Doug Lansky is the guru for solo travel. He contributed a nice piece in my book about how he set out on a six-month trip and ended up being on the road for ten years–during which he was paid to write a syndicated column with millions of readers and served as the host for a travel show on television. He also wrote several books, including his hilarious anthology of crazy signs and a guide for those traveling around the world on their own.

These days, he has a sweet life in Sweden with his wife and three little girls, and spends time each year in the U.S. offering his hilarious “Get Lost” lecture on college campuses.

Learn more at http://www.DougLansky.com

Recent research supports what exchange students and expats have known for years: living abroad stimulates creativity.

This video summarizes the study, but here are the high points:

1) spending time abroad stimulates creative problem-solving skills

2) it does not appear to be simply a matter of creative people being more likely to live abroad

3) short-term travel doesn’t count–it’s really about spending significant periods of time immersed in another culture

4) “significant” may vary–for those who are truly immersed, there may be more benefits than for those who remain in a cultural bubble for a longer period

5) it’s possible to have a cultural immersion experience in your home country if you happen to have a community in which you can connect deeply

6) the earlier you go abroad, the more you are likely to be affected by and benefit from the experience

As I put it in The New Global Student: Go early, go solo, go long, go deep. In my next book, I’m looking at how moving abroad stimulates creativity and writing about what happens when new expats rediscover their talents and possibilities abroad.

You can bet that employers are paying attention to this study and that they’ll be looking for employees who have spent time abroad–and looking for ways to ensure that their current employees have more opportunities to spend time abroad as well.

I often receive questions from parents regarding how to save for college, but lately, I’ve been getting emails from financial advisors. They are looking for tips to pass along to their clients who are overwhelmed by the cost of educating their kids. What’s the best way for families to save for college now?

My response is that it may be a lot smarter to save on college than to save for college. With tuition and other costs rising, portfolios shrinking and home values stagnating, a savings plan is helpful but certainly no guarantee of affordability. Families are beginning to look at the true value of education rather than simply scrimping and paying for what they’re told is best for their kids.

Times are changing—and our strategies for educating our children (and paying for that education) must change, as well.

The traditional four-by-four model (4 years of high school followed by 4 years of college) is outdated. That’s good news for both students who are rolling their eyes at the idea of spending five or six years in college and parents who are having heart palpitations thinking about paying for it.

The key to the Bold School approach—and the best way to reduce college costs—is to look for ways to blend and balance learning opportunities beginning in high school. Through dual enrollment programs, IB diplomas or AP tests, many students are earning college credit while in high school. Others are picking a more personalized path, getting a GED at 15 or 16 in order to enroll in college early or getting an associate’s degree by the time they receive their high school diploma. Some are taking college courses, either online or in person, during their summers in high school and transferring to a four-year university at 18 as a junior. And it’s not just a matter of racing ahead to finish early—these students are using their time for meaningful experiences, such as spending a significant period of time abroad before the age of 18 (as exchange students or through extensive study/volunteer opportunities) in order to hardwire their brains for flexibility and language learning and develop a greater understanding of themselves and the world around them.

What they have in common is a clearer idea of their interests because they have been exposed to more options early on and have built momentum in their learning.

One of the easiest ways to ensure that your son or daughter gets the most value out of their time in college is to compress it rather than extend it. The average college student now takes more than five years to graduate and students no longer expect to graduate within four years. As some college students have been known to say, graduating after four years is “like leaving the party at 10:30 p.m.” But that’s a very expensive party and families need to understand that they do have options for reducing the length and cost of college while still giving students that full “college experience.”

Colleges contribute to the added length by not counseling students on how they can finish earlier and by making courses critical for graduation scarce, necessitating an extra semester or two to finish up. In addition, many counselors, worried that students won’t be able to juggle their social life and their classes successfully, advise students to take a minimal load of courses each semester. This may be helpful for some students, but for many, it establishes a pattern early on of spending more time on recreation than on studying, and reduces their expectations regarding the course load they can handle. The truth is that most students find that they budget their time, get more accomplished, and get better grades when they have a full load rather than a lighter schedule.

Here’s what we can do to save money on college, help our kids develop a clear idea of their interests and enable them to graduate early while having transformational experiences along the way:

1) Shift from achievements to interests. The focus during the high school years should be on developing interests and enthusiasm for learning rather than gaining a particular set of academic achievements. This is crucial. By the age of 16, students need to know how to find, understand and synthesis content. They must be able to develop ideas of their own and research the heck out of them. Students who spend years languishing in high school when they could be blasting forward are wasting the most critical period of their adolescent brain development. Kids should be on fire during these years, and as parents, it’s our job to help them come alive rather than simply plod along on a prescribed path. A 17-year-old who can’t wait to learn more about his favorite subjects is going to be more successful in college and life in general than the 17-year-old who does what he is told in order to pass the test. Make this shift in your focus, and your student will be one of those who dives into higher education with great enthusiasm—and graduates early.

2) Break free of four-by-four thinking. The key is to look for ways to blend high school and college, getting credit along the way for a variety of learning opportunities and experiences that help our kids figure out what they’re good at, what interests them, and how they want to spend their time. Students have a tremendous amount of freedom regarding how, where and what they study during the high school years and beyond. But too often, we simply enroll them in a decent school and tell them to just take tough courses and graduate with good grades. We need to question why we think the education we received twenty or more years ago is enough for our kids today, and stop assuming that any given school will have it covered. Remember how motivated you were to expose your son or daughter to a range of rich experiences when they were five years old? What would happen if we took that same approach with our fifteen-year-olds instead of assuming that AP classes, sports practice and a part-time job could maximize their potential?

3) Release the idea that getting into a top school is a prerequisite for success. There are new cracks in those ivy-covered walls. The recession has shown that even those with the most sought-after degrees are not guaranteed a job upon graduation. Those who are resourceful enough to have designed their own best education in a variety of settings will be in a far better position to find work they love than those who are relying on the name on that college diploma or their connections to get their foot in the door. Young adults who are not hampered by enormous student debt are free to take jobs that truly appeal to them rather than whatever pays the bills, and this leads to greater enthusiasm for work, more willingness to explore options and more excitement about their possibilities. We need our kids to want to work diligently because they love what they do—that’s the winning combination that will lead to personal fulfillment and success.

4) Recognize that those who graduate early because they know what they love to do are also saving thousands of dollars. They are not spending five or six years going to the same university—thanks to blending high school, college and study abroad, they may spend less than two years as full-time college students at their final degree-granting institution. By 19 or 20, they’ve got hip-deep experience, a college degree without debt, and tremendous enthusiasm about the next stage of their lives. And when someone suggests that they might have “missed out” on that extra time in high school and college, they simply laugh—they know they’ve packed far more excitement and learning into their personalized education than their peers on the just-tell-me-when-I’m-done track.

I know that families are struggling to pay for college. I don’t have all the answers, and I think parents should run from anyone who claims they do. But the fact remains that simply saving for college is no longer a proactive approach. Selecting a smart blend of education options is more strategic and far more likely to give students the kind of education that is both personally enriching and professionally beneficial without breaking the bank.

Bottom line: be flexible and aware in order to see and seize the best opportunities available—and keep the focus on real value and sustainable growth. That holds true for both finances and education.

President Obama shared some advice with America’s schoolchildren (or some of them, anyway) and I’m happy that he encouraged students to work hard and stay in school. He had some sound long-term suggestions.

But as any parent knows, kids don’t think about the long term. They think about lunchtime or recess or tomorrow’s quiz, but most elementary school students do not ponder the possibility of quitting school. They assume that things will work out and they’ll stay on track until the day they graduate from high school.

It’s great to plant those powerful seeds of responsibility and commitment in the minds of our kids, but what they need most is the daily nurturing of habits that will contribute to their success. And while schools can certainly do their part to promote good habits and kids can step up their efforts, parents are the ones who are teaching (or not) their kids to become outstanding citizens who value education.

So, I’d like to offer the following list of ten wishes that would make a big difference both today and in ten years in the lives of our students. You’ll notice that every wish is aimed squarely at parents, those most experienced long-term thinkers. After all, they’ve been dreaming of the future they hope their children will have since before their sons and daughters were born.

1) I wish that parents of preschoolers would cancel one of those weekly must-do activities (swimming, gymnastics, soccer) and take their kids to the local library instead. (Instilling a love for reading and discovery is the key to creating lifelong learners.)

2) I wish that parents would impose bed times for their school-age children. (A lack of sleep has a profound effect on young students’ learning ability and brain development.)

3) I wish that parents would make dinner time an inviolable period during which the family sits down together for relaxed conversation. (Regular family dinners are one of the most powerful indicators of future student success.)

4) I wish that parents would model healthy eating and exercise for their children and include active recreation into their family’s regular schedule. (Obese students are far more likely than their normal-weight classmates to drop out of school.)

5) I wish that parents would spend less time driving their kids to sports practices and more time taking them to art classes, music lessons and cultural experiences. (Students who study music do better academically, and those who are exposed to other cultures have a greater appreciation for those of different backgrounds.)

6) I wish that parents of middle-school students would encourage their kids to find and develop their own strengths rather than sign up for the activities their friends are doing. (Middle school students who know what they’re good at develop greater confidence at an age when this quality can dramatically alter their life choices.)

7) I wish that parents of middle-school students would encourage their kids to develop and share their own opinions. (Kids spend a lot of time with their peers at this age, and the influence of adults is greatly needed in order for them to see issues from a more mature perspective. Those family dinners are crucial at this age!)

8 ) I wish that parents of high school students would encourage their kids to deepen and celebrate the qualities that make them different. (High school students who see themselves as “individualistic” or “independent” are more likely to excel in the areas they find interesting—and this leads to a clearer sense of direction.)

9) I wish that parents of high school students would send their son or daughter abroad for at least a few months prior to graduation. (I’ve written a book on the benefits of the high school exchange or other experiences abroad and made recommendations for the most affordable options—less than $4,000 for an entire year with plenty of full scholarships offered. Spending time abroad at this age is the most brain-boosting and transformational opportunity available for young people and far more advantageous than another same-old semester or year of high school.)

10) I wish that parents of high school students would become savvy mentors rather than crazed coaches or fearful protectors. (If parents commit themselves to wishes one through nine, this will already be the case and their kids will be confident, competent and compassionate young adults who are truly ready for college or anything else they choose to do.)

Teachers, schools and presidential advice matter, but without consistent parental support and encouragement, kids will not have the skills and habits they need to maximize their potential. If we want our sons and daughters to prepare for their most thrilling and fulfilling opportunities in the 21st century, we need to make these wishes come true.

I feel frustrated that so many recent college grads are having a hard time finding a job. In all the articles and discussions about the economic slump, I have never seen a reference to what I believe is the biggest problem facing the young unemployed:

Nobody told them that they might have to look outside their community, their state or even their country to find work–and nobody taught them the skills they need to thrive outside their comfort zone.

I’ve had some interesting conversations with bright but unemployed grads lately. What I have noticed is that many of these young people have a very limited idea of what it means to “look for a job” and few go beyond the obvious Help Wanted/Craigslist route or the see-if-Dad’s-company-is-hiring idea. Even more challenging is the fact that many new grads are unwilling or unable to consider work outside the community in which their parents live. They are home with the folks and looking for work within a 25-mile radius of where they went to high school.

This might be fine if you happen to have a degree and experience that corresponds with a sizable selection of desirable jobs available in your home town, but that’s rarely the case. And those who feel restricted due to a lack of launch funds can’t see themselves looking much farther than the next town over.

So when I hear someone say, “I’ve been looking everywhere but I haven’t been able to find a job,” the first question I ask is this: where is “everywhere”?

Plenty of people roll their eyes whenever the subject of “preparing students for the global economy” comes up, but they are the ones most likely to cry foul when their kids can’t find a job. And there’s the rub: Hometown, USA is not the final frontier for our kids and we are not doing them any favors by failing to teach them how to fish outside the local fishing hole.

New grads need to recognize–and yes, be prepared for–the fact that they might find their most thrilling and fulfilling opportunities far from home. Do they have the skills to successfully navigate in a place that is unfamiliar to them? Can they start fresh in a new city or state or country without their family and friends nearby? Are they able to adapt to new settings that require a different perspective or perhaps even a different language?

In most cases, the answer is no. Not only have they not been given an opportunity to practice autonomy, they have not had a chance to develop and strengthen the skills they need to find employment options and pursue them wholeheartedly.

Those who ARE prepared are finding all kinds of interesting work in every corner of the globe. Every week, I hear from elated parents about their son or daughter who is embarking on an adventure in another country that is both fascinating and lucrative.

I’ve done the happy dance myself for my own daughters. The oldest just finished her master’s degree, two graduated from college last December and the youngest will graduate from college this December. The three older daughters are currently working in New York, Buenos Aires and on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. They found jobs with enticing perks (an employer-paid master’s degree, the ability to work virtually, employer-provided training and travel expenses, etc.) in places that interest them.

Did my girls have degrees from elite universities? Nope. None of them attended any colleges that would evoke oohs and ahhs. But they had experience living in other cultures and fluency in at least one foreign language. And I’m not talking Mandarin or Arabic here–they blasted ahead largely because of their fluency in that most underrated of foreign languages: Spanish.

Granted, not every college grad is ready to go abroad to work, but many more would be if they’d been prepared for the realities of (here it is again) the global economy. And those who are sticking close to home may find that the recession limits their options far longer than they would have imagined.

Listen, I’m not saying every new grad should leave the country to find work, but it’s true that those who have a larger pool of options have a much higher chance of getting a great job. Having the skills and experience that allow them to reach beyond their peers means they are no longer competing with them for the same jobs. By engaging in work that challenges them (rather than settling for whatever they can find), they are advancing their knowledge and expanding their possibilities for the future.

Recession? Those who are willing and able to find work wherever the jobs may be are not hampered by an economic downturn. Grads who have spent time abroad, developed language skills, experienced other cultures and discovered their interests have the confidence and competence to go forth and offer their talents to those who need them. And the truly bold and innovative ones figure out how to create their own work–and generate their own income–anywhere.

Don’t believe it? Living in Argentina has given me a front-row seat from which to watch expats in action abroad. I’m currently writing a book about Americans of all ages and backgrounds who are finding and/or creating meaningful work they love wherever they choose to live. They share some common characteristics–and some that are surprising.

When it comes to job hunting, the strategy that yields the best results is to think broadly and be bold. Sometimes that also includes going beyond borders, both real and imagined.

Some of my earliest memories are of playing in the vegetable garden. I remember eating handfuls of parsley, drinking the first sun-warmed spurt of water from the garden hose, watching for the radishes (always the radishes) to be the first seeds to sprout. There were beans to pick (and bean tents to hide inside), stalks of corn to wander through, and cherry tomatoes to pop into my mouth.

From the time I was ten, my family lived on a ten-acre piece of mostly wooded property three miles by gravel road outside a town of 350 people. In our acre-plus garden, we grew the usual range of vegetables, herbs and fruits, but played with new crops each year, from peanuts to currants. I could tell the difference between the various pepper starts and developed an educated palate that could easily distinguish between the flavors of a Hood strawberry versus a Shuksan or Northwest. I worked in the fields in my agricultural town all summer long–strawberries, beans, cucumbers, onions–and helped the farmers harvest the prunes, walnuts, and apples in the fall.

Being a farm kid came naturally to me, and when I wasn’t in the garden, I was in the woods. I taught kids at camp how to recognize the star-shaped tip of the salal berry (edible) and sample the delicious nectar obtained by scraping the root of the licorice fern. I knew my cones and mosses, and a high school field biology class (and a summer hoeing the weeds in vast onion fields) taught me about the native plants in the area and how to make a salad from purslane and dandelion greens.

During college, I spent a year traveling through Asia. I was drawn to the produce markets and the rice paddies and felt a kinship with the bent-over women in the fields. In Nepal, I studied the flora and fauna of the Himalayas, and stayed with a talented gardener on the seashore in Cornwall during the final month of my trip. She introduced me to climbing roses and perennials of all kinds.

After college, I moved to northern rural Japan where I taught English for several years. I lived in a small community facing the bay, and loved spending weekends exploring the meadows and forests in the area. My next-door neighbor had a huge garden in which she grew things new to me–soybeans and even mushrooms on a long row of wooden tree branches. We shared tips and I learned about the delicious wild mountain vegetables that were such a delicacy and the trees that turned the hillsides scarlet in the fall.

My next stage of life gave me a wonderful opportunity to live in a small Oregon town while raising four young daughters. My husband and I lived five blocks from Main Street, where we owned a couple of small retail businesses. My girls grew up knowing all the shopkeepers by name, and spent many happy afternoons playing in the room behind the store, going to buy candy three doors down and hanging out at the used bookstore up the street. We played a key role in the community, and my daughters understood the benefits of living in a place in which it was possible to work together in order to create a fun neighborhood event or raise money for a worthy cause right in their town. I became obsessed with gardening, seeking out the most obscure perennials and digging up swaths of lawn to plant new beds full of flowering shrubs and my favorite natives.

Later, we lived in suburbia, where we had a dramatically different experience. Some of our neighbors had lived in their homes for 25 years without ever meeting the families in the houses four doors down. There were plenty of grassy parks and manicured yards, but very few natural places open to anyone who wanted to explore them. The only stores in the area were the two strip malls mile to the north or the acres of big-box retailers across the highway to the south. There were no front porches from which to greet passing neighbors and many had landscaping services come to mow their front lawns. Most people spent their time on the decks and in the hot tubs in their private backyards.

I missed chatting with neighbors while spreading compost in my front flower beds. I missed vegetable gardens. I missed having a community in which it might take half an hour to walk two blocks because there were so many people to chat with along the way. I could go on a two-hour walk without ever passing someone on the sidewalk.

Now, we live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s a city of nearly 13 million people, and we live in the heart of it. I can enjoy stately parks full of old trees and a fascinating botanical garden just a few blocks away. There’s a produce vendor across the street who sells all kinds of fresh vegetables and fruits in season. I am learning about the native plants and the growing season, and getting to know the people on my block. Though I do occasionally long to dig in the dirt, I feel a connection to the land, the climate and the people.

During the past two weeks, I’ve been back in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the height of summer, and strolling through the old neighborhoods has given me a chance to admire the lush gardens and remember the joy of creating textural and fragrant art by designing plant combinations. I breathe deep and smile as the bumblebees buzz in the lavender plants along the sidewalks.

I have spent the last few years giving my daughters a chance to live abroad and learn more about themselves and the world. I just devoted a year to writing a book that promotes the idea of giving our children meaningful periods of time spent living in other countries. And I’ve had many conversations with people who are enthusiastic about giving their kids a global education.

But during the last few weeks of this book tour, I’ve come to recognize and appreciate the very local education I received growing up in Oregon and the sense of place that was instilled in me through those many, many hours in the garden, the woods, and the neighborhoods of my youth. Our children need a sense of place. They need to know where their food comes from–even if that’s a farmer’s market instead of their own vegetable garden. We must give them an appreciation for nature that goes beyond freshly-mowed lawns and crowded beaches.

It’s becoming more difficult to give our kids a chance to hike in the forests, muck about in ponds and run through meadows, but it’s imperative that we show them the bounty of the earth and teach them their responsibility in protecting it.

And though I am an evangelist for getting kids out into the world, I am equally passionate about ensuring that our children know where they are from, that they have roots into the land and joy in the changing seasons. As parents, we can give our kids enriching opportunities to learn both locally and globally and teach them how to dig into their own community–no matter where in the world it might be.

Being global means having a deep awareness of the world and the ability to see it from various perspectives. Sometimes it means coming back home and growing deep roots. Other times, it means moving abroad and planting oneself in a whole new place.

In every case, it means bringing the appreciation of a sense of place wherever you go and connecting with others in order to enrich each other.

When we raise global localists, the world becomes a greener, more compassionate place.

Tom and I had a great time at WBUR’s studio in Boston yesterday doing NPR’s fastest-growing talk show, “On Point”
with Tom Ashbrook. It was live and is presented by more than 150 NPR affiliates across the country! You can listen to the recorded show here .

It was a great experience all around–the producers were so excited about our story and really made us feel welcome, and the host couldn’t have been more charming. The callers were beyond civil (perhaps the harsh critics were screened out!) and in fact, many just wanted to call and share their own story of students gone global. We just sat back and let ourselves be validated. Nothing like others’ success stories to reinforce the notion that going abroad is an incredibly beneficial learning experience!

I received many, many personal emails–some during the show!–including many from students who are very interested in going abroad but whose parents are worried about sending them. For many, the money is the perceived obstacle. Once we point out that it costs A LOT to raise a sixteen-year-old here in the US and that many families can actually SAVE THOUSANDS of dollars while their kid is having the most important year of their lives abroad, parents start coming around. Most parents who claim they don’t have enough money to send their student abroad make far more than we do (we’ve been firmly planted in the mid-five figures for several years) and have fewer kids–it’s more about priorities than cash. In addition, it’s important to note that many students in the book who share their stories about their exchange or college study abroad came from low-income families and received scholarships that funded their experiences.

When it comes to going abroad, the biggest obstacle is not lack of money–it’s lack of information and imagination. Learn the facts, imagine the possibilities, and then get out there and play!

I’ve been having fun connecting with Amy Tiemann, author of Mojo Mom: Nurturing Yourself While Raising a Family. I’d been following her updates on Facebook and knew that her book had been rereleased recently, so I was interested in seeing how her book launch was going. It turns out we have the same agent!

Amy has a PhD from Stanford and was a science teacher for years before choosing to stay home as a new mom. She started writing the book she wished she had as a new mother–one that describes not just how to care for a baby but how a mother can care for herself as well. She wrote Mojo Mom to help other women reinvent themselves after becoming mothers.

In addition to her great website/blog at MojoMom.com, Amy offers podcast interviews of all kinds of interesting women. Last Friday, she posted an interview she’d done with me about The New Global Student along with her conversation with a woman who is reinventing herself in Tulum, Mexico.

Check out the podcast here.

And just to show what a fan she is (I am so honored!) take a look at my Amazon page
Amy’s the first one to write a review! And she’s very honest about her own educational journey (head down, PhD at 27) and how the book made her wish she’d taken a few little detours along the way….

Cheers to you, Amy!

Yesterday, Tom took this three-minute video as I met my agent for the first time and found my book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble here in New York. I navigated through the entire pitch-to-publication process via email while living in Argentina, so if you’re dreaming of publishing a book someday (the old way, with an agent and everything) I hope you’ll find this inspiring!

Glimpse, an organization partially funded by National Geographic, offers a great program for students planning to spend at least ten weeks abroad and who have an interest in improving their writing and photography skills.

Selected Glimpse correspondents get help with editing and opportunities to share their stories and photos with the world. Oh, and there’s a $600 stipend, too!

Learn more here.