Watch first:
I hate to be the one to do this, but I have to call bullshit on Tomislav Perko, and I'll explain why. I've read alot of his articles and interviews in the past, and this TEDx Talk is the last straw that breaks this camels back.
First of all, it's a bit misleading for Tomislav Perko to go around giving romanticized speeches about traveling around with "almost no money", or claiming that he "lost his job" due to a financial crash. That's not exactly the truth.
Tomislav Perko was a stock-broker that convinced most of his friends and family to pool together 30,000 dollars into a bad investment, promising them that there was NO WAY they could lose. Well, Tomislav lost all their money, and when his investors began demanding answers, he got frustrated at answering the phone calls, quit his job, and skipped out of town.
However, Tomislav didn't runaway empty-handed. He managed to smuggle away 1,300 dollars from that investment, and used that money to monetize a traveling blog BEFORE he even started traveling. Profit seemed to be his first priority, and to Tomislav it didn't seem to matter that he did this with other peoples money.
NOW, there is nothing wrong with making a little blog money on the side, and I think that's an awesome idea for many travelers! However, Tomislav takes "monetizing his travels" to the next level of complete bullshit, and it just gets worse and worse from there:
While Tomislav is writing away on his monetized blog and telling everyone that he boldly hit the road to escape the corruption and burdens of modern society, particularly the institutions of financial slavery, he then immediately accepted a deal with MASTERCARD.
This deal obligated Tomislav to backpack around the world around wearing a huge MASTERCARD logo, and the other part of the deal was that Tomislav had to promote and "plug" Mastercard on his so-called traveling blog.
Oh, and in exchange for being a complete sell-out and a walking contradiction, Tomislav received a 1,000 dollar monthly salary, including paid vacations and preplanned excursions. Tomislav even further brags that Mastercard directly pays 100% for some of his trips and vacations, including such luxury expenses including a skydiving trip in which he video's the experience while wearing a Mastercard shirt.
The fuck? At first he is boldly escaping the financial slavery of modern society, yet then agrees to accept a deal from a conglomerate financial institution that solely profits off exorbitant interest rates and potential customer debt? All the while, being housed and fed by people in third-world countries. The fuck?!
So, while Tomislav is "boldy traveling the world" and being housed and fed by the generosity of poverty-stricken families in third-world countries, he is simultaneously advertising for a billion dollar corporation, and making more money in one month than most of these poor people can make in a full year. Yet, he greedily smiles as he eats their food (Kurdistan, Iraq).
As if that's not enough, he then raises $12,000 on Indiegogo so that he could publish his vagabond book, which I'm tempted to believe was something he planned to profit from once he started this entire prepaid vacation.
I'm sorry, but as a vagabond, his entire story is simply revolting to me, and he profits by making a mockery of our lifestyles as houseless travelers.
In the end, when you read through most of his articles and put everything together, it really just seems like he was a corrupt yuppie that ran away from his financial obligations, only to start accepting money and gifts from corporate sponsors so that he can tour the world on a prepaid vacation.
And, of course, now he can stand in a room full of gullible college hipsters, lying to them by claiming that everyone can do the same thing as him, while continuing further profit over the phony claim that he is a vagabond that "backpacked the world with almost no money".
Oh can't you just see the wanderlust in those college kids eyes, soaking up every bit of this crap, dreaming of buying an REI backpack and living wild and free? Gimme a fuckin' break...
Just checkout his rules for traveling success:
For the end, 3 most important things:
1. have a product that is unique and will be interesting to people
2. communicate with the public
3. find a way to get in the media
TL;DR - If tricking your friends and family into giving you money for junk investments doesn't get you rich, just runaway and trick the entire world into giving you money for your phony "vagabond" vacation.
LINKS:
I hate to be the one to do this, but I have to call bullshit on Tomislav Perko, and I'll explain why. I've read alot of his articles and interviews in the past, and this TEDx Talk is the last straw that breaks this camels back.
First of all, it's a bit misleading for Tomislav Perko to go around giving romanticized speeches about traveling around with "almost no money", or claiming that he "lost his job" due to a financial crash. That's not exactly the truth.
Tomislav Perko was a stock-broker that convinced most of his friends and family to pool together 30,000 dollars into a bad investment, promising them that there was NO WAY they could lose. Well, Tomislav lost all their money, and when his investors began demanding answers, he got frustrated at answering the phone calls, quit his job, and skipped out of town.
However, Tomislav didn't runaway empty-handed. He managed to smuggle away 1,300 dollars from that investment, and used that money to monetize a traveling blog BEFORE he even started traveling. Profit seemed to be his first priority, and to Tomislav it didn't seem to matter that he did this with other peoples money.
NOW, there is nothing wrong with making a little blog money on the side, and I think that's an awesome idea for many travelers! However, Tomislav takes "monetizing his travels" to the next level of complete bullshit, and it just gets worse and worse from there:
While Tomislav is writing away on his monetized blog and telling everyone that he boldly hit the road to escape the corruption and burdens of modern society, particularly the institutions of financial slavery, he then immediately accepted a deal with MASTERCARD.
This deal obligated Tomislav to backpack around the world around wearing a huge MASTERCARD logo, and the other part of the deal was that Tomislav had to promote and "plug" Mastercard on his so-called traveling blog.
Oh, and in exchange for being a complete sell-out and a walking contradiction, Tomislav received a 1,000 dollar monthly salary, including paid vacations and preplanned excursions. Tomislav even further brags that Mastercard directly pays 100% for some of his trips and vacations, including such luxury expenses including a skydiving trip in which he video's the experience while wearing a Mastercard shirt.
The fuck? At first he is boldly escaping the financial slavery of modern society, yet then agrees to accept a deal from a conglomerate financial institution that solely profits off exorbitant interest rates and potential customer debt? All the while, being housed and fed by people in third-world countries. The fuck?!
So, while Tomislav is "boldy traveling the world" and being housed and fed by the generosity of poverty-stricken families in third-world countries, he is simultaneously advertising for a billion dollar corporation, and making more money in one month than most of these poor people can make in a full year. Yet, he greedily smiles as he eats their food (Kurdistan, Iraq).
As if that's not enough, he then raises $12,000 on Indiegogo so that he could publish his vagabond book, which I'm tempted to believe was something he planned to profit from once he started this entire prepaid vacation.
I'm sorry, but as a vagabond, his entire story is simply revolting to me, and he profits by making a mockery of our lifestyles as houseless travelers.
In the end, when you read through most of his articles and put everything together, it really just seems like he was a corrupt yuppie that ran away from his financial obligations, only to start accepting money and gifts from corporate sponsors so that he can tour the world on a prepaid vacation.
And, of course, now he can stand in a room full of gullible college hipsters, lying to them by claiming that everyone can do the same thing as him, while continuing further profit over the phony claim that he is a vagabond that "backpacked the world with almost no money".
Oh can't you just see the wanderlust in those college kids eyes, soaking up every bit of this crap, dreaming of buying an REI backpack and living wild and free? Gimme a fuckin' break...
Just checkout his rules for traveling success:
For the end, 3 most important things:
1. have a product that is unique and will be interesting to people
2. communicate with the public
3. find a way to get in the media
TL;DR - If tricking your friends and family into giving you money for junk investments doesn't get you rich, just runaway and trick the entire world into giving you money for your phony "vagabond" vacation.
LINKS:
- http://tomislavperko.com/en/travel-sponsors/ (blog post bragging about tons of cash and sponsors, admitting to intentional media whoring, admitting to intentionally manipulating social media websites for personal profit, and admitting that his entire trip was planned solely for profit)
- (As if corporate sponsors isn't enough, he nows begs for $12,000 from the public so that he can further profit from writing a book about his prepaid sponsored vacation)
- http://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-000-days-of-summer-tomislav-perko-151842180.html (Admitting that he ripped off his clients and chose to run away from answering their phone calls)
- (OFFICIAL MASTERCARD FACEBOOK PAGE, featuring Tomislav)
- http://tomislavperko.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2014/10/08-no-cash-in-bangladesh.jpg (Picture he posted on his blog of a wad of cash sitting on top of his Mastercard credit card)
- http://tomislavperko.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2014/10/9.jpg (the official Mastercard logo of his sponsored vacation)
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