Meet Plan Go! Take The Trip Of Your Life/Career!

Have you ever just wanted to just pack up and catch a plane to some far-flung location? Stand up in the middle of your cubicle farm and announce that you’re going across the ocean to your bleary eyed co-workers? Or even just wanted to unplug and see what the world has to offer for just a few weeks? But how can you? You’re working, you have families, bills, mortgages, pets, RESPONSIBILITIES! Well gather around folks, we’ve got something to tell you…Career Breaks!! It’s not only possible but will most likely be the best thing that has ever happened to you and even to your career.

Career breaks are fairly common across Europe and Australia but have are just begging to be seen in the United States and Canada. What is a career break? It’s basically just what it sounds like, taking a break or sabbatical from your career, in most cases to travel.

Last year several seasoned travelers and career breakers created Meet Plan Go! An online career break site full of articles, tips, and insight about traveling and taking a career break from people who are or have done it. Not only do they have a great site, but last year they created Meet Plan Go! Events across 13 cities with over 1500 attendees all on the same night! Read what the NY Times had to say about it.

This year the event will be held in over 17 cities across the U.S. and Canada. And for the first time there will be an event in New Olreans, hosted by yours truly! Leaving our old life behind to go traveling wasn’t easy, but doing so not only gave us amazing expereinces and memories but have absolutly made us better people all around. It gave us the confidence to come back and start our own company in a new city, something we had wanted to do in our past life but was too uncertain to try. Taking the time to travel opened so many unexpected and amazing doors, and now we want to share this passion and experience with others. We want to nudge those who might be just “daydreaming” into taking the next step!

Does the idea of taking off and exploring the world get your blood pumping and nerves tingling? If so here’s where you can find out more:

Meet Plan Go! Website

Meet Plan Go! Facebook

Meet Plan Go! Twitter

Sign up for the informative and fun Newsletter

See all the cities and hosts for the event!

Early bird tickets to the event will go on sale at a discounted price in May, don’t wait to the last minuet as last year several hundred people were on the waiting list.
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Together For Japan: 日本と共に

We Heart Japan

Hi everyone! I am so excited, proud, and honored to present to you “Together for Japan: 日本と共に” Our first ever fundraiser to help with the re-building of Japan! The t-shirts are available online at TogetherForJapan.org and in all Jean Therapy stores located in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The shirts will also be available (ladies only) at Irie Boutique located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

You can view more pics at Together for Japan’s facebook page and we would LOVE it if people would post their own pics with their shirt on to the page!!

Ladies Tee White V-Neck

Men Tee Grey Crew Neck

The shirts can be shipped anywhere in the U.S.! Proceeds from the shirt will go towards a great local non-profit created by several Japanese groups in New Orleans called NOLA Japan Quake Fund. This NGO will gather the money collected (currently topping $63,000!) and donate it to local NGOs in Japan who have the most pressing need. The goal is to give to organizations in Japan directly that will help in the LONG term re-building of the affected areas in Japan (Long term meaning long after the News channels move on).

These shirts will make you happy! Well at least they should make you feel as good as you look!

Getting the screens ready

How It Began
A few posts ago we posted “Japan: Why The Sun Will Rise Again“. With a translation from an article my Japanese friend wrote about the amazing reactions and response by the people of Japan in the wake of the horrific earthquake and tsunami on March 11th. For that post I designed an image that resonated with what I was feeling towards my childhood home country. A Japan with the quake lines but surrounded by the rising sun turned heart- to symbolize my thoughts and prayers for those affected by the disaster. (more…)

A Parade of Designs

Carnival season is in motion here in New Orleans. The houses have exchanged their Christmas decor for the purple, gold, and green of Mardi Gras. Flags are hung and King Cakes are baking. Its like having a second Christmas coming, and we are anxiously awaiting to celebrate and watch the parades from our small office on St. Charles Avenue.

So in honor of our first Mardi Gras while living in the NOLA, today we are offering up a small parade of our own. A parade of some our recent design work done for some truly amazing travel bloggers and writers.

Astahaya: Private Caribbean Charter

www.astahaya.com

Astahaya.com was actually our very first job as ‘The Traveling Designers’. We met the owners (Tom & Christian) while boat sitting in Curacao, and we all became fast friends. They wanted a website to showcase their beautiful yacht for private charters, and well, we were more than happy to help. In fact, the entire website was designed and built from the spacious salon of Astahaya. We recently updated the website with new information. Working on it again brought back a lot of fond memories of our journey through the Caribbean and of all the friends we made. If you would like to see some amazing photos of a truly spectacular yacht, be sure to check out Astahaya.
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A Wrapping Worthy of the Gift

Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level Cover Art

Today we have a guest post from Steven Roll of Travelojos, the Latin America Travel Blog. We recently worked with Steven helping him design and format his new ebook “Celebrating Latin America at Ground Level”, which is available for free download here.

Below, Steven shares a little about his project and how “Hop & Jaunt helped him deliver on his commitment to produce an e-book that highlighted the talents of the Latin America travel blogging community.”

A Wrapping Worthy of the Gift by Steven Roll

” One of the things I’ve come to love about travel blogging since I started Travelojos in December, 2008 is that it motivates me to put actions behind my words. That makes me fortunate because I truly enjoy what I write about: traveling to Latin America, learning Spanish, and enjoying the culture even when I’m at home in the Washington, D.C. area.

Before I started blogging, I never would have pushed myself to do things like enroll in a language immersion program in Guatemala this year.

Another one of my goals for 2010 was to publish a free e-book featuring the work of other Latin America travel bloggers.

The idea behind Latin America at Ground Level was to have expats or regular travelers to Latin America write about the region’s pleasures and endless contradictions. Each would contribute a short personal essay about a special aspect of Latin America and what it means to them.
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Serving Up Delicious Design

November is upon us. The time of year when our thoughts and minds turn to holiday feasting. A chance to indulge our appetites and fatten our waistlines in preparation for the approaching winter.

And here at HOP & JAUNT we have been busily serving-up tasty new designs for our fellow bloggers. What better time of year to spruce-up your website or blog with some custom design details? Its easier than you think.

Here are some custom headers we’ve recently created for some great bloggers. Feast your eyes upon these:

Living in a Hostel Header Design

Hostel connoisseur, Runaway Jane, contacted us to create this fun custom header for her website Living in a Hostel.com. During years of travel, Jane has stayed in hundreds of backpacker hostels, and has grown to love the experience. On her blog she offers insight and advice into hostel accommodations. She wanted a custom header that was fun, colorful, and depicted the unique lifestyle of hostel living. I especially liked this project because it gave us chance to do a lot of illustrations.

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