going to write a book about it hopefully.

She has some rather funny bits and it’s worth a read.

Postcards Home from,,,, | mySA.com.

I travel quite a bit.  I wanted to bring some DVD material with my on my current trip to France.  I’m currently in Paris.  But, taking a collection of DVDs is not practical, there is no room in my suitcase.

I tried using many tools to convert my DVD to a computer file but they didn’t work until I tried bitRipper.  bitRipper is also so easy to use which I love. No tweaking setting.  Just insert your DVD and push a button.

Convert DVD to Avi and Mpeg using bitRipper

Last week we went to Mont St. Michel just north of us here in France.

This is one place that I really loved.  Very magical.

It is entirely built on a big hill.  The medival streets are still intact.  Many tourist shops and restaurants.  We at one with a view of the surrounding sea and land.  Beautiful scenery.

The tide is very high here, nice fortress location in the old days.  You can actually see the tide come in so strong it makes waves in the areas that are protected by waves.  Impressive.  If you’re not careful you can get surrounded by water and get stuck.  Many people have died that way.

After dinner we hiked all the way to the top.  The French government took it over after the French Revolution so it not used as a religious place like it was in the old days.  But that night they have many people throughout the Mont playing flutes, violins, a Bassoon and a harp piano.  We wondered around the place from room to room listening to the music echo off the walls.  A truly magical night.  Definitely worth going to more than once.

Today is Bastille Day here in France or The Fête de la Fédération as they say here.  On 14 July 1790 there was a huge feast and official event to celebrate the uprising of the short-lived constitutional monarchy in France and what people considered the happy conclusion of the French Revolution.  People ran down the streets naked in order to celebrate their new freedom, such as they occasionally do here in France, mostly beaches now though.

I find many similarities between the USA and France.  We both had revolution to kick out the royals.  We are both a republic.  We both also have a president.

France is different though.  Unisex bathrooms are standard.  Topfree beaches is the norm.  Adultist movies on public TV that have -12 and -16 rating which is not advised for people under the age of 12 and 16 and includes full nudity does exist.  I don’t ever see that happening in the USA for another 250 years if ever.

My cousin Milena is touring the world for six months.  She was just in France (different parts then I’m in) and a pre-judgement of France.  The normal American attitude that the French smell, are rude and hate Americans.  She quickly found out how untrue all that is.  She visited Paris and people are very nice, don’t smell and love Americans.  The neighborhood here in Rennes threw us a 4th of July party.  The entire street came out to celebrate with us.  Incredible nice.  These neighbors are nicer than our own.

So to all my friends, home exchange neighbors and everyone in France.  Viva La France.  I feel very welcome here during our summer visit.  You have a wonderful country.  Thank you for the Statue of Liberty it was a mighty fine gift from our friends here in France.  And thank you so much for helping us out to get rid of the British royals during our own Revolution.

Viva La France.

We read that Vitre France wasn’t crowded with tourists like another medival town near Rennes.  So we traveled about an hour east of our home exchange base here in Rennes.

No crowds at all.  As you can see from this photo on one of the medival town streets.  There was also a castle and a Notre Dame church.  Didn’t know there were more than one but come to find out almost every town has one

Vitre France Photos

Last night everyone on the Rue (French for street) invited us to a BBQ here in Rennes France.  I had the most fun of any 4th of July party in my life.

They shut down the street.  They had to get permission from the major of Rennes to do this.  They had tables in the middle of the street with an iPod speaker playing French and American music.

The food was fabulous.  Very very good.  Champagne, wine and hot dogs on the grill, French style hot dogs.  I don’t eat pork so they made (just for me) two steaks.  I so wanted to eat it all so they won’t feel bad but I could only eat one before I was stuffed.

Then we danced into the early morning.  Neighbors here are so friendly and helpful.  Best home exchange we have ever had.  I feel like we are living here and really getting a local flavor of what life is like here.  And we are seeing so many great sights and enjoying the local culture.

4th of July Party in Rennes France photos

I just finished uploading some photos from my current trip to France with my honey Nan up on to my Flickr account.

I’ll be updating it every couple of days.

This photo is from Rennes France where we are currently staying at a home exchange.  Cobble stone streets and medival buildings in this area.

Got to go, we are off to see Vitre a medival village east of here.  I’ll post pictures in a couple of more days.  We’re going to Mont St-Michel tomorrow.

I flew to France Monday and Tuesday.  Nan and I flew on L’Avion an airline that only flys from New York to Paris.  Actually leaves Newark New Jersey Airport which has a lovely view of New York City.  I saw the Empire State building when we were transferring from Continental to L’Avion.

L’Avion only has business class seating on the entire jet.  We were in France as soon as we stepped on board.  The service was exceptional.  The food was divine.  I didn’t get much sleep on the plane but after watching a movie on a handheld video player I shut my eyes and laid back with plenty of leg room and the chair leans back over 45 degrees much more than standard seating.  Not as good as SilverJet last year when we went to London but nice.  SilverJet went out of business at the end of May.  When we fly last year they had 1/3 of the plane full at most.  L’Avion had a good size group and they look much more financially healthier.

Once in Paris immigration/customs was almost nothing.  Very short line where a guy just stamped my passport.  No customs, no forms to fill out.  I thought I almost missed some line but no, France doesn’t have any forms.  Nice and easy.

Transferring to the train station from Orly airport was interesting.  I only packed two bags because we knew we were going through the Metro system (the subway system) to get to the train station and get our train to Rennes for our home exchange.  Both bags had wheels this time.  Last year I learned that my laptop and accessories is just too heavy to lug around from gate to gate.  After many many stairs thank goodness all down and switching two times we made it to the train station and got tickets to Rennes.  While having a snack and waiting for our train to arrive we noticed that one ticket had an assigned seat and the other didn’t.  Nan who is fluent in French went back to the ticket counter to get an answer.  Bottom line, is you can have a ticket and not have a seat and you may have to stand the entire 2 hour trip.  Nan fixed that and we were on our way.

The food on the train was excellent.  It really is hard to find bad food in France.  Everywhere we go it is just fantastic.  After eating lunch on the train we both were getting tired.  So we took a nap.  Then once in Rennes it was a three minute cab ride to our home exchange.  It is a lovely home with a fantastic garden setting for a backyard.

After getting the Internet up and running and having to get a neighborhood to help us learn how to turn on a monitor (it has two power buttons, some energy saving feature) we took another nap.

Then a couple of our English friends came over and we enjoyed the backyard garden until the wee hours of the night but pretty early body time for us.

Internet here is great.  Getting lots of work done while enjoying the garden view.  With Skype I can call anyone anywhere in the world and be just as or even more productive than back home.

We are metres away from a Metro station.  Even though we have a car here we’ll be doing a lot with the Metro because in Europe it is just easier to travel via Metro than car.

My Nan and friends are planning the day out and once they are back from the grocery store we will be heading out to see the sights.

Bonne Nuit – French for Good Evening

I’m traveling today.  Going to France and Venice Italy for six weeks.  By the time you read this I’ll be on a jet in business class having champagne with my honey Nan.  I’ll keep everyone up to date on what I’m visiting.  I’m a photographer so I’ll be posting my photos on an almost daily basis.

I love to travel and I love people’s travel blogs.  My favorite being Where the Hell is Matt?  Matt has released a new video of his travels around the world dancing in front of the video camera.  Take a look.

This just shows that anything is possible.  He has a sponsor that pays for his travels and then he comes out with a video and the sponsor gets exposure.  Anything is possible.  Just find a way to do what you want to do.

I love to travel and I love my business.  Since we are doing home exchanges with only places that have high-speed Internet I can work while in another country.  I’m working on three different clients website at the moment and any changes can be done by me or my team while I’m anywhere in the world.

In fact business is booming.  But, I’ve noticed that I’m more productive when I’m not home.  I get more done and I get to see fabulous places.  I also get great ideas.  Travel is my favorite way to get ideas.  I talk about it in my book Prosperity Games a lot.

Don’t let your business get in the way of enjoying life.  In fact, find that enjoying life makes your business better.

I just got back last night from Virginia from an interesting home exchange.

Here is a photography of the mansion from the beach. Six bedrooms, a game room, huge kitchen with double of everything in it, three decks, volleyball court, golfing green, pool, stream room, Jacuzzi indoor tub, and plenty of outdoor fire pits.

It was a nice place but the weather was awful. I got to enjoy one walk on the beach before it turned to frozen windy land. Fortunately I love Jacuzzi and steam rooms so we did our own private hamma several times a day and watched movies on the big screen.

We went to the nearest decent grocery store which was a few miles away called Bloom. Kinda of like Wholefoods. Their slogan is “A different kind of grocery store.” They had some of the funniest signs I’ve ever seen in a store. Here is a photography of the frozen seafood section. They did this for all the sections. New Age drinks was healthy canned drinks. Signs saying “Hey, if this isn’t on your list, it should be.” Breakfast anyone? was the frozen breakfast section. Hot Diggity Dog! was the hot dog section. Oh, Baloney! was the packaged meat section.

They had a good selection of wines. These from South Africa I thought were funny. A giraffe called the tall horse and herding cheetahs, yeah right. But it struck me, their are thousands of wines in this one store. They have to rise above the crowd for us to take notice. These names do just that. So much so I took a photograph and blogged about it. A unique name, slogan or graphic can raise you above the crowd.

Look for way to be seen above the crowd.

I talk about traveling as one of my favorite ways to come up with new ideas in my book Prosperity Games. Travel and write down the ideas you get and bring them back home. And don’t think your house is not good enough to home exchange. The home we stayed in London last year was not even close to being as nice as ours, but it was in London. The Paris apartment we stayed in was nice and big by Paris standards and they didn’t even want to stay in our home, just take care of their cat. And this home exchange in Virginia the house is much bigger and nicer than ours but the home exchangers wanted to see the final four here in San Antonio. If you are able to read this then you probably have a nice enough home to home exchange with. Nan and I are always surprised that people think their home is not good enough. That is a very limiting thought.

After we checked out from the store they have a big sign that said “til next time.” Until next time readers.

I’m off next to Austin. See my previous post and come on by and say hi.

I’m traveling and we just moved into another condo for a month.  At first the Internet looked fine then I started to have some issues.

If you are like me and need to FTP and login to web server backends (not your content management system) places like here block them.

Call the office and talk to the head techy or in this case a contractor and ask for them to open up what you need access to.  Andrew did that for me and now all my tools work.  I uploaded a new training video for my subscribers as soon as Andrew punched a hole in his firewall.

So if your tools don’t work ask for them to fix them.