How to combine your favorite hobbies with traveling

How to combine your favorite hobbies with traveling How to combine your favorite hobbies with traveling In our modern and hectic world, it seems that the days of traveling just for the sake of it are mostly over for many of us. Mindlessly wandering around as a tourist is a bit passé; nowadays, it is much better if you can let your favorite pastimes take you to new places, combining both kinds of fun at the same time.Is your business particularly suited for traveling?When you travel anywhere on the premise of something else other than sightseeing taking you there, you enjoy that unique 2-in-1 satisfaction â€" and even if one of the two aspects disappoints, the other is enough for you to say that your time was not wasted. Athletes that compete in tournaments worldwide, academics that scour the globe for conferences â€" exotic locations are more of a determining factor on which ones to choose than they would like to admit â€" and professionals that have their jobs â€" usually in multinational companies â€" regularly take them across borders for business meetings and expos are probably th e pioneers of this kind of travelling. But even if you do not fall within these categories, you could still find ways to combine an activity you love with a quick trip.Let the games begin: Traveling to your hobbiesNowadays, there are worldwide tournaments not just for sports, but also for many games. The most popular example is probably card games like poker that attract millions of players around the globe. Many of these people play at local clubs or with groups of friends, while a great number also  play poker online and on mobile gaming platforms  â€" but for those that have a real knack for the game, there is always the option of traveling to compete in tournaments and meet fellow poker enthusiasts. There are literally hundreds of poker tournaments taking place every year, in locations ranging from the USA and Australia, to Malta and the Philippines. The same, to a lesser degree, holds true for  other popular card games like bridge, as well as insanely popular online video game like  Dota  or  League of Legends.Fund your journeys by helping other travelersA great way to explore a foreign country, while also increasing your savings instead of spending them, is to act as a local tour guide for fellow Anglophones. Your native language skills and a passion for history and culture are all you need for this â€" a perfect way to stay at a place longer than a few days. You could spend a whole summer or even years  showing tourists around in New York, Prague, or Tel Aviv.The concept of “free walking tours” is a bit new but already an instant hit with travellers across Europe and beyond; in essence, they come on a guided walking tour for free and at the end they pay their guide (enter you) whatever they think the tour was worth â€" and they are usually quite generous with their tips. Established companies offer training and let you shadow another tour guide before you begin, to get the feel of how exactly it works. The best thing about it: when you get tired of one place, you can just hop on to the next.So whether for a few days or for a couple of years, there are more ways than you have imagined to combine your enthusiasm for traveling with other passions in your life; just choose a place you always wanted to visit, and make it happen.This article was originally posted on YourCoffeeBreak.co.uk.