When on a big around the world trip your mind tends to wander, sometimes faster than your feet. It's natural. It's also natural to be inspired to write down these thoughts as they fly through your head, if you're not simply taking pictures of the scenery. However, upon your return all you have is that dingy, dog-eared copy of your travel journal, complete with curry stains from India, yak hair from your trek in the Himalayas and smeared ink from the suprise monsoon that drenched you while waiting for a train in Thailand.

AirTreks has teamed up with a company to help give your writings/snapshots a good home. Blurb.com is a self-publishing website that, quite literally, puts your travelogue into your friends' hands. I went through the process and found the site very easy to use, giving you the affinity to even call yourself an author. Something I've been waiting to do for a long, long time.

With their design tools Blurb lets you create your own book, customized with a style, feel and content that you choose yourself. When all is said and done, the book comes back as a bookstore-quality read, ready to be sent to your family and friends, or marketed on their website--there's a section of their site set aside to sell books created there.

I've seen at least one of Blurb's final products and can quite honestly say that, superficially speaking, they're just as good as anything you see at, say, Barnes and Noble, making it a great way to go if you've ever wanted to get your own writing or pictures into print.

Their website is interactive and slickly designed, with the tools and guidance you need to get your book finished the way you want, without unsightly contracts and literary-agents mucking up the process. The costs are marginal (probably in line with what you'd expect) and the quality of the final product is extremely high.

And don't forget, if you book a trip with AirTreks we'll give you a keyword for a discount on your first book—giving you a great opportunity to finally get those mind-meanderings into print. Still never thought you'd be a published author? Silly you.