All posts by Michael Brein

Michael Brein, aka The Travel Psychologist, is an author, lecturer, travel storyteller, adventurer, and publisher of travel books and guides. He regularly appears in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and radio programs on the psychology of travel.Michael is the first to coin the term travel psychology. As such, through his doctoral studies, work and life experiences, and world travels, he has become the world's first — and perhaps only — travel psychologist.Michael publishes travel tales ebooks — collections of stories on a specific travel subject, theme, or country: Travel Tales Monthly — a monthly, sort of book-of-the-month potpourri, bookazine of particularly good stories; and Collections — groups of similar kinds of travel stories on very specific subjects, themes, and countries of interest.Michael Brein resides on Bainbridge Island, Washington.You can view The Travel Psychologist blog and website at www.michaelbrein.com.You may email Michael at michaelbrein@gmail.com.

MY LATEST BOOKS! ORDER EASY!

To view these books or to order easy click on the links below:

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071S2HXRR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1The


 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SVRKR3/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1


https://www.books2read.com/u/3k0JjR

https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Tales-Women-Alone-MeToo/dp/1886590532

Little mini-book sampler with excerpts:

https://read.bookcreator.com/rqHvFJYpnneP2iGexeJrNc5fZAf2/EviCJrqWTPSW1LW2WlEJ3Q


https://books2read.com/u/bPJ8MR

https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Tales-Michaels-Best-Psychologist/dp/1886590540

Little mini-book sampler with excerpts:

https://read.bookcreator.com/rqHvFJYpnneP2iGexeJrNc5fZAf2/


For Michael Brein’s earlier books, click on the BOOKS tab in the menu bar above.

My Next New Book

ANNOUNCING MY NEW BOOK!

 

My new book Travel Tales: Women Alone is now nearing completion and will soon be available in my eStore,  Go soon to www.michaelbrein.com for more information, or to purchase, simply click on the ESTORE button above and to the right.
OR
For ease and convenience you may order the ebook edition directly from Amazon as well as all the major ebook distributors including Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Nook and more.

Travel Tales: Women Alone!

These are the true travel tales of solo women travelers being sexually harassed and assaulted in their travels around the world and what some of them were able to do about it!

This is about the many women in their travels who are shouting “Me Too!” to you throughout these pages!

No human being should be subjected to the despicable, disgusting and degrading behaviors that these women — these victims — have had to put up with in the hands of men who should be relegated to the dregs of humanity!

THIS SERIES

Over the last few decades, I’ve interviewed nearly 2,000 world travelers and adventurers. I am weaving the best of their nearly 10,000 fantastic travel tales into a psychology of travel as revealed by these very telling stories.

These are travelers I’ve encountered on airplanes, trains, buses, ships, tours, safaris, and in hotels, campgrounds, cafes, and pubs.

These courageous travelers have freely shared their most personal travel experiences, some good and wonderful and others even horrific and life-threatening, which I, in turn, get to share with you now through my True Travel Tales series.

Expect upwards of 100 ebooks covering many different countries and travel themes as well.

THIS BOOK

Travel Tales: Women Alone is Volume 3 of the True Travel Tales series and deals with safety and security of the woman solo traveler. It is about how to travel safely throughout the world.

Unfortunately, travel today, finds us in a world of growing terror threats, the imposition of severe and strict cultural and religious restrictions of women’s rights and freedoms as well as decreasing tolerance for cultural and religious differences and diversity around the world.

For women traveling alone, having often to deal with hassles and assaults is daunting in the least. For women alone, travel mostly is exciting and relatively safe, but for many women, traveling in some countries, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East, can often be traumatic and downright dangerous.

I have tales of women constantly being bothered and harassed. And, sad to say, some women have even disappeared from market places, never to be seen again.

To be a woman and to travel alone in such forbidding places is not for the faint of heart. Many young women are naively unaware and must be exceedingly careful in their interactions with men overseas.

Just because men are well-dressed and speak your language, does not necessarily mean that they can be trusted.

Every woman traveling abroad needs to know about and prepare herself for dealing with such things. Again, while travel is mostly adventurous, exciting and safe, it can also be foreboding and downright dangerous at times and one must be prudent.

If I were you, I’d think very carefully about traveling to some parts of the world as a woman ALONE!

Women have shared hundreds of travel stories with me about how they have had to fend off — yes, even fight off at times — the unwanted advances of men, ranging from verbal harassment, unwanted touching, exposure, and, yes, even rape!

I have had young women relating to me “yes, I should have known better; I should have seen the signs.”

DISCLAIMER

Please know that some stories in the Travel Tales series may be graphic, unpleasant, and disturbing.

This series is generally aimed towards a more mature adult audience, yet, no doubt, some material ought to be communicated in a clear and responsible manner to younger and relatively inexperienced and naive travelers, who could benefit by knowing how to travel more safely and securely.

The author does not necessarily agree with opinions expressed by contributors.

No story in the series is meant to depict any country, people, race, culture or religion in a negative light. Good and bad things can and do happen anywhere and to anyone.

Note: Some stories may appear in more than one book in the True Travel Tales series, depending on the subject matter and countries covered.

 

 

POLYGLOTTAL MICHAEL!

POLYGLOTTAL MICHAEL

Read on for an interesting factoid about Michael Brein (me)!

For posterity—for friends and/or relatives and colleagues—who might not have known this about me: A very little known factoid about me that very few people who know me well may or may not have known about me is that in a very odd sort of way, I have been very polyglottal in my life.

The meaning of this will come out through this post. Suffice to say, if you can imagine Forrest Gump in his travels: He was a ‘dromomaniac’—a habitual, almost indefatigable, incessant traveler. And I imagine that his character could probably even have been described as an addictive traveler!

Yep that would be me with travel PLUS languages. What an odd capability I had (and am still working on). In fact, some of you may be scratching your heads, thinking, well, yeah, I’ve heard him on occasion blabbing, muttering with someone once in a foreign language briefly.

But what you did not know is that I immersed myself in languages to the point of obsession. What better capability could a dromomaniac have than to be able to mutter some foreign phrases in his or her travels?

 

Here are two letters of reference that were written for me once upon a time in this regard:

Eric Shumway,
Assistant Language Coordinator,
Peace Corps Tonga II
University of Hawaii

December 11, 1967

My principal association with Mike Brein has been through the Peace Corps Training Program, Tonga II, in which we are both presently employed.

In addition to his rigorous duties as Assessment Officer in the project, Mike on his own, has been studying the Tongan language with the trainees.

His mastery of the text material and his fluency of speech are nothing less than remarkable. Although he has little time to attend classes and little time to study outside of class, his current speech proficiency is superior to that of our best trainees.

Mike is, in my opinion, one of those rare and fortunate individuals who not only can assimilate and understand languages intellectually but also vocally produce them efficiently and precisely—all in an extraordinarily short time.

I am confident he is both qualified and deserving of any encouragement and help you may give him.

and one other…

William W Langebartel
Associate Professor of German and Russian
Temple University

December 16, 1966

Mr. Brein has written me that he is applying for a grant to study Chinese in your department [University of Pennsylvania] and requested a recommendation.

I had Mr. Brein as a Russian language student several years ago and found him to be an exceptionally able language student. He has a very strong interest in foreign languages with is coupled with a notably superior linguistic ability.

He has a very good ear for catching new sounds and intonations and can reproduce them easily. In my opinion he has the necessary interest and perseverance to be a very good student of Chinese (my wife has done graduate work in Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, so I have some idea of what is involved).

In addition to a good reading and speaking knowledge of Russian, Mr. Brein speaks German fluently, and has passed the graduate reading examinations in French and German at Temple University.

Mr Brein is a personable, friendly, and energetic young man of equable temperament who should be able to do excellent work in your department. I am glad to recommend him to you as a young man of distinct promise.

Interesting things happened to me as a result of my apparent ability to learn foreign languages:

  1. I landed a fellowship to learn Mandarin Chinese for a summer at the University of Hawaii;
  2. I landed a NDFL (National Defense Foreign Language) fellowship to study Indonesian at the University of Hawaii;
  3. I was actually conditionally accepted into the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Linguistics Ph.D. program.
  4. I did land a 700+ score (out of 800) in German on a College Board Achievement Exam once.
  5. I did pass my French and German language reading exams required for the Ph.D. at both Temple University and the University of Hawaii
  6. I could wend my way a bit around different countries being able to speak at least a little with some of the local people, and interestingly and oddly, I could fairly often easily speak with foreigners in a common language that were not our own! For example, I had a great conversation once with a Czech in German, where I didn’t speak Czech and he didn’t speak English! That was great! And it helped!
  7. But fluent in any of these languages, I was NOT! (okay, okay—English, YES!)

I never did enter the University of Pennsylvania’s Ph.D. program, because, frankly, I was chicken-shit and didn’t think I’d last more than a week.

But why? Simple. Although I was a good, fast learner of foreign languages, I was hardly ‘fluent’ as letters of recommendation are often wont to claim. I was afraid that I would be discovered to be a fraud! Yep, that’s what I was thinking.

Who knows what other prestigious Ph.D. programs that scoundrel me might have managed to wrangle my way into, had I tried!? And, who knows… Maybe I could have made it through. Oh well, maybe I’ll discover that in another life.

So, what is the bottom line in all this?

Well, who can say, really? I do like to be able to carry on a simple conversation with people now and again in these languages. And I am systematically working my way through all of these languages that you see in the Wordle photo (scrambled word image) accompanying this post.

I have managed to garner a collection of Pimsleur courses in all these languages (except Tongan). I am working my way through the 90, 1/2 hour lessons in each of these languages. Lots of stuff is coming back.

I’ve already completed the French course; I’m now working on the Russian course, and over time I hope to cover most of the courses in these languages that I have once learned somewhat throughout my life.

But the most beneficial result of all of this is that I am challenging this aging brain of mine. It’s a good activity for me to do.

Finally, a very fun benefit is that I will soon be able to talk a little bit with my cousin, Jeff Brein’s, little granddaughter, Erin, in Bahasa Indonesian (Indonesian language). Only she and her mom, Fiera, will understand me! Now, that will be fun!

IN THE NEWS TODAY: Raffles Magazine

The Travel Psychologist
Is in a Magazine Today

Inner Horizons: For a more fulfilling luxury travel experience look inwards as well as outwards

 

Michael Brein, aka ‘The Travel Psychologist,’ was commissioned to write the article “Inner Horizons: For a more fulfilling luxury travel experience look inwards as well as outwards (Pages 102-104),” for the official magazine of the world-famous, luxury hotel chain, Raffles.

To peruse the magazine and read the article, go to the link below. Then, in the space indicating the pages, enter 102 and click on the “go to” tab. (Note: you need to have Adobe Flash to view. Will work on PCs, desktop Macs but not iPhones or iPads.)

http://www.emagine.uk.net/…/Pag…/Pageturner_write_xml.lasso…I