Guest Blogger Jane Lovas' weekly series called “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Life and Career” runs each Thursday

When you want to go someplace exciting and no one can go with you, what do you do? For a long time I didn’t travel anyplace if I had to go alone. I don’t mean to the store or anything like that- I actually do enjoy spending time by myself. Not traveling alone wasn’t about being afraid to be by myself. It was more that I didn’t want anyone to think that I didn’t have any friends.

Finally one day, I got the opportunity to travel to Seattle on a business contract that ended up lasting for 7 months. Because it’s such a long flight between Seattle and Washington D.C., I arranged to have corporate housing and only travel once every three weeks for a long weekend. I made these arrangements because I wanted to get to know Seattle, and if I was only there Monday thru Thursday I really wouldn’t get to see the city.

During my time in Seattle, I learned that the secret to traveling by yourself is to have three things with you at all times. First have a book to read, second have a camera and third have a willingness to start a conversation. A book is great especially if you go out to eat at an establishment where everyone else is in couples and groups. I found that when I had a book to read while eating dinner alone, I wasn’t thinking about what everyone might be thinking about me (which they aren’t!). A camera gives you a mission, and there is something freeing about having a mission. A mission takes you out of yourself. Finally, bringing a willingness to start a conversation is the part of traveling by yourself that makes it the adventure that it should be.

When you travel with someone else, often times you’re too busy being with your travel partner. On the other hand, when you’re by yourself it’s easier to take the time to engage a stranger in a conversation. It’s these conversations that open up a world that you’ll never experience if all you only travel with a friend or partner.

So next time you want to go some place for the weekend and know one can go, step out by yourself with a book, a camera and the willingness to start conversations and see who you meet and what stories you hear. You’ll be amazed at the experiences you’ll have.

Jane Lovas is a career specialist who is the creator of the life changing 12 week tele-seminar “Creating the Life of Your Dreams”. She is also our guest blogger, whose column will run every Thursday. If you would like to contact Jane, you can reach her here, here or here.

"***" courtesy paramitta via Flickr Creative Commons

You may have noticed (or maybe not) that Mindy and Nellie have ably been handling the blogging duties the last three weeks. First of all, the have done a wonderful job and provided an awesome array of career information. Hopefully, you all enjoyed reading their fine work.

Today is my first day back from a three week jaunt across China, where I took a quick grad class on Communications in China. The class covered the first two weeks of my trip and I traveled for the remaining week. I was able to visit Nanjing (a former capitol under the Nationalists), Shanghai (all I remember are restaurants and bars ... for good or ill), Xi'an (home of the World Wonder Terracotta Soldiers) and Beijing (Tienanmen, Forbidden City, 798 Art District and The Great Wall). I had an excellent experience and have formed a deep appreciation for the history of China and its current role in contemporary world affairs.

I learned a lot, and absorbed an impossible amount of information, but for right now, for the purposes of this blog, I want to stress one important piece of wisdom to any students: STUDY ABROAD.

You will never learn as much about yourself, your home country and a new culture all at once as you do when you study abroad. It's one thing to travel and visit new places, but when you combine the travel experience with an immersion into a specific aspect of that country's history or culture you will develop a much deeper understanding of your surroundings. The value of learning about a world outside our own is valuable enough. But an often overlooked advantage to study abroad is what you learn about the country you left. This feeling was reinforced as I read Atlantic correspondent James Fallows book Postcards From Tomorrow Square and revisited his article from 2007, The View From There

I’ve found it very useful to think about America from afar. I know it’s annoying and superior-sounding to say that you see a country most clearly from the outside. (Those poor homebound hicks! They don’t get the big picture the way we cosmopolites can.) But at least in one way, it’s certainly true. Inside America, we discuss what the country could and should become. Outside, we see what it is—which of its traits and habits really make it unusual, the effects of what it claims to stand for, what it actually does to the rest of the world.

The advantage to a study abroad program is vast, far reaching and lingering. My advice is to take the time to do it now, when you are young and you have the time (and your parents, the money). From a personal standpoint I learned an unmeasurable amount and have the utmost confidence you will too. (Plus, it looks great on a resume!)

I was going to include a detailed slideshow of my travels, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to just get on with The Links ...

George's Employment Blog Continues: A series on Green Jobs. I'll tell you this, the smog and air quality in China was almost indescribably bad. I think I saw the sun a total of 2 times. So, uh, get on these green jobs. We need all the sustainability we can get.

Cheezhead Wants: A sense of urgency from all you students. Apparently CH's InternQuees doesn't think you are taking your transfer to the career field seriously. Are you addicted to beer and reality TV, or is the sense of career-malaise just a manifestation of the safety net that is the college-bubble. The InternQueen doesn't know, but she offers some tips on getting focused. So read this and get focused, ya slackers!

ReadWriteWeb Uncovers: Bozeman, Montana's requirements for job applications: All applicants must provide Social Media Logins and Passwords. Actually, there was public outcry (deservedly!) over this and Bozeman has backed down and lifted the requirement. Still, I think the fact that someone thought of this tactic in the first place is a sad sign of employers' inability to fully comprehend social media. Who would possibly handover a password to ANYTHING?

Mashable Lists: 10 ways journalism schools are teaching new media. I love this. Some schools have adapted very quickly to the rise of social media and the advantages it can provide to journalism. It's good to see it is working its way into the classroom.

Gigaom Destroys: The myth about the "Young Entrepreneur." A study by the Kaufman Foundation found that the 29-34 age range, long believed as the bastion of entrepreneurship, were actually the least likely to start their own company. The highest rate came in the 55-64 age bracket. But, don't get discouraged by this information. You need to be unique to start a successful company anyway, and bucking this trend is just one way to display your uniqueness.

Today was a dry one in Career Blog World. But Zack found a great post by Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight that explains why you should be excited about the latest unemployment report (8.9 percent) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Confused? I was, too. But it turns out there is good news:

A lot of people are excited today not because the unemployment rate is low (it's very high -- 8.9 percent), nor because the economy is adding jobs (it lost another 539,000 last month, according to statistics just released by the BLS), but merely because it's losing jobs less quickly. That is, the second derivative of the employment rate -- the change in the rate of change -- has improved.

I haven't thought about second derivatives since my Calc 2 class freshman year. In fact, I made it a point to forget I ever knew second derivatives. But Silver's news was encouraging enough to make me face my past (with a little help from Wikipedia).

The article goes on to analyze the "employment situation" from our past five recessions to see if the decrease in the rate of job losses is indeed reason to anticipate an approaching end to the recession. Silver determines that the statistics can't really tell us much yet-- history shows that the recession could as likely head downhill as uphill. Still, I'm a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. So let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

In honor of Friday, here are a few cool links to start your weekend...

Chris Brogan Reviews: A book by Pam Slim called Escape from Cubicle Nation. The book's mission is to help readers go from "corporate prisoners" to "thriving entrepreneurs." Brogan gives it a great review and says it's "full to the gills" with useful information for the dreaming entrepreneur.

The CareerDiva Advises: That you go get your passport today. If you haven't been abroad, The CareerDiva points out how expanding your horizons is a great thing for your career. She uses research from the international business school INSEAD that suggests living abroad boosts your creativity and problem-solving skills.

Thrilling Heroics Hunts Down: Ten "travel ninjas" that are worth following on Twitter. It's a good list- I'm now following several of these travel masters. They not only have great travel tips, many of them also have found ways to either turn traveling into a career or have built location independent careers.

"Math Disaster" courtesy of the mad LOLscientist via Flickr Creative Commons

Hey ThinkTalkers! I’m the newest staff member here at ThinkTalk headquarters. I just graduated in May, and spent more than three months looking for my first job. I landed in D.C. with the rest of the ThinkTalk crew, and now I’m busy figuring out how to navigate my first job and the capitol city. Since we know that job hunts aren't all sunshine and butterflies, I hope I earned some war stories and wisdom to pass along.