Take for instance backpacker travel. Backpacker travel is uniquely different from your average tourist travel. Backpackers are always on the lookout for cheap and adventurous ways to get from here to there.

The ideal travel situation for this type of a traveller is not comfort or speed. Instead, backpackers look for the road less travelled; the road where they're likely to meet local people, experience life, and see and do things most "tourists" never will.

If you're ready for this type of adventure, read on....

The most significant challenge hostel travellers have while travelling is getting the unique information they need to travel as cheap as possible.

Travel agents frequently don't realise backpackers typically have more time than money. Therefore, they often inappropriately offer expensive transportation and boring, stuffy tours.

Going Places is a collection of tips to help you travel cheaply and have more fun getting to the places you want to go. For instance, visit tours.html for exciting backpacker bus adventures, airpasses.html for saving with air passes, transport.n.amer.html for budget travel in North America, driveaway.html for driving someone else's car for free, rentacar.html for the art of renting a car, buyacar.html for buying a car now and selling it later, and hitchhike.html for a safer way to hitch-hike.

(Source: www.hostels.com)

Fun bus tours for backpackers

Exciting backpacker bus adventures are perhaps the most fun way to see a region or country. Backpacker tours are relaxed, informal and an excellent way to share the travelling adventure with other fun loving backpackers. These types of trips are somewhat like the guided tours you sometimes see the average tourist taking.

That is, you'll travel in buses or vans with knowledgeable guides. However, backpacker bus trips are designed for bold and budget oriented backpackers who want a somewhat spontaneous itinerary of "off-the-beaten-path" sights and activities. When on this type of trip, don't expect your every need to be pampered by some superficial attendant in a suit.

Instead of sleeping in stuffy isolated hotel rooms, you will often camp under the stars along with your new-found travel buddies. You may also cook some yummy gourmet camp meals yourself.

Sometimes these trips are on full size buses as is the case with Green Tortoise Adventure Buses in North America and the Kiwi Experience Buses in New Zealand. But, there are many smaller companies out there where you will travel in smaller, more intimate, 15-20 passenger vans and minibuses.

Melrose Adventures makes trips to Arches National Park in Utah and to Colorado National Monument, Black Canyon and Grand Mesa in Colorado. On the East Coast, look for the East Coast Explorer taking their passengers to off the beaten path between Boston and New York. In California, look for Incredible Adventures to take you to beautiful destinations like Yosemite, Lake Tahoe and Napa Valley. In California, a newcomer to the adventure travel network is ANT which stands for Adventure Network for Travellers. ANT offers flexible on-and-off whenever you want adventure transportation between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.

In Canada, Vancouver Island is a wilderness paradise. To see the beauty most tourists never see, take a trip with Seagull Expeditions in Canada. And if you're drawn to the Canadian Rockies as many people are, Bigfoot's Backpacker Adventure Buses will take you there from Vancouver. To find out if there are any Backpacker Bus Trips in a particular area, visit the local hostel.

(Source: http://www.hostels.com)

Experts recommend overseas investment

Believing that the extra-ordinarily generous returns achieved by the US stock and bond markets in the 1990s are unlikely to continue, some financial experts are recommending that investors consider investing overseas.

There are merits to such advice, according to media reports. Investing in an international mutual fund offers you participation in the growing economies abroad, additional diversification, and the potential for competitive returns. However, international funds are not without risks -- and you should only consider investing overseas after you have built a substantial and well-diversified portfolio of US stock and bond mutual funds.

This article explains the risks, rewards, and costs of investing outside our borders and helps you determine whether international stock funds are right for you.

Here's a brief description of the different types of international stock funds:-

International Equity Funds: Mutual funds that invest exclusively in non-US stocks are known as international stock funds. The most popular and widely held international funds are those that invest in the securities of "established" markets, which include the prominent European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, and France) as well as Pacific Rim nations (Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong).

The investment objective of most broadly diversified international stock funds is long-term growth, although some value-oriented funds may place modest emphasis on current income. The investment strategies of international funds vary widely. Some funds emphasise country allocations rather than individual stock selections, hoping to capitalise on those countries that will enjoy the highest future economic growth. Other funds employ a more fundamental investment approach, focusing on the most promising companies, regardless of the countries in which they operate.

A third approach employed by international stock funds is passive management or, as it is more commonly called, "indexing." An international index fund seeks to match the performance of a group of securities that form a recognised market measure, known as an index.

The most prominent index of established international markets is the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI)-- Europe, Australasia, and Far East (Free) Index (EAFE Free).

Regional Funds: International funds that invest in stocks in a particular geographic region, such as Europe or the Pacific Basin, are known as regional funds.

With their concentration in a single region, these funds typically exhibit higher share-price volatility than broadly diversified international stock funds.

Single-country funds: International stock funds that invest in a single foreign country, such as Japan, are called single-country funds. Such funds are considered highly risky because of their narrow focus.

Many single-country funds are of the closed-end variety whose shares trade on an exchange -- often at sizable discounts or premiums relative to the net asset value of the fund's shares.