2 months ago  I went travelling to Colombia. It is a gorgeous country to visit and not so dangerous after all…I felt safe all along the trip. Please visit my site if you want to know more. Before I went there I started gathering a lot of info. The best place to start is the Colombian ambassy. I needed to get as much info as I could. Now I didn’t speak Spanish so I was well happy to have my International Visual Translator book. It cam handy when I went to Santa Marta where no one speaks English. The day after we went to the Playa Arrecifes in the Parque Natural Tayrona. This beach is located in the east of the park. To reach it we had to walk through the jungle during 2 hours. This time there were more people, including a french guy with his Colombian girlfriend. He was from Montfort in the east of France. It took us 1h30 to go from the hotel to the east side of the park. Once arrived we put on the sun cream (but forgot to buy a mosquito cream! Don’t make the same mistake) and our walking shoes and here we were going through the colombian wildlife. We saw various animals and species of flowers. It was a nice walk despite the raising temperature (37 degrees). We finally arrived at the Playa Arrecifes and what a view…even better than Playa Crystal. Only issue is that we couldn’t swim as it was too dangerous (strong stream). We stayed on the Arrecifes beach for few minutes and then we carried on walking towards La Piscina, which was another beach where we could swim. Once arrived, we went to a small restaurant where I ate Carne a la Plancha. After lunch we went relaxing on the beach and took various photos. It was the first time that I also found a coco nut and we ask the locals to open it for me so that I could drink it. It contains a lot of water but without tools it is impossible to open it. We left the place at 3.30pm as we needed to walk another 2 hours. We arrived at the hotel at 7.30pm, ate and went straight to bed. It was a great adventure that I would advise everyone to experience…

As I have been saying all along my blogs, I have been travelling for several years. My very first trip was actually when I was 18. I went to England to watch the Beatles play. That tells you how long I have been on the road. Nowadays, travelling is a more enjoyable experience. You have access to areas that I would not have been able to afford when I was younger. When I see low cost airlines selling me a ticket to go to England for 1p it makes me wonder if I would have been able to travel more when I was younger. The cost of travelling has gone down but it isn’t the only thing that as changed since the early days. Communication now is easier. We have the Internet at home, on the mobiles. I can now speak and see my son with a webcam…what a life! The TV appeared when I was only 10! I meet many backpackers while I travel and the new generation relies so much on the new technology. But what happens when it fails you? Well most of them panic. And this is why I am trying to convince people that my book, even if it isn’t based on new technology, will be a tool that will never fail you. Try the International Visual Translator and see it by yourself!

I got up this morning thinking where my father, Leo,  would be best selling my new International Visual Translator book? If you have visited my website Skippyglobetrotter you will have find my online shop. But is it the best way?

I am looking to help my father launch his book in an International context and here are some of my ideas:

-My website
-Amazon
-FNAC (France)
-Waterstones (UK)
-Shopzilla

Whether you shop online or in a high street store, if you have any suggestions as to where I should promote the book please let me know…

Thanks

Ben

Welcome to my blog.

Here is the thing. my father has travelled around the world for decades now and I thought it was a good time to write about his travel experiences as he has just launched a new book called “The International Visual Translator”…Unlike most writers, his book only contains images and drawings! The whole concept is based on visuals. Why? Here is the answer…

After several researches, he has found that people learn languages for various purposes. One of the main reason being able to communicate with other people. Now, ask yourself why do people learn languages? May it be for leisure, business or family reasons? Well I think that travelling is the main reason why people learn languages.

I have found an interesting fact:

There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers.

Now, what do you do when you travel to a country, either for pleasure or business, and you do not speak a word of the language? The answer for most of you will be to use your hands or a pen and paper to describe what you are after. I don’t know about you but my drawing skills are not the best and some things are just to hard to mime.

Well for all of the above reasons, I have decided to create a unique international visual translation guide that will help you convey your needs under any circumstances to your interlocutor.

The book regroups various visuals of the day to day life, from ordering food to asking where the hospital is.

The international visual translation book is made of eight themes that will help you communicate abroad without speaking the language…You can find all the book features at http://www.skippyglobetrotter.com/book.html

The main benefits of the international visual translation guide are to overcome the language barriers and being able to communicate at any time in any situations. Also, the book is pocket-sized making it handy to carry with you.

A word of my father Leo

“Now then, what I would love with this blog is to actually hear from people that have gone abroad with or without my international visual translator book and give me some feedback as to how difficult it is to communicate when you don’t speak the language.

Happy reading and I do hope that one day I will come across a blogger that will carry my book around the world “

All the best

Leo