Recommendations for Larger (Checked Luggage) Rolling Backpacks

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Travel Hacks for Cheap European Bus Travel

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The Differences in the Top Osprey Daypacks — And How to Choose the Perfect Smaller Pack for Daily Use

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The Most Durable Rolling School Backpacks (2022 Recommendations)

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How I Set Up a Dual-Screen Standing Desk That’s Actually Portable

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The Kindle as a Powerhouse for Language Learning: Hacks and Review

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Minimalist Packing List: How to Travel the Globe for Decades with Only a Carry-On

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Learn to speak languages with without pesky bullshit like comprehension or communication.

You can’t speak Portuguese without moving your hands. And, as you might expect from a people with their own style of kissing, Brazilians have a grand repertoire of unique gestures. Among them: “big fat liar”, “this person’s quality stuff”, and “in the hood”.

Independentista and blogger El Fem Fatal (update: her site is no longer live, how tragic!) speaks Catalan not only to foreigners like me, but also to the inanimate objects in her home. “Li fas plas!” she explained to me, flailing at her lightswitch. “You’ve gotta really slap this fucker!” is how I would translate that. …

Galician is uniquely rich in fixed expressions for that romantic-but-vexing moment when a man sees something he’d like to fuck. Many languages (French and Catalan come to mind) have their own clichéd versions of “do you come here often?” but Galician, in spite of losing its lexical footing a bit as it mixes with Spanish, is balls-out prolific …

The following table will aid in communication with inanimate French objects. I have also made guides for the lesser experiences of communicating with the young and animate French, the sexually alluring French, and more.

Welcome to Verlan, France’s answer to Cockney rhyming slang or Pig Latin (and an exact parallel to Serbian’s Šatrovački). Verlan became common in the ’80s among poor young folks in Parisian suburbs, and was diffused through hip hop and pop music. Today, anyone of the MTV Europe age or younger employs it to some degree. The …

The world’s sexiest women are Catalan. They’re gorgeous, laid back, kinda grungy, and infinitely sweet.* So what do you gotta do to bang, smooch, or marry one? Former dictator Francisco Franco has inadvertently given us a leg up, with the collective mindfuck he caused by banning the region’s language. Today’s Catalans get very excited about …

The Brazilian finger snap is just one of the countless gestures integral to communication in Brazil, and never taught in any Portuguese class. The estalo brasileiro, or Brazilian snap, is used to indicate speed; sometimes it’s used to (rather rudely) tell someone to pick up the pace. On a drunken night on a break from …

When hungover, Germans speak of howling cats while Icelanders’ phrase literally means to have the God of Thunder’s hammers in your brain. Iberian languages refer to the undertow; apparently the land’s regurgitation of water to the sea is evocative. Latin Americans show a great linguistic range in their post-bacchanal gloom, using Spanish or native words for …

You’ve had enough. You’re ready to escape a gathering, but, in many countries, manners dictate going around the table to kiss everyone goodbye. With a certain type of folks and level of chaos and inebriation, these goodbyes can take ages. The Germans have a much less kissy-kissy culture than many of their European counterparts, so …