Category: Travel

How To Travel More In 2017?

As 2016 comes to a close, many are looking to 2017 for their New Year’s resolutions, and I want to not only travel more myself, but encourage and help others travel more as well.

I contributed another article to Under30Experiences, a company that specializes in travel for people ages 21-35, and it discusses how to make travel work for you, including a game to help make it happen. There are a lot of excuses about why people can’t travel, either it is too expensive, they don’t know how to plan a trip, or they don’t know where to go. Yet, they often have a sense of wanderlust when they see my travels and say, “Wow, I wish I could go there!” Read more →

What Is It And How To Fix The Vote For Trump Google Analytics Spam Bot

I thought I was alone, I asked myself, “maybe had someone injected malware into my WordPress,” or I was wondering, “is my WordPress site hacked?” How can I tell? You see, I was looking at my Google Analytics code and noticed the following items on my home screen, then thought, what is wrong with my WordPress site? Read more →

10 Keys To Success That Require Zero Talent

As 2016 comes to a close, the holidays are approaching, and New Years Eve is just around the corner. That means the annual resolutions are also being discussed, planned, and written down.

That said, this meme that dropped into a Facebook group recently caught my eye and I think it was worth sharing, because they are often the traits of successful people like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Ted Turner and many others: Read more →

8 Must-Have Books For Any Startup Founder & Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf

Having just returned from a beach vacation, I came back refreshed and rejuvenated, but I was not coming back as inspired as previous vacations. The books I read were fun, thoughtful, and definitely not as heavy as previous vacations, but as a big non-fiction guy, I’d rather read and learn something, then be taken away to a fantasy world consisting of character building. That said, I work with startup founders, entrepreneurs, and business owners every day that are at varying stages of their career, or have varying levels of experience. As such, I tend to go back to the same suite of books that set the foundation of my learnings, so I thought I’d share them here ahead of the holidays. For some, you won’t have time to read, for others, it is the time you finally do get to reset and relax a bit before kicking off 2017. Regardless, here is a must-read list of books for startup founders and business owners. I’ve put it in an order of progression that I feel makes the most sense for a growing entrepreneur and welcome your comments about other must read books, because I know this is only the start of an entrepreneur or startup founder’s bookshelf: Read more →

Why I Published A Kindle Book & How I Did It: Technology and the Future of Journalism

In 2006, there were many nights spent in the library combing the internet, and other sources for my senior thesis at the University of Montana. It is now 2016, and somehow, I keep going back to that paper that I wrote, which was titled “Technology and the Future of Journalism.” There was a lot of information that I dug up that pointed to the world of media, technology, and journalism that we encounter today, whether it was the beginning stages of online subscription models for news organizations, the fall of print, or the general abundance of information, I kept seeing technology advance in the same direction I predicted. I just couldn’t keep this to myself anymore, because the more I looked back at this paper, the more I thought about what still was yet to come based on my predictions. Read more →

Lessons In Travel: Media Coverage & Safety

I lived in Thailand during several military coups. Two or three of those I spent time actually in Bangkok as they happened, while the other I was in Northeast Thailand. Sounds crazy, wild and scary, doesn’t it? A military coup d’etat.

It was funny though, when I was out and about, I wouldn’t see anything happening that would even make me realize there was a coup. I take that back, I ended up going out on Khao San Road with a group of work buddies, and instead of the burning tire images I saw CNN showing, which must have happened for about 5 minutes, I instead saw Thai protesters napping, or Thai Military smiling and taking pictures with tourists in front of tanks. It was far from the warnings and terror being broadcasted around the world. Read more →

Travel Destinations For Travelers That Have Done It All

The world is a vast place and even as you travel to new places, the prior locations remain an ever-changing weave of people, architecture, and visitors. I first visited Burma (Myanmar) in 2006. At that time, it was not yet fully open to tourism, with the exception of well-developed tourist tracks. While I guided a couple trips along those said tracks, I also went on a research expedition for the company I was working for to identify new opportunities for travel. Several days of boats and military surveillance up the Irrawaddy took me to the foothills of the Himalaya in the Kachin State, but I was far from welcome Read more →

Twelve Life Hacks To Finish 2016 Strong

We’re half way through the year and I thought that it was a good time to share a few key pieces of advice I’ve accumulated through the year that will hopefully help you get through the second part of 2016 more successfully. Here are 12 of my business-related life hacks that I hope you’ll find room for in your own life: Read more →

What does Google and Facebook know about you? A lot!

It is no secret that our digital lives are tracked, dissected, and targeted based on where we have been, what we’ve looked at, and what we like. Facebook has made this a much more widely known fact.

Being very much aware of many of the tracking that goes on as a marketer, I was dumbfounded when recently made aware of Google’s My Activity page, then drilled down into the location timeline feature.

As you see below, it knows where I have been and when I was there. You can click on those little red buttons and it will show you which hotel you stayed in, what airport you were killing time in on a layover, but when you click in deeper, it shows you exactly what you were doing on your honeymoon as I discovered from my Greece trip with Read more →

Five Things Travel Taught Me About Business

My career started in the travel industry after college and I built up a company’s India operations nearly from scratch, then helped build out operations in new countries across Asia. At times, I wasn’t sure if business was teaching me how to travel, or travel was teaching me how to do business. If you’ve been to India, you know negotiation is cutthroat, and my prime example was a three day stand off in the Delhi offices of a major Indian Airline after they decided to change a quoted fare for hundreds of group seats that would blow my margins out of the water. They claimed there was an error, but I eventually got them to honor the original fares after those long, very hot days. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to 6 of 7 continents and experience life in places like Bangkok and Delhi, stroll the beaches of Fiji and the Cayman Islands, learn to surf in Costa Rica, not-so-luckily be chased by Burmese Military through the Kachin state, and catch Malaria in the remote villages of Burkina Faso. Here are a few of the lessons I have learned and hopefully there are a few takeaways that will help you: Read more →

Scott Poniewaz Shares Business Travel Tips in Loews Magazine Feature

I was honored to be included in Loews Magazine’s latest issue, which featured myself, golfer Annika Sorenstam, philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, Knot Standard’s Matthew Mueller, and Loews’ own Ramel Kelly. The article was authored by luxury travel writer Damon Banks. A PDF of the article is below, or you can also view the article on the Loews Magazine website at: http://loewsmagazine.com/business-class/ I should… Read more →

Parents, Let Your Kids Become Ski Bums

I remember clearly my first day on the rope tow at the age of 13, when my parents finally succumbed to my pressure and let me go skiing. It was a beautiful day, the snow was freshly groomed corduroy and from first glide, I knew I would never want to stop. I did laps and eventually made it up the chairlift and skied almost every square inch of the 300 vertical feet of Tyrol Basin. The following year I got a season pass, and after that, quickly worked my way into a ski instructor role. Before I was 18, the age the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) requires for holding the Level II exam, I had found a way to complete and pass the Level II tests, but had to wait several months for it to be official when I finally had my birthday. Read more →