2008 was THE year for Budget Travel. If you missed it, I have good news for you. Not too far from right now, you will have a chance to make 2009 THE year for Budget Travel for you. I know many people will be taking time during the holidays between Thanksgiving and January 1st to reflect on what went well in 2008 and how it could be better in 2009.

Thanksgiving is when people in the United States look at what they have and give thanks for our blessings. And almost universally, people throughout the world look at January 1st as the time to make a resolution or two on what things they will change in their life to make their world, someone else's world, or the entire world, better in the new year.

This year at Thanksgiving I gave thanks for having family even though my mother died on June 1st at the age of 99½. My father-in-law died on November 19th, a week before Thanksgiving, at the age of 82. Still I gave thanks for having family. I don't know what the future will bring, and it might bring changes leaving me all by myself. So I gave thanks for what I had that day.

In 2009 I will be making a few changes. They are not really resolutions, since I have already started working on them in 2008. They might be life changing changes for me. One is to get more exercise. More walking, getting out in the sunshine, getting my heart to beat a little quicker.

Another change that affects Budget Travel readers is to save my money for a really good RV trip with my spouse. And take good notes about the trip so I can pass along the experience to my Budget Travel readers.

I want to do more with audio and video this year to enhance my reader enjoyment of this topic and the articles it contains. Maybe I'll do an online audio, also known as a podcast, that readers can download and listen to as they are jogging or walking, on a subject of interest like Home Exchanges, or budget RV travels, or interviewing a work at home travel agent. The possibilities are endless.

I will be writing more about walking tours since not only are they right up a Budget Traveler's alley, but they will help me get my heart pumping a little more, as I participate.

2008 was really hard for people everywhere. In the United States, we tend to think only of how the financial mess has affected us Yanks, but the damage has gone world-wide. Our friends in the United Kingdom have been hit as have the Italians, the French, the South Americans; everyone, everywhere.

I have not read any travel articles that say to go to such in such place because they have not been hit with "the mess". Everyone is writing about how to make the buck, the pound, the euro, the peso, etc. go further and get better and even more value.

One thing I want to do is to learn a new language. I will be looking at some audio programs and also the podcast for languages. I don’t know which I will be starting off with – Spanish or Italian. I like the idea of a pod lessons that I can listen to while going walking. You can see the ad at the bottom of the page.

Those are some of the things I am changing in 2009. If you have a subject you would like to see covered, why not click my picture above and on the new page that appears, go to the bottom and leave me a comment. You can leave me your e-mail address if you want a reply or you do not have to. I will try to get you a reply as soon as I can or to get the article on the web site as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading Budget Travel, this year.

Until next time, let me know what is on your mind, and how you are doing, O.K.? My next article will be out shortly.

Oh - I almost forgot. You are on my mailing list, right? Your e-mail address is kept private and you will never receive SPAM from BellaOnline. As a matter of fact, they don't even let me see the e-mail addresses that the newsletter goes to. The security for the newsletter mailing list is tight.

Jim Fortune - the BellaOnline Budget Travel Guy

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