Dear readers! We finally arrived in Sri Lanka and are on our second day in Colombo and are loving it. Above you can see Mike braving a cobra and I actually never have seen him scared like that. I gladly skipped on that experience.

The last two weeks couldn’t be more full of contrasts. We finished our 91 Days in Palermo – spent 2 weeks with friends and family in the US and then flew half across the globe to Sri Lanka, which took 2 days!!!

2 two weeks were wonderful and very sad as well. We had to put our dog Chucky to sleep. She got to be 10 years old, she had cancer in her lungs and was really suffering on her last 5 days of her life. Deciding that it is better to find her final rest was probably the hardest thing I had to do in my life. She was such a good dog and such a world traveler. We got her in Berlin, we moved with her to Ireland and Valencia. Then we took her to Savannah, GA and Buenos Aires. And had a wonderful time with her in Palermo.

That was tough but I had some great highlights as well. I got to celebrate the 1st birthday of my nephew and my own as well. Mike’s parents took me out to the French Lick casino in Indiana. I had a blast.

And before we flew to Sri Lanka we got to spent 8 hours in NYC, to do some sightseeing and to meet friends.

Below you will find couple of random pictures of the last weeks … stay tuned via our For 91 Days Twitter account to find out when we launch the Sri Lanka blog.

- Our Travel Books

I love flying, well let’s say I used to love flying. Somehow between my first flight and currently flying “the magic” about traveling by plane has gone or better said flown far far away. It’s just too much hassle and pain. Flying these days is only fun if you can afford flying in Business / First Class. You can skip lanes, tons of leg room, great service. In a couple of days we will be flying to the US to see family and to drop off our doggy before going our next travel blog stop Sri Lanka.

This flight will be the longest trip EVER. Ohio to NYC. Then to Jordan and finally over to Colombo. This will take us 30 hours and we will lose 2 days!!!

We booked with Royal Jordanian Airways in economy class. I’ve read that their legroom in eco is decent but PLEASE if someone from their PR reads this, I’m almost 2 meter tall!!! And I would look just so fly in your awesome crown class. It’s super cozy!

Anyway, enjoy these fun crosswind landings taken during a storm in Düsselfdorf, Germany.

Video Link: Crosswind Landings

- Feed your eReader with Travel Stories

Because when you travel everything is possible. I especially like that they are smell and em you know what resistant!

It’s hard to get excited by practical underwear, but once you experience these travel boxers from SeV you’ll change your mind. The boxers feature two outer pockets. The front (3 in. x 4 1/2 in.) is perfect for a phone (fits the iPhone with a small case). The rear is slightly larger (3 3/4 in. x 5 in.) to accommodate a passport. Neither pocket has a closure, so you’ll want to remove your valuables before you spend time inverted.

The shorts are made of a quick-dry, wicking nylon fabric that’s lightweight and reminds us of athletic mesh (93% nylon, 7% Lycra). The fabric is not so much coated with as bonded with the Aegis® microbe shield (3-Trimethoxy silyl propyl dimethyl octadecyl ammonium chloride). It makes the fabric both odor and stain resistant and makes the boxers easier to wash clean in the sink and hang dry while traveling. And the bonding means the coating doesn’t wear off after a certain number of washings.

More info: Boxer Shorts For Travel Bloggers

- Our Savannah Book is #2 of all Georgia Travel Guides

Yes indeed, the title of being the best Firework of 2012 already have been awarded to the people in Dubai. That amazing firework was shot from the highest building of the world ( Burj Khalifa ) in Dubai. I’m a sucker for Fireworks and here are couple of them I filmed: Firework Wake Up Call, Earthquake Firework during the Day, Beach Firework and so on .. you get the point ! Now, hello tourist board of Dubai, how about inviting to travel bloggers for the next New Year’s Eve Firework?

Video Link: Best Firework of 2012

- Earn Money Writing Stuff

[via Gizmodo]

Other views:

We turned now our last year of traveling into 4 separate Travel eBooks. So from each past 3 month stays (Savannah, Oviedo, Buenos Aires, Bolivia) we produced books available now as Mobi, PDF file and available as an eBook on Kindle. That’s all good but how do you get people to buy your book?

Well, we generated couple of sales and the books being mostly sold are the Savannah and Buenos Aires Book.  Oviedo is very slow but right now it’s not the season to travel there ( too cold and rainy) and Bolivia was just released couple of days ago.

Maybe the main selling point is probably the connections our blog readers have with our site, purchasing the book because they enjoyed reading our site. The price of it  $7.99 seems fair and after the cut from the Bookseller we still make a decent amount from it.

We asked our readers to mention it on their twitter and facebook which really helped in increasing the sales.

But what are other ways to market the travel books? I invested couple of $$$ in Adwords but can’t really tie back a sale to those ads. I was looking to submit the books to eBook directories but most them are only for Free Books! No luck, I wish there was a directory for pay travel books!

Now selling the books on Amazon opens the door to a lot of potential buyers, that said the eBook market will multiply by 10 times in the next 5 years ( Thanks to the Kindle fire) but it’s almost like it’s with Google, you need to show up in search results as high as possible on the keywords which apply to your book.

For example if I take the keywords “buenos aires guide” for the Buenos Aires book I land on page 2 position 22 (checked again, now it’s # 17). That’s not terrible butd I wish we would be on page 1! Now how can I increase that position?

The more books you sell, reviews being written about it, stars given, liked and tagged the higher you will rank in the Amazon search results = the more sales you will make.

Today I’m running a special promotion on the Savannah Guide, it’s enrolled to the Amazon Select program (more by mistake) they have a great promotional tool where you can set up days to offer your book for free. This promotion is running right now!!!!

Check it out (only today 12/30/2011): Free Savannah Travel Guide

We are hoping to receive couple of stars, tags, likes and reviews. So feel free to secure your Savannah For 91 Days guide now and we hope you like it enough to give some feedback.

Also, if you published eBooks feel free to let us know. I will start a list of Travel eBooks below.

How do you promote your eBooks, do you have any tips for us? Please leave a comment!

Here now the list of awesome eBooks (staring with ours )

• Savannah Guide
• Oviedo Guide
• Buenos Aires Guide
• Bolivia Travel Book

We were on a day trip exploring the super charming town Cafalù not too far from Palermo. Outside of an café were these vending machines. The usual stuff you can get like bubble gum, toys and other crab and then BOOOOM the 1 Euro G-String Vending Machine. It took my breath away and I had to sit down for a moment. I still can’t figure who is targeted to buy a G-String from a vending machine? I mean you see the toys vending machine right next to it! So Kids, prostitutes or it’s for the house wife noticing half way to the supermarket that she is not completely dressed. Riddles over riddles.

More: G-Strings for Adults

Thanks to our travels we are sleeping in all kinds of different beds, the bed bug cocoon does look cozy but not sure if I’m a cocoon kind of guy.

This portable sleeping cocoon is made specially woven fabric that is impervious to bed bugs. The sleeping cocoon’s tightly wound polyester threads are spaced only 1-micron apart (a span that’s much smaller than bed bugs) to prevent 100% of bed bugs from penetrating the fabric. The durable polyester threads are impervious to bed bugs’ teeth yet the fabric remains soft, pliable, and breathable for optimal sleeping comfort in a hotel bed.

More info: Bed Bug Cocoon

- Travel Guides for your eReader

Las week we went for our first long road trip since we have been on Sicily. We went to the fantastic town of Syracuse stayed over night and then went to the baroque gem Noto. We only have been gone out of Palermo for 36 hours but the amount of things we saw ( and ate ) was incredible. And while exploring Syracuse we noticed these crafted chocolate tools in a window display and thought we have to share this with you. YUMM!

More info: Sicily Blog

- Bacon Chocolate

The Hello Kitty House has been a huge hit. Now there is a Hello Kitty Hotel in Beverly Hills! What!??? Yes. We are going to stop every travel plan we had for our blog and check in there. Well, not really but when in town we are going to stop by. Mike might refuse but I don’t care! I want to spend a night with Hello Kitty! Sooner or later. But only one night – any time more would drive me insane. I can only take so much Hello Kitty Stuff.

Hotel Link: Hello Kitty Hotel

- Travel Blog

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Snuggle up with a sheep hot water bottle. You will be ZzzzzZZZzzing in no time.

A yutanpo is a traditional hot water bottle from Japan, a great way to keep warm during the long, cold winter nights. A traditional and environmentally friendly way to warm your bed without wasting unneeded electricity. Before you go to bed, pour boiling water in this mini 500ml plastic container, seal it securely, put on the cute sheep cover and then place it in your bed to make things nice and warm for you.

More info: Super Cute Hot Water Bottles

- Nipple  Surprise