TEFL certification to teach and travel for under $100

I spent a couple years traveling the world while teaching online full-time, and many folks are interested in how I did it. So, here's the lowdown.
 First, I graduated from college with a BA in Linguistics. One of the very few things this prepares you to do is teach English as a foreign/second language. That worked out well! The second thing I did, which is much easier/cheaper/quicker, is I bought a Groupon for an online, accredited TEFL/TESOL course. I used a coupon code and got it for $69. Then I sat at a computer during my time off from work for a week straight and banged out the complete course.

$69 and one week later, I was a certified TEFL teacher.

Groupon now has a huge number of TEFL courses, but be careful: not all are accredited. Some are scams. I emailed them about one I mistakenly bought, and while they refunded my money, they didn't take it down. The company I used is TEFL Express, which currently has two Groupons running for different prices. You can buy the Groupon here! (I make no money off this, unfortunately.) If your course is 120+ hours, you should have no problem finding work. (A college degree helps, but is not always required.) Note that this doesn't certify you to be a classroom teacher in public US/UK schools, and it doesn't get you as far as the internationally-accepted CELTA course, but it also costs a tiny fraction of that.

Now, is the course actually good? I'd have to give that a resounding "eh, kind of." It covers a lot, including grammar, phonetics, teaching skills, and probably more things that I don't remember. My degree in linguistics made the course a breeze, but really, it doesn't ask much of you, and you may learn best by being in an actual classroom and having actual student-teacher time. There were some typos and errors, especially toward the end of the course, which made it seem unprofessional. Also, doing the whole course in a week makes it breeze by, and I forgot a lot of what I learned (but you might get quite a lot out of it if you take your time and review your notes). That said, it opened up a lot of doors. As soon as I got my certificate, I sent out my resume to a million English-teaching jobs, and I got a number of interviews and one job offer, which happened to be online and happened to allow me to travel the world. Some English-teaching jobs don't require a TEFL certification, but do prefer it, (like the one I got!) so for under $100, it's worth it to get a leg up.

Your first year of teaching will always be a challenge no matter how prepared you think you are, so if you feel like the online course isn't enough and you want some extra experience, why not take the cheap online course and then do some volunteering in your community? You'll find that many organizations or individuals are thrilled to have a certified English teacher, so you get to have your teaching experience without paying top dollar for your TEFL certification. However, if you know English teaching in English-speaking countries is what you want to do as a career, then you might be better served by taking a CELTA course or a full teacher certification course at a college. In my case, I had teaching experience and just wanted something on paper to prove it; I've only seen a handful of job listings that aren't in the US or UK that require CELTA or similar.

All in all, I definitely recommend this route if you want to get your foot in the door cheaply and quickly.


Next up: an alternate nearly-free way to get a TEFL certificate with Angloville...

Norwegian announces $69 flights between UK and US

Norwegian has once again teased us with announcements of under-£60 one-way flights between Edinburgh and New York,
allegedly starting June 2017. Is it for real? They have been talking about it for many months. I'm on the edge of my seat!


Their flights currently start as low as $110 between Europe and the US, and more like $150 or $250 from London. Checked luggage and food are extra, but on the whole, flying Norwegian is a pretty pleasant experience.

WowAir 50% off sale

WowAir is having a 50% off sale today only, using promo code WOWXMAS16. Some conditions apply, but GO GO GO!

WowAir flies between the US, Iceland, and Europe starting at $99 one-way, before the promo code.


Now, remember that WowAir is pretty barebones, so read all the fine print and check the baggage policy!

Uber USA promo code for $20 off! Existing customers, too!

Uber is having a big ol' sale for $20 off rides in the US to discourage drunk driving. Discouraging drunk driving is great! Sales are great! Check it out!

Koh Samet: Bangkok's delightful beach getaway

Hello, blogopals! Sorry I've been pants at updating; I just got back from a delightful mini-vacation on Koh Samet (sometimes spelled Ko Samed, Koh Samed, or any variation therein). Koh Samet is a tropical island just under four hours' bus ride southeast of Bangkok,
and it is just about everything I want from a tropical island, except monkeys. I didn't see any monkeys.

Lots of adorable dogs, though.

Cost + how to get there from Bangkok:

Bus from Ekkamai bus station in Eastern Bangkok to Ban Phe pier + ferry ticket from Ban Phe pier, round trip: 393 thb ($11 USD).

Boats!

That's it! You just hop on the semi-hourly bus at Ekkamai, hop off at the pier, take an hourly ferry, and you're there, for $11 round trip. Easy as pie. The buses and ferries only run until 6 or 7 PM (depending on which direction you're going), so don't plan to leave late at night, but they have schedules at the bus station, and they even gave me a little schedule when I bought my ticket.

Somebody put an enormous shirt and skirt on this enormous statue.
Is she supposed to wear that? Why is it there? We may never know.

Where to stay:

There are no couchsurfing hosts on the island, unfortunately.

We looked around online a bit on the bus, but decided not to book anything until we got to the island. We found loads of rooms in town (a bit traffic-y and polluted for our tastes) and right on the beach for between 600 and 1200 thb for a fan room, and up to 1500 or higher for AC. Most beachfront bungalows (complete with beachfront bugs and cold showers) were around 800 or 1000 thb, but we stayed at the White Sands Resort for only 600, which was the cheapest place we could find. We later discovered that the sign said 800, so I'm not sure why they only asked for 600, but hey, who's complaining? It was good enough for one night; we had a lot of tiny insect friends - inside and outside had nearly the same number of bugs - but that just encouraged us to spend more time out on the beach rather than being boring in our room, so no harm done.

Our bungalow. Well, half of the building was ours.

There is only one hostel - Olly's - on the island, which has tiny individual air-conditioned sleeping pods for 471 thb a night, but price-wise, that only makes sense for single travelers.

Food:

There are restaurants everywhere, and I was surprised to see prices often double or triple what they would be in Bangkok, or even on the other side of the water on the Ban Phe pier. That said, 80 or 90 thb for a meal isn't really going to kill me for a couple days. Food options along the beach tended to be mostly Thai food and seafood, and there were a lot of Western options in town. All the food we had was pretty mediocre, but we had some great drinks...

Drinks:

Our very favorite bar.

When your friends are getting buffeted by snowstorms, and you are in Thailand, the only thing left to do is to send them a photo of yourself sipping a pina colada on the beach. Thankfully, the beachfront is full of "happy hour" specials. The Naga bar offered 80 thb happy hour cocktails, the lowest price we saw. I got a heck of a "blue pina colada," most likely made with fresh coconut milk, from a nameless, secluded bar, and although they didn't advertise happy hour, we asked, and they offered (sadly small, but delicious) cocktails for 90 thb. I'm not totally convinced they knew what we were talking about, as the drinks didn't taste like they had alcohol in them, so maybe they thought we were asking about mocktails and that's why they were cheaper, but whatever, it was delicious.

After that, we made our way to our little resort and the nearby Friendly Bar, where it is seemingly always happy hour. According to the sign, happy hour is until 10 PM, but the enthusiastic bar staff were exclaiming "happy hour!" until at least 11. 100 thb cocktails isn't exactly an inspiring price, but when you're reclining on those funny pillow-reclining-mattress things that they all have, watching the waves, and enjoying the actually-pleasant cool season weather, 100 thb seems reasonable for a strong and tasty cocktail.

Ooh, pretty lights.

Other costs:

There really aren't any other costs. The island is small, so we just walked everywhere. We sat in a beach chair under an umbrella, and a guy came up to us asking for 60 thb per chair, which is really pretty reasonable, as we kept our stuff there all day. Of course, you're also free to chill out on the beach for free. People occasionally came by trying to sell things, but it was nothing like the constant hawking of Pattaya.

All in all, Koh Samet was fantastic, and I hope to go back soon!