The previous chapters have been devoted to defi­nite portions of the United States or to various countries where re­tirement abroad is particularly suitable. Most of our case histories however are just about as applicable in one country as another, or in one section of the United States as well as another, although there are some exceptions.

But there are those of us who have no particular desire to settle down in one town or even one country. This, of course, applies particularly to the young man or woman who is unmarried and wishes to see the world before settling in one spot. Frankly, for long years I was to be counted among these myself.

So if you're the adventurous type and wish to bat around for awhile finding adventures here, there and the other place, perhaps this is the chapter that will interest you most.

CASE HISTORY No. 1. As I mentioned in my chapter on Morocco, several years ago I stopped in Tangier for a time, basing myself in the casbah for a period of almost seven months but mak­ing side trips into the interior of Morocco and once taking a six week jaunt to the French Sudan and Senegal.

It was in Tangier that I first met Gerry Rhodes, as foot loose an American as you can find. And it was with Gerry that I took my trip over the Sahara to Goa, Timbuktu, Mopti and Dakar. We'll deal with Gerry's easy going method of making a living shortly, first I want to tell you of the trip.

Early this century when the French empire was still growing, the French started an ambitious plan to drive a railroad across the Sahara to the Niger river. Starting at Oran, on the Mediter­ranean, it progressed for a time, even driving a few miles beyond Columb-Bechar, one of the larger military posts in central Algeria. But the sands of the Sahara were too much and today the railroad goes that far and no further.

However, there is a bus line operated by the Societe Arficaine des Transports Tropicaux, which has its main offices at 26 bis, Rue Sadi-Carnot, Alger, Algeria. Once a month, during the winter months only, this "bus line" sends a passenger carrying bus-truck across the Sahara to Gao, on the Niger. And from here it is pos­sible to make your way up river several hundred miles to Tim­buktu, considered by many to be the most remote city in the world.

This is not a travel guide, but in case some of our more ad­venturous readers are interested I'll mention the fare across the Sahara amounts to 20,225 francs, or about $45 at the rate of ex­change at this writing. I spent in the whole six weeks a total of $300 including all transportation and including more than a week in the rather expensive city of Dakar. Prices in the Sahara are cheap.

The journey across the Sahara takes a week and during this time you must carry your own food, although water is supplied by the bus which hauls it along in goat skin water bags. There is room for only four passengers, the rest of the "bus" being devoted to cargo. At night you usually sleep out on the desert or in the bus although some stops are made at Foreign Legion type French forts and there are army "campments" where you can get an army cot for about 254.

Our bus driver stopped from time to time in Arab towns, or at Arab Bedouin camps, dropping off cargo, or sometimes acquiring it. At each of these stops Gerry made purchases of native jewelry, antique weapons, and sometimes leather work. The prices were fantastically low. Almost unbelievably so. The bus driver explained to me that these people see very little "hard" money, that almost all of their exchange was by barter. Some families might go a whole year or more neither making nor spending a cent.

I was operating on a tight budget at the time and had to watch my money so although I bought a few souvenirs, for lady friends and such, it was Gerry who did most of the shopping. In fact, I began to see the reason for the fact that he had brought two large collapsible type canvas valises with practically nothing in them. In Gao, he had still other opportunities for shopping. In the past, several centuries ago, a large negro empire had existed in this part of the French Sudan. Today, the natives dig among the ruins and emerge with necklace beads usually of semi-precious stones, little statuettes, and sometimes articles of gold or silver. These are available in profusion in the local marketplace.

From Gao we caught a river barge up to Timbuktu and there Gerry had a field day. The native women here make jewelry of what is called "Timbuktu gold." It is actually beeswax as a base and covered with straw which has been dyed a bright golden yellow. Bracelets, necklaces and earrings of this strange material are worn by all the native women and can be purchased from them for a few pennies per item. Gerry laid in a stock. We also went through the markets buying Taureg (desert warrior) weapons and taboo pouches in which the Tauregs keep their good luck charms. Each Taureg wears several of these and some will be burdened down with as many as twenty. Made of leather, they are extremely picturesque. Gerry laid in a stock.

From Timbuktu we caught the river steamer Gallieni to Mopti at a cost of 4,166 francs. The price was so high because the Mis­sissippi steamboat type vessel was packed except for first class, but this still came to only $9 or so and we were aboard for several days, eating like kings (even wine came free with the meals) and living in luxurious quarters. Hippopotami and crocodiles were among the river life we saw daily.

Mopti is another big native center and once again Gerry hustled around the markets, buying an item here, an item there. I noticed he bought only the cheaper native handicrafts. Never gold work, and seldom silver.

From Mopti we hitched a ride on a bus (bribed a ride would be better since we had to pay the driver) to Bamako, capital of French Sudan and from here we were able to catch the bush train to Dakar on the Atlantic coast. We had to wait a week or so in Dakar before getting passage on the Lyautey, which took us to Casablanca after a stop at the Canary Islands. From Casa a bus took us back to Tangier where we both had left most of our things.

Dakar had proven another fertile field for Gerry's buying cam­paign. The natives have a jungle rather than a desert culture and their handicraft and art work is considerably different than we had found in the interior. They especially work with ebony and other dark woods and carve out monstrous looking statues about a foot high which they sell to what few tourists come through for about a dollar and a half apiece. Gerry found that by buying a dozen of them at once he got them for less than a dollar per statue. He found other handicrafts too.

When we finally got our fourth class passage back to Casablanca which cost us about $36 apiece for the four day trip, Gerry was well laden. In fact his purchases overflowed into my own luggage.

As I said above, the trip cost me about $300. What did it cost Gerry?

Nothing.

Gerry was about $500 ahead on the deal. The jewelry, art ob­jects, handicrafts and other items were worth a thousand percent more than he had paid for them. A "Timbuktu gold" bracelet, which he'd paid possibly ten cents for in Timbuktu was worth five dollars and up in the tourist souvenir shops of Tangier.

When I last saw Gerry he had disposed of approximately half of his loot in such places as the "African Art Shop" on Pasteur Boulevard, Tangier, but had decided to take the balance up to Paris where he insisted that he could get twice again the amount available in Tangier.

These trips of his, he revealed, weren't just into Africa. In fact, one of the most profitable he had ever made was into the Near East. He entered by the way of Beirut, Lebanon, went over to Damascus, then on to Baghdad by desert Pullman bus. He shopped along the way but did most of his buying in the famous Safafeer bazaars off Raschid Street, in Baghdad.

This, of course, was Gerry Rhodes' way of making an easy living while seeing the world. He made a point of visiting only such places as he knew could be gleaned for the type articles his Euro­pean markets, his tourist markets, demanded. I would estimate that on an average he paid twenty-five cents for an article and sold it for five dollars.

Could you do this? No reason why not. I certainly could have, had I the extra capital, and had I known the deal before I started. Gerry was wise enough to realize, before we left, that if I did the same thing then we'd be competing when we returned to Tangier with our goods, and prices for him would be driven down. So the wretch didn't even tell me of the possibilities. I did sell some of my souvenirs at considerable profit, but I don't particularly plan to ever return to that part of the world so I'm keeping most as mementoes.

What would you need to go into this "business"? Well, first, enough to make your trip and a couple of hundred dollars with which to do your shopping. The more shopping money you had the better, of course. I have a feeling that if Gerry had bought the several gold items we saw, he could have netted really tremendous profits, but on the other hand he knows more about it than I do and he made a point of specializing in the cheaper jewelry and handicrafts. It would be best, too, to line up some customers be­fore taking off. Gerry had some old stand-bys which would take just about everything he brought them, including the above named African Art Shop on Pasteur Boulevard in Tangier.

I imagine that even larger profits could be made by bringing such native art items back to New York or other American cen­ters, but then you run into the import license complications. Be­sides, you'd have the cost of the trip back and forth across the Atlantic. Best deal here would be to line up your American markets before leaving, and ship the items you purchase.

CASE HISTORY No. 2. While we're on the subject of Africa and adventure we had better tell the story of Schyler Jones who gives this run-down on his life:

"I was born in Wichita, Kansas, on 7th February, 1930. Business kept the family traveling to such a degree that by my fifth birthday I had passed through all the 48 states, Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Hawaiian Islands. Formal schooling interrupted this interesting program but at the first opportunity I took it up again and sailed for Europe at the age of 20. A second-hand bicycle and my thumb carried me through fifteen countries. A newspaper job in Paris was abandoned when I had the chance to go to Africa in 1951.1 have never been free of that continent since —nor would I wish to be."

"Sky" Jones is as good an example of the traveler on a shoe­string as I know. He lives cheaply, sometimes unbelievably so, and when he finds himself too very low gets a job for a time, at what­ever comes up. Some strange things come up. Once he spent a spell hunting crocodiles on the Zambezi River and once he joined the British Farm Guard in Kenya, helping to fight the Mau Mau.

Living like this, and I speak from experience, has its ups and downs but sooner or later, given no more than average luck, you hit a really good "up."

Sky's big "up" was hit through his interest in photography. On most of his trips about Europe he had carried an old Rolleiflex with him and had become attached to it. However, when he made his arrangements with a friend to go into the Sahara for the first time, the friend wished to go up to Wetzler, in Germany, to purchase some photographic equipment from the Leitz Company which produces the famous Leica camera. Sky obligingly went along.

In Wetzler, at the factory, they met various company officials who were indignant to find Sky going into the Sahara without a Leica. Color was the thing, they told him, for such an expedition and 35 millimeter Kodachrome made the best color shots. Sky said, fine, but he didn't have a Leica and couldn't afford to buy one.

Nothing would do but that they must loan him a Leica for the trip asking only that when he returned they have first look at his photos in case they wanted to buy any for their extensive library of Leica shots.

Armed with the Leica, one of the older models with a f 3.5 Elmar lens, Sky photographed native life in the remote oases as they drove around over the Hoggar and Tanezrouft routes from north to south through the Sahara. He couldn't tell as yet what he was getting on his film, since, obviously, there are no photo shops in the reaches of the world's greatest desert.

Eventually funds ran low and Sky found it necessary to return to Europe for a job. First, though, he went to Wetzler to return the borrowed camera. Holding him to the balance of the bargain, they wanted to see what he'd got and developed the film then and there. At the rate of jive dollars apiece they bought hundreds of the Kodachrome shots Sky had taken.

Evidently, the Sahara had never been done really thoroughly before by a Leica cameraman.

Not only did they buy thousands of dollars worth of pictures from him, but they gave Sky a job in the plant doing publicity and advertising for as long as he wished.

However, Sky Jones wasn't the type to buckle down to one job for any length of time. He bought himself two of the new M3 Leicas and a complete set of accessories and started off again.

The last time I saw Sky was in Rhodes, Greece, where he was doing a color photography job on that picturesque island for National Geographic. However, the Leica people weren't letting him go. They insisted that every time after Sky finished one of his trips, they be given the opportunity to go over his photos buying those they wanted at that five dollar apiece rate.

Could you do this sort of thing? I don't know. If you're a photog­raphy crank, like Sky is, you would have various opportunities to make money with your camera any place you go. This particular "jackpot" which Sky hit probably couldn't be duplicated exactly. It was a matter of a particular set of breaks and Sky being on the scene to take advantage of them.

But that's the point. Sooner or later, given just the average ups-and-downs as you go through life, living a free existence, you'll run into opportunities that you'd never dream of if you remained in your own small town, working away from nine to five at a job you don't like, in a factory you hate, and under a boss you possibly despise.

CASE HISTORY No. 3. In line with what I have just written above, let me tell you of one example of being on the spot and taking advantage of a situation when it arises, which I think quite amusing. I'm not going to tell you the name of this "wise guy" but that's not necessary to the story.

This happened in Mexico some years ago. Back before the war. Our subject, we'll call him Jack, found that under Mexican law you could copyright the name of any product you wished, if it hadn't already been copyrighted in Mexico. Intrigued by this, Jack copyrighted just about every national product name produced in the United States that wasn't already copyrighted south of the border.

That is, he would copyright names such as "Coca-Cola" and "Kodak" (I use these merely as examples, actually both of these products have been in Mexico for many years.)

Then he sat back and waited. As international trade boomed, more and more American companies began to expand their busi­ness into Mexico. What did they find, to their horror? Jack had their name copyrighted. They couldn't use the name of their own product, in Mexico, until they came to terms with Jack!

He was smart enough not to be too greedy. Five thousand dollars here, ten thousand dollars there, a chunk of stock from somebody else.

Today, Jack is living very comfortably indeed in Mexico City. Every year that passes sees some new concern coming to him— requesting permission to use their own name.

Could you pull this one? Search me. If there are any other countries in the world that have a similar law to the Mexican one, you certainly could. American products are flowing abroad as never before and every year that passes sees new concerns going into export business.

The point is that Jack saw an opportunity and latched onto it. For an investment of two dollars per product name, he tied down half the products in the States that hadn't yet gone into that country with their exports. While you may not be able to duplicate his deal there are others. Believe me, many, many others. The socio-economic system under which we live has so many ridiculous loopholes that there are many thousands of quick witted persons such as Jack who live in comfortable ease without doing a lick of work. And does anyone think less of them? Certainly not. Probably even the heads of the companies that Jack victimized gave a wry, admiring chuckle when he confronted them with his demands.

CASE HISTORY No. 4. But the above case histories are on the exotic side. How about something a little more down to earth?

All right, let's take Martha Kilgore who is currently in charge of the United States Information Center in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In case you haven't been checked out on Copenhagen, it is in my opinion one of the most alive towns in Europe. Sometimes called the "Paris of the North" Copenhagen is for my money a better town in which to eat than Paris, a better town in which to drink than London or New York, as beautiful a city as Rome, and the most fun-loving metropolis in Europe.

Martha got a librarian's degree at the Berkeley branch of the University of California. She worked there for five years as a librarian and then decided to see some of the world.

She applied directly to: Chief, Recruitment Branch, Division of Foreign Service Personnel, Department of State, Washington 25, D.C. while still in her middle twenties, and was assigned to Copenhagen's Information Center, one of the 160 that the U.S. maintains in sixty different countries. Besides supplying books in English for foreigners interested in the United States, these in­formation centers also have movies, lectures, musicals and exhibits.

Starting pay for librarians working at Army posts abroad is even better, ranging from $4,525 a year to $5,440 but Martha, with the State Department started at $3,410 a year plus a living allow­ance which varies according to what part of the world the job takes you to.

Librarian work is librarian work, of course, whether in Tulsa, Oklahoma or Okinawa, in the Far East, but there are always vacations, week-end trips and such to break the boredom. And if I had to make my living this way I think I'd rather have Martha's job in picturesque, fun-loving Copenhagen than in a less joyous surrounding.

Could you do this? Certainly, given a librarian's degree. The State Department's address is above. For information on Army librarian jobs write TAGO, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. Attention: AGMZ-R.

Actually, such jobs don't come under the head of retirement. You work usual American hours and wind up with about usual U.S. pay. The State Department and the Army aren't the only U.S. agencies that have job openings abroad. If you're interested in such work following are some more such agencies. You must be at least 21 years of age, but there is no maximum.

Department of Agriculture; Department of the Air Force; De­partment of the Navy; Department of Commerce; U.S. Weather Bureau; Department of the Interior; International Cooperation Administration (806 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Washington) Pan­ama Canal Company (Balboa Heights, C.Z.) U.S. Information Agency. With the exception of those I've given addresses for, all of the above can be reached with simply, Washington, D.C. as an address.

The jobs offered through these agencies are largely clerical ones. Librarians, teachers, stenographers, secretaries, accountants, nurses. Pay is usually the same as you would receive in the States on a civil service job, plus your living abroad allowance. Tour of duty is usually for a minimum of 24 months although in some areas it is only 12 or 18 months. The government provides the transporta­tion both to and from the job. Under some conditions it is possible to bring over your dependents but not always so. There are usually waiting lists for dependent accommodations.

This kind of work isn't for me, frankly, but it might satisfy you particularly if you're a gal. I've known more than one young lady who decided to break out of the rut but to act with care. They found jobs abroad through one or the other of the government agencies and sized up the situation, once abroad. By the time their tour of duty was over they had a little local business or some other deal all lined up.

CASE HISTORY No. 5. While we're on these jobs abroad with American pay we might as well consider the case of Milton Ten Eyck, from Kingston, New York, whose idea of work comes nearer to my own heart.

I met Milton in Paris in 1954 and he was having as good a time as I was. We were both staying in a little hotel just off Rue Monsieur Le Prince which in turn is right off Boulevard Saint Germain and plank in the middle of the Left Bank Latin Quarter. At that time, you could get a room in the hotels in the vicinity for about a dollar a night. They're higher now.

From time to time we'd pass each other in the hotel halls and nod, so one day when he spotted me sitting at the Monaco Cafe at the foot of Monsieur Le Prince he dropped into the chair across from me and said hello.

We had a few cognacs, discussed the degree of pulchritude of the passing students, of the female sex, and struck up a friendship which was to last for the balance of our stay in Paris.

He seemed to have about as much money as I had myself, but no visible sign of support. I was living on the proceeds of a small real estate deal I'd made, so I didn't have any visible signs of support either, I suppose.

The question came up eventually.

It turned out that Milt was a crane operator who just hated to work. In fact, there was only one thing that could drive him to work. Starvation.

He solved the problems of life by two things. He'd work at American construction jobs in Africa, Europe or the Near East (he'd also worked in Alaska once) for a period of 18 months or however long the contract called for, and save his money like a miser. No poker for Milt, and no buying whiskey in Saudi Arabia for $75 a bottle. He saved every penny.

When the job was over, he'd collect his severence pay, his vacation pay, and whatever else he had coming in the way of bonus or overtime, and split the sum exactly in hah*. Half went into the bank in Switzerland, which boasts the most firm banks in the world, and half went into Milt's pocket.

The pocket money went for living the easy life for as long as it would stretch. Milt's idea of the easy life was usually to pick a city, it was Paris this time, but he'd also lived in Rome, London, and Vienna among other places. He'd find a small but pleasant hotel, a small but pleasant favorite cafe, and then a small and pleasant girl friend of local extraction. He then relaxed until his money gave out. It was surprising how long he could go between jobs. Several years, sometimes.

The thing is that pay on these construction jobs is considerably higher than in the States and living considerably cheaper. Milt's last job had been in Morocco helping to build air strips for the U.S. Air Force. He had lived in dormitories, eaten at the com­munity table. Even his occasional trips to Marrakesh, Fez or one of the other Moroccan towns didn't run up to much money. Prices are low in Morocco. And there was one tremendous amount of overtime—which Milt hated but it certainly sky-rocketed pay.

What was the fifty-fifty split that Milt made each time he was paid off? What was he saving that money in Switzerland for?

His eventual idea was to start a motel in one of the European countries in which there was a considerable tourist trade and in which labor was cheap. He had once managed a motel in the United States and had only one complaint about the life. There was too much work. Milt figured that if he built one in Europe in one of the countries where labor is cheap such as Austria, Greece or Spain, he could settle down and manage the place and do nothing at all of a strenuous nature.

Milt had it all worked out. Ten or twelve units, American style. A nice bar, a pleasant little restaurant, a souvenir shop. He wanted a scenic view, a good climate so that he could keep the place open year around, and he wanted a country where he wouldn't run into trouble with itchy palmed police officials. Quite a few requirements, and he hadn't found his dream spot as yet, but Milt was working on it and I have a sneaking suspicion that one of these days I'll take a trip through Europe and spot a king-size sign along the road MILTON TEN EYCK'S AMERICAN STYLE MOTEL.

Could you do this? You could if you have the skill of the type the big construction firms need. Electricians, powertool men, crane operators, bulldozer operators, truck drivers, welders, machinists, mechanics. All kinds of office workers including stenographers, nurses and such. There is a considerable demand for women as well as men.

Best way to get one of these jobs is through one of the employ­ment agencies that specialize in them. Following are four of the best of them:

Ross Employment Service, 150 Broadway, New York 38, N.Y.

Hamilton Employment Bureau, 50 Church Street, New York 7,

N.Y.

H. B. Fullerton Agency, 17 E. 45th Street, New York, N. Y.

Construction Men's Association, 82 Beaver Street, New York

5, N. Y.

Berry Employment Service, 180 Broadway, New York, N. Y.

CASE HISTORY No. 6. Of course, you don't have to be a con­struction worker to live Milt Ten Eyck's type life. I know a mul­titude of men and women who do approximately the same thing Milt does. That is, they work hard, saving their money like misers and then take off for Europe, Mexico or wherever and "retire" until their money runs out. Sometimes they run into a deal and retire for good.

One example that comes to mind is Max Zimmerman whose permanent home is on Purche Avenue, in Gardena, California. Max is single and although his permanent address is in California almost always works, when he works, in Detroit. He is a pattern maker and drags down good pay—when he works.

For some years Max has been making a policy of putting a year or two in Detroit and then taking off for Europe for as long as his money will hold out. However, Max is getting increasingly im­patient with Detroit and increasingly interested in finding some little business which would keep him with a minimum of effort and a maximum of return. It's a matter of time until he finds one. When last I saw him he was considering putting some money into a motion picture theatre deal in Paris, and/or a frozen custard business near Casablanca, Morocco.

CASE HISTORY No. 7. The reason Max came to mind when I thought of all the Americans I know who use this "semi-retire­ment" plan is that he and I participated in a deal that involved going behind the Iron Curtain.

Through this book I have mentioned more than once that opportunities arise from time to time of which any average person can take advantage and acquire a profit. I realize that some of the readers of this book must wonder just what I did during the years I traveled about the globe to start with two thousand dollars and finish with considerably more.

The answer is that I did a good many things, some of which I've already described. But here is another one, and a good example of how "opportunities arise."

Max was driving a little Renault which he had picked up in Paris from a concern which sells you a car with a guarantee that they will buy it back at a set price when your European stay is over. We applied for visas into Czechoslavakia and entered the country driving north from Austria.

Czechoslovakia is, as the reader knows, a communist country but was already a highly industrialized nation before the com­munists ever took over. As a result, the standard of living is said to be the highest on the far side of the Iron Curtain. Whether or not it is, suffice to say that we were surprised to find as high a standard of living as we did. I would estimate, for instance, that the average Czech lives better than the average Greek, Spaniard or Italian.

Be that as it may, there are quite a few things that the Czech doesn't have, due to the Iron Curtain, and the lack of as much foreign trade as a country of her type needs.

One of the things of which she is very short are clothes and particularly those of western styling. To our amazement hardly would we become acquainted with a Czech who spoke English than he would ask whether or not we had any clothes we wanted to sell. As a matter of fact, neither of us, although we had large wardrobes, had much surplus, however, the prices we were offered made it impossible for us to refuse.

We investigated the situation in Prague and found that probably the best buy in Iron Curtain products that we could find were cameras from East Germany. The communist part of Germany formerly contained the factories of such large concerns as Zeiss, and were still producing their products. By Western European and American standards they were dirt cheap.

It was a matter of finding such items to take out of the country because we couldn't spend many Czech crowns on our day by day living. When you enter the country you buy tickets to cover your hotel and restaurant bills, paying with dollars. Nor is it worth taking crowns out of Czechoslovakia and selling them in Switzer­land. You get practically nothing on the exchange.

So we decided upon cameras and accessories and just before leaving sold our sport coats, a suit apiece (I had a dacron one I didn't like) and some assorted slacks, shirts and sweaters.

With the proceeds we bought four Exacta cameras with the most expensive lenses available and with such accessories as tele-photo and wide angle lenses, not to speak of exposure meters, filters, flash equipment and carrying cases. We were a bit leery about getting all this truck out of the country but needn't have been. The communist nations want foreign exchange as much as do any capitalist countries and the border officials must have figured we had bought the photographic equipment with good hard dollars. At any rate, we had no trouble getting it all across the border into Germany and then to France.

As I recall, Max kept one of his two cameras and sold the other. I don't know how much he netted on the transaction but valuing my clothes which were all used, at about $125,1 netted a profit of about $400. It could have been more if I had taken the cameras over to London for resale, since British camera prices are fab­ulously high, but I didn't feel like a London trip at that time.

As unbelievable as the above may seem to a stranger to the communist nations, it won't be as hard to believe as the fact that I went into Yugoslavia in 1954, or was it 1955, planning to spend a couple of weeks and then to go on to Greece and eventually Turkey. I stayed, instead, for the full two months for which my tourist visa was good. And it didn't cost me a penny. In fact, when I left I was loaded down with handmade peasant dolls, one of the few good buys in Yugoslavia, and several pair of excellent hand made shoes. How? I sold my used American portable typewriter for nearly five hundred dollars worth of Yugoslavian dinars. At that time there wasn't a typewriter to be had in Tito's Yugoslavia for love or money. I actually found later that I'd been gypped on the deal and that I could have got as much as $700 for it. As it was, on the proceeds of a battered old Underwood that would have possibly brought $25 at home, I lived in the most swank hotels in Yugoslavia, in the best resorts. I ate the tops in foods and drank the best in liquor. And, believe me, I had to hump myself to get rid of all my dinars before my visa expired.

When I arrived in Rhodes, Greece, I bought a brand-new German model typewriter for about sixty dollars. There are no import taxes on typewriters in Rhodes, which makes them even cheaper than they are in Germany where you pay a local tax.

Could you do things like this? Why not? The last reports I've heard (in 1958) indicate that if anything the Czechs are madder than ever to get their hands on western style clothing, and type­writers are still scarce, although not as much so as before, in Yugoslavia. And there are still no taxes in Rhodes.

CASE HISTORY No. 8. I suppose I could have put this under the heading "Spain" because that's where Mrs. Clara Hawkins lives and operates but actually I know of this "retirement" scheme work­ing in most of the countries in Europe so you can pick your own city, just so long as it has a big tourist turnover and know that someone is doing the same job as Mrs. Hawkins.

Mrs. Hawkins lives in Torremolinos with her seventeen year old son. She's divorced and, I suppose, needs the money she makes by being a "guide-companion." Either that, or it was simply a matter of doing something with time that possibly hanged heavily on her hands.

At any rate, Mrs. Hawkins has picked up sufficient Spanish to get by under all conditions. She hires out her time to newly arrived permanent residents in town, or to tourists who are only to be around for a week or two.

At the rate of ten pesetas an hour (about .20) Clara Hawkins will take you about town and show you all the best places to buy your groceries, your liquor, your fuel, and whatnot. She'll take you around to the best seamstresses and introduce you. She'll help you find a house or apartment. She'll hire you a maid. She'll answer all the questions you could possibly dream up about Torremolinos, Malaga, or the other nearby towns and cities. She'll tell you how to get to Gibraltar or Granada or Madrid. She'll tell you the best way of changing your money to get the most pesetas for your dollars or pounds. In short, she'll do just about anything, some­thing like "Available Jones" of Dogpatch.

For only .20 an hour? you ask.

Well, not exactly. You see, every time Mrs. Hawkins takes a new customer to a beauty shop, dressmaker, shoe maker, or souvenir shop, she gets a ten to fifteen percent rake-off on any­thing the customer buys. Tailored clothes are cheap comparatively in nearby Malaga, and Clark Hawkins never fails to tell her customers of the fact. So are hand made shoes, so are women's suede things. And every time Mrs. Hawkins takes in a customer, bingo, fifteen percent. It mounts up.

How does Clara Hawkins make her contacts? In view of the fact that she performs real services, the three travel agencies in town keep her always in mind. So do all the hotels that cater to the Anglo-American trade. But above all she makes a point of meeting each plane that brings in the "package vacation" tourists from England. These flood into the Torremolinos area by the dozens of plane loads in season and since Mrs. Hawkins is gen­uinely of value to the newcomer, the tourist organizations are glad to have her give a little talk to their customers offering her services.

Could you do this? Yes, in any country where you could speak the language and where there was a big tourist turnover. If you speak no language except English, then your first task would be to learn the local tongue. I would estimate that it would take the average person from three to six months to learn Spanish well enough to operate as does Mrs. Hawkins.

How do you line up the stores for your ten or fifteen percent rake-off on sales? You simply go to the best stores in town, the ones you can honestly recommend to your clients, and lay it on the line. I've never heard of this type of deal being turned down. Nor is it a matter of their upping their prices to take care of that ten or fifteen percent which you get. Mark-up is such in any business that giving you a percentage cuts the profit but by no means eliminates it. The business you bring in is gravy, something they'd never get otherwise, so they're willing to take the net profit cut in order to make this.

CASE HISTORY No. 9. A good many of the case histories I've been giving deal with people who have started on an absolute shoestring and wound up with deals whereby they got along comfortably enough although they weren't making a fortune. But let's take a look at bright-eyed Marion Rospach, a go-getter from way back who had a few thousand dollars with which to start her booming project ($3,300 to be exact).

Marion Rospach is from San Francisco and is a graduate of Stanford University. She found herself in Frankfort in 1950 and decided that what was needed in Germany was a newspaper for the G.I.'s and other Americans abroad. The Overseas Weekly was born, starting with a staff of exactly two persons. Sex and living-it-up are stressed and the paper goes over with a bang . . . believe me. In fact, by 1958 it had a circulation of 60,000 with five editions for different parts of Europe.

But I told you Marion is a go-getter. The newspaper isn't enough. She has her finger in a dozen other pies. She is president of the International Media Co., which distributes American periodicals all over Europe. She distributes Ansco photographic products and operates a color film processing plant. And recently, so I hear, she has also started to publish books.

Marion is getting richer by the minute. She's taken her minimum amount of capital and parlayed it up to greater and greater heights. Frankly, this isn't the sort of thing for me. She's working just as hard in Germany as she might have in the states, and under much the same conditions. But it's a good example of having a little capital, seeing an opportunity, and jumping into it.

CASE HISTORY No. 10. Here's one I don't know of personally but was mailed to me by a friend.

Mrs. Lucille R. Gregg, a Belgian born American, has recently opened the firm of L. R. Gregg Associates, Avenue Louise 434, Brussels (telephone 47-16-63). And what do the Gregg Associates do?

Everything.

Mrs. Gregg knows both America and Belgium very well indeed and she puts her knowledge to work for anybody willing to pay her fee. Suppose you're in Brussels and want an English speaking doctor, or a baby sitter, or a public stenographer who speaks, English, French and German. Or suppose you want an introduction to some particular businessman, or even some Belgian government official. Suppose you want a sightseeing guide who specializes in, say, details of the Belgian battlefields on which Americans fought during the Second War.

In short, Mrs. Gregg will do anything for you. She operates a highly personalized service for travelers.

CASE HISTORY No. 11. I'm going to have to give a phoney name on this one because the gal that operates this deal is no friend of mine. In fact, for reasons that aren't important to this book, she hates my guts.

So we'll call her Clem Entine (because she does have big feet) and I'll try to keep from being catty as I sketch out her system of taking it easy abroad.

Mrs. Clem Entine runs a kindergarden in one of the more popular Anglo-American resorts in Europe. It's not particularly important which one because everything I'll tell you about could be duplicated in any Anglo-American colony.

The thing is that many of the Americans and British who retire abroad or even go over for a year or so, meet up with a problem that probably never occurred to them before they left home. Their children begin to lose their command of English. Invariably the parents hire servants of the country. French servants in France, Spanish ones in Spain, Italian in Italy. Servants are so cheap, compared to the States, and so necessary due to the different way of life that you find abroad, that you actually seldom find an American family that doesn't have at least one.

This winds up with a small child soon speaking the language of the servant and of the local friends the child soon makes. Before Mr. and Mrs. Smith realize it, they have a child who speaks ex­cellent French, but is not developing normally in English. I actually have friends with children as old as six and eight years of age who speak no English at all.

The problem is particularly acute with younger children. If a child comes to Europe at the age of eight or ten and up, then he or she already has his basic language and learning a foreign one is fine. But the younger children present a different problem.

Fine. My "friend" Mrs. Clem Entine started a kindergarden for English speaking children. Each morning from about nine o'clock until one-thirty she keeps her brood of twenty and up children at play in two large rooms and the garden of her house. The language spoken is English. In fact, the one basic rule of the establishment is that no other language is allowed. Otherwise it is a normal nursery type arrangement. Mrs. Tine has two full time servant girls one of whom helps with the children—but she too must speak only English.

I am not too sure about this, but I think Mrs. Tine charges ten dollars a month per child. On an average she has between twenty and thirty children at a time, sometimes more at the height of the season. This would gross between $200 and $300 a month and her expenses are negligible. I would estimate that her rent is a maximum of $50 and her two girls must come to $10 apiece. Other expenses such as crayons, drawing paper and such are supported by the parents.

She nets, then, between $130 and $230 a month and gets her rent above this since she lives in the same house that she uses for the children. This may not sound like a good deal of money to the average American, but, believe me, it is a fortune in such lands as Mexico, Spain, Greece or Austria and is a tidy amount even in France (outside Paris) and Italy (outside Rome).

Could you do this?

It seems to me that any adult of the female sex who had any pretense at all to having a way with children could do it. Your initial investment would be very little more than your first month's rent. Your advertising would be by personal contact in the foreign colony and by putting little ads up on the bulletin board in the local newspaper and magazine shops (there always seems to be such a shop in the Anglo-American colonies) that cater to the foreigner.

Of course, you'd have to pick a town where there is a con­siderable English speaking community, otherwise you'd never have enough children to make it pay. There's another advantage to this little business, by the way. If you are single and possibly middle aged, it gives you an ex­cellent introduction to the "better elements" in the community, because it is usually the better elements who have children. At least I have found it so.

CASE HISTORY No. 12. Here's one that is of the type that anybody can swing, regardless of sex, age, education or intelligence. And practically no capital is needed to start operations.

I know scores of Americans who are using this gimmick to live comfortably abroad at a minimum of effort. In fact, I can't off hand remember ever being in a foreign country, other than British Commonwealth ones, where I didn't meet at least one person doing it.

I'm referring to teaching the American language.

That's right, I mean the American language not English.

As I've mentioned more than once already in this book, the world is becoming Americanized. As a result our language is in great demand. A Spaniard, Frenchman, Italian, or Greek who can speak English can get a better job for himself. And preferably he wants to learn to speak it with an American rather than a British accent, since England is on the downgrade throughout the world and America on the up-grade.

In every country of the world you will find people who want to learn your language. Get half a dozen or so students and you have a living. Double that number and you've got a mighty fine one.

As a rule, you find your clients by advertising in the newspapers. The rates you charge are according to prices in the country in which you are residing. Since it costs you little to live in Spain, your rates are low there. Switzerland on the other hand is expensive, however, her people are well paid and can afford the higher rates you can charge.

It isn't difficult to teach your own language. You can work out a system in a day or two. Most of the Americans I know abroad who make their way by teaching the American language have acquired some good textbook on the subject and follow the system outlined. Most will also carry with them several first and second grade readers, with which their students can practice. Any large bookstore carries, or will order for you, such textbooks and readers.

I have never been in a country which requires you to have a work permit for this sort of job. You can practice anywhere.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...