Because Christmas is a time to be with family, loved ones and friends, it is one of the busiest times of the year to travel. People travel to different regions and to international destinations to share Christmas dinners, exchange gifts and recall fond memories they have of the season. There’s also travel for entertainment reasons that’s done by tourists within the country or from abroad. And even on Christmas Day, the highways are busy with vehicles as relatives and friends travel between towns and states to spend the day together.

The massive and rapid shift away from an agrarian society to one of commerce with the development of cities and suburbs caused family members to move farther and farther away from each other, therefore making it necessary to travel by land, air or rail to be together for holidays such as Christmas and other special occasions. And with some countries being economic powerhouses in the world, movement of peoples got even farther as they migrated to other countries to take advantage of better opportunities to improve their lives. Consequently, air travel has expanded in modern times to take people to international destinations.

Travelling during Christmas and the holidays is not limited to visiting relatives and friends. Many people travel for entertainment, including families who are interested in seeing interesting sights and enjoying world-renowned entertainment that are in faraway places from where they live. Travel to a destination that is far away, within or outside a country may only be done once by a family and that in itself creates a special memory.

Within the United States, it is popular for families and groups of friends to visit New York City to see the general sights of the city and to shop at Christmas. Some of these sights are known throughout the country and are celebrated each Christmas. The annual lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is an example.

The lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, which is located west of Fifth Avenue from 47th Street to 51st Street in New York City, has been an tradition since the time of the Depression. The first tree was placed at the site in 1931 but it wasn’t decorated with any Christmas ornaments. In recent years, more than 25,000 Christmas lights and other ornaments have been placed on the tree.

Also in New York City, it is very popular for tourists to travel at Christmas to see the spectacular Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall with the signature high-kicking Rockettes perform. The show is a favorite of both adults and children as it is very festive, lively and filled with the spirit of Christmas. Tourists also travel during Christmas to international destinations for entertainment. Because the Nutcracker Ballet originated in Russia and that country has worldwide acclaim for some of the most technical and artistic ballet performers, it is a popular destination at Christmas. The legendary Tchaikovsky composed the music for the Nutcracker Ballet, which was first performed in Russia’s Mariinsky Theatre that is home to the acclaimed Kirov Ballet. The story is about a little girl’s dream on Christmas Eve about a beloved Nutcracker toy she received as a present.

Travel to international destinations is also popular at Christmastime to escape the cold of a ‘White Christmas.’ For those who do not like the cold but like to be out and about at Christmas, the alternative is to go somewhere with a more tropical climate. Travel to destinations in the Caribbean, where Christmas is robustly celebrated, is popular during the Christmas season.

One of the intriguing places to travel during the Christmas season is to a place where Santa can be observed. There is such a place in Finland at a village where Santa Claus has his workshop. Travel to see and possibly talk to Santa Claus is a delightful adventure for children. But such a trip has to be made before Christmas Eve when Santa, his elves and reindeer embark on a trip themselves to every home in the world.

It is true enough that affiliate marketing is financially rewarding. People who have gone through everything to be able to succeed in this business are reaping the seeds that they untiringly sowed. Many of them enjoy the kind of existence that was not possible for them to have had under ordinary circumstances. Having gone through the A-Z of affiliate marketing, however, these people are the ones who know that while such business is lucrative, there is absolutely no easy money in it.

Ignorance of this fact is one of the main reasons why there are people who fail miserably in the internet business. There are those who believe in myths concerning the easy money involved in systems such as affiliate marketing. They do not know that there are those who have wasted time, effort and too many resources in trying to pursue the life of ease that they believe this business will give them. And so they go into affiliate marketing armed with nothing but myths and fantastical notions of wealth swimming in their consciousness, never realizing that they bound to make mistakes that would prove to be their downfall.

What may be the reason why in businesses such as affiliate marketing, many are called but few are chosen? Perhaps the answer lies on the fact that many affiliates make mistakes that result from their ignorance of facts concerning how the entire business runs. Affiliate marketing is not as simple as an affiliate promoting a merchant’s wares through his website and getting paid for it. It is also about knowing the market and the customers at hand.

Discovering what the most common mistakes affiliates make can perhaps dispel the gloom about myths surrounding affiliate marketing by correcting some wrong notions about it. It might also be able to make those concerned understand that like any other business, there are dos and don’ts involved in this one if they want to make each of their steps count. The first common mistake affiliates make is their lack of knowledge concerning principles involved in their business. This refers to the affiliate’s knowledge of search engines in particular.

Affiliate marketing involves advertising, and advertising through the internet could not have been better without the existence of search engines. What every affiliate has to do is to make these search engines his best friend through studying search engine optimization closely. This way, he is able to know what to do in connection with building a better website to ultimately use for his business.

The second is that affiliates make the mistake of stuffing their sites with banners that do not provide enough information about the product at hand. The best way to battle this mistake is to provide good content hand-in-hand with such banners. It is important for customers to know and understand the features of a product, and good content will be able to help them realize this goal.

The third is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting only one product. Consequently, customers are not given enough options to choose from. There is also the risk of generating fewer sales as compared to having more options for customers ponder about. It is always better to give them a few better alternatives than to give them only one.

The fourth is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting too many products. As a result, customers are confused and end up beyond making a choice. It is perhaps good to give them only the best choices. This is because it is ultimately up to them to judge which one is the best for them to patronize.

All in all, affiliates that are doomed to fail in this business are those who do not exert enough effort to understand everything involved in the industry that they are in. Knowing their path step by careful step will prove to be beneficial to them, as there is no other way to succeed than to go through any path slowly but surely.

The town has created a Qantas museum. Qantas stands for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services” and has come a long way since it first began. The headquarters are now in Sydney but the service is very proud of its beginnings. The Qantas fleet now circles the globe carrying passengers and cargo all over the world.

There are two planes there that you can walk through and see what it is like to be in the pilot’s seat. There is a 747 and a 707. The 707 is one of two that are still able to fly. The other one is owned and flown by John Travolta who has become an ambassador for Qantas. The museum buildings are quite extensive, displaying aircraft from former years.

Just across the road is the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. This was opened and dedicated to the stockman who originally opened up much of Australia.

Now apart from enjoying the sights in and around Longreach, there was one thing that I did not enjoy. The internet was only available from one carrier and if you moved too far out of the town there was no service at all.

You can easily see that I know I could never live where I cannot get the internet. I felt completed isolated from my friends. I was glad to get back home last Friday. I had over 500 emails waiting for me and heaps of skype messages.

So now I am back here to work on my internet marketing and I love it. I am starting a great new course Internet Business Code X.

Always nice to go on holidays but there is no place like home.

Wow! Just found out that Google are now trying to get more market share back from Facebook by using their+1 button. You may be wondering what the +1 button is all about. It is similar to the Facebook’s “like” button

It is still in trial stage but they have come up with the idea because Facebook is gaining more and more users.

Why? Facebook is social media and people who go on Facebook to chat seem to stay on facebook. Google, on the other hand, was primarily known as a search engine but times are a changing.

You may not have even noticed it when you do a search on Google but it is there.

Go and do a search on Google and I am sure you will see it straight after the title.

So if you want to learn all about it I would suggest you read exactly what Google has to say. I am sure you will find it very interesting.

Here is the link:

http://www.google.com/+1/button/

I wanted to move servers from a private server over to hostgator. I backed up the blog all 64 posts along with 18 pages of comments.  Then using an FTP program uploaded the backup to my Cpanel. Hostgator said it should be ready within 12-24 hours. One hour later hostgator advised me the file was corrupt. Imagine my disappointment! My blog had over 8000 backlinks that had taken me hours to create and it had a PR2.

Well sometimes the gods do smile down on me. My blog (or at least part of it) was there after 2 days. Yes every post had some type of corruption in it and I had lost all the tags, the plugins and the widgets – but at least I could clean them up and get on with my next task.

It is amazing how happy that made me feel even though it will require a lot of work to restore it – it should be worth it.

I planned to write this earlier but unfortunately I have been sick and out of action for the entire week. Just a little unfortunate, but it happens when you least expect it.

So now that I have most of my blogs, I will start and get back to regular updating. In fact, I think I might even do it automatically – write one blog and have it appear on several blogging platforms at once. It will certainly save me a lot of time.

So this is Sue McDonald saying I am happy to be back and I don’t know if I will every find my lost blogs in cyber space.

Fortunately for us, we live south of Brisbane and our house was unaffected but this was not the case for some people who have lost everything. For these people, there lives have changed. Everyone in life has at some time to adapt and change and this can be both good and bad. The best way to do this is to have a positive mindset that you will are going to be a winner.

So now I am home, what are my plans? My initial plan is to attend more classes and increase my knowledge in the field of Internet Marketing. I have had to make some crucial decisions regarding a business deal and one decision has been rather difficult for me but I know that whatever happens I have made the right decision.

This is what life is all about really  change. If you are not where you want to be or you do not have what you want yet  you and you alone have the power to change everything. Now I am not saying that by making the decision to change that things will happen immediately, but if you know what you want from life, it makes it so much easier to work towards attaining your goals. Remember that goals are dreams and desires that have to be completed in a certain time frame.

Affirmation and visualization is one of the easiest ways. Write down your affirmations and repeat them over and over to yourself. This is how you reprogram your brain. When planning for a change, be realistic in the time frame that you are going to allow yourself to reach your goal. If you wanted to travel overseas to work (for example)  write out a detailed plan how you are going to achieve it.  Note I did not say how you might achieve, I said how you are going to achieve it. So we have our goal in mind and a written plan and now we have to implement the plan. Always be positive with your affirmations never include words that are negative or the word “want” because that means you are lacking something.

So all that is required from us is to follow the plan and along the way celebrate the milestones you achieve. Getting started is the hardest part but remember the Chinese proverb “The longest journey begins with a single step.” This is your year so take that step or should I say leap!

So this is Sue McDonald just saying in another way – “Just do it”.

If like me you are in the Internet Marketing niche, I want you to really be realistic and plan your year to achieve what you want to do. For this plan to work we have to write out the exact road map to getting where we want to be.

I was in a college lecture once and the lecturer posed this question to the group. If you don’t complete this course, where will you be in one year?  Most of us looked at one another and were confused.  What did he mean? Where would we all be in one year if we did not complete the course? No one answered – the lecturer answered the question himself. He said  “The answer is very simple, you probably will not have advanced in your job, but you will be another year older and have wasted another year of your life.” Those words really made me think. What he was saying was that time is a commodity that cannot be replenished. Unlike restocking you food pantry, by buying more food, you can never replace the time that you waste.

So whatever you think you want to do, think very carefully about how you are going to achieve your goals. So this is why I want you to think and plan and do not waste any opportunities that present themselves to you.

If you have wanted to get educated in Internet Marketing, I would suggest that this is the very time for you to take action. A lot of people want to know exactly the right steps needed to be successful in this field. There is no easier way that getting a coach/mentor to show you how to gradually learn all the skills necessary to move forward and finally break through and start earning some money.

As your skill level increases, be prepared to help other people and you will find that there is a Law of Karma “ what you put out there, you will receive in return.” So be prepared this year to help others and experience the joys of giving and receiving.

So this is Sue McDonald wishing you great success for 2011.

Well the flights were great and on time and we even arrived ten minutes early- so that is unusual because we had three planes to get here. When we got to LA and saw on the airline advisory board that there was three inches of snow on the ground at Chicago, we feared we could get snowed in. It has happened to us there before but luckily it stopped snowing before we arrived and we left there on time. When this did happen to us a few years ago, fortunately on the way home, we were supposed to leave Chicago at 9.30am but never left till after 10.30pm and had missed our flight back to Australia. Just the joys of traveling!

Well now I have to do some Christmas shopping. We went to New York City for the weekend and we went to Macy’s but it was so crowded. It was wall to wall people and so difficult to move around. The real reason for the trip to New York was to go and see the Rockettes at Radio City. They were absolutely fabulous and the four of us really enjoyed them. Should have been on my bucket list but I missed it out- but well worth it.

We took the sight seeing tour bus but I think we walked more miles than we covered in the bus. This was my third trip to New York so I had an idea of the general areas. We went to Chinatown for lunch and enjoyed it. This Chinatown is no different – mostly copy goods that are sold there and all we bought were two pairs of gloves to keep our hands warm and our lunch and then walked back to get back on the bus.

So after breakfast and more shopping on Sunday morning, we left New York to drive back to Rhode Island and it rained all the way. So now we are settled back into work on the computer.

We discovered we did not have the power pack for the computer so we had to order one on line and it took 3 days to be delivered by post. The company said next day delivery but that was not true – so now I am back in business and can continuing doing what I like.

Well Guys this is the real Sue McDonald and I will tell you more about my holiday adventures next time. Stay safe till then!

I love traveling but one thing I don’t enjoy is the time you spend in airports. If you travel a lot you will understand what I am saying. We fly from Brisbane to LA and then on to Chicago and then to Providence. Now if all flights are on time I estimate we will only wait about 7 hours on the way over but the return journey we have a waiting time of nearly 10 hours. Our flights have been changed twice already and who says they cannot be changed again.

On the way home, the first leg of the journey stops off in Washington then to LA and then home.

I am really looking forward to this break, but in truth, it will not be a break from Internet Marketing. I am taking the trusty laptop so I can continue to do all the things I have to do to have a successful business on line. I still have three weeks of the present course I am doing. So I have my homework and webinars that I have to do.

The advanced course with Mark, starts two days after I get home and I am really looking forward to it. In it, he teaches how to create multiple streams of income and basically make money while you sleep, or better still, while you are go on a holiday.

Well Christmas is fast approaching and then comes the New Year and all of those resolutions that we all make. I have but one resolution and that is that I am going to be successful at whatever I do. This is not boasting but just stating a fact. I am prepared to work very hard for what I want and I know if I do that then I will achieve all that I want. I believe that if you do nothing you will get nothing so think about what you want and how you are going to achieve it. Think carefully about your New Years resolution and whatever you want, plan how YOU are going to get it. YOU are the most important person and you should only want the best for yourself.

If you are in the field of IM and you want to be a success, I would suggest that you get yourself a coach/mentor and learn the business step by step. You didn’t drive your car without being taught and IM is no different.

So this is Sue McDonald saying will talk to you when I get to the US. Take care till then and I will let you know about my holiday.

I can’t imaging traveling with a whole family in a bus but the only way to know what it would be like is to try it and that is what they intend to do. Australia is such a vast country that people do not realize how big this island is. Now I am a traveler and I have been overseas about 15 times and some of the questions I have been asked about our country can put a smile on your face.

I live on the Gold Coast and someone was coming from the States for a visit. They wanted to know if I could drive them to Cairns on Sunday so they could go white water rafting. The distance between here and Cairns is 1783 kilometres or 1107 miles. When I explained that to them their reaction was “it looks like a tiny island on the map”. I said it takes the same time to fly from LA to New York as it does to fly from Brisbane to Perth.

People overseas are always fascinated by our wild life. One person in England asked me did we have kangaroos in our back yard. Answer – no I live in a city. If you live in the country you may see a kangaroo in your back yard but not in the city. Another worry from a friend in England was the sharks in the water and the snakes on the land. We have some of the deadliest snakes in the world. Snakes live in bushland.

Nowhere in the world have I found beaches like we have here – not in the US or Europe or the UK. We have the most beautiful beaches in the world. Now that is not just a biased statement – Surfers Paradise was named one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The sand on our beaches is just soft white beautiful sand not pebbles or ground up shell. You can walk without shoes on the beach and just enjoy it.

Now this is what the Wood family are looking forward to while they are traveling in their “Busy Lizzie” – busy because of the amount of people in the buss and Lizzie as a play on Lisa.

So this is Sue McDonald wishing Lisa David and the family – a great adventure.