Welcome to this month’s FREETOGO blog post.
I need to make a VERY MAJOR change to FREETOGO. This month, I will not encourage users to watch any specific videos.
This is because YouTube no longer starts many of its videos with a short ad that one can skip after four to five seconds. YouTube now begins most videos with ads that are, on average, two minutes long.
Consequently, most of the videos on FREETOGO no longer pass my curation test. I know that people in my target group have no interest or patience to watch a long commercial.
So, I will replace these existing YouTube videos with ones that do not have ads. I will work to do this as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, I have to leave everything as is. If you plan to watch a video, know there might be a long ad initially.
I'll share one of my favorite jokes to try to make this blog post not totally negative.
A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly, a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses, and Hermes tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
Bud looked at the man, who obviously was a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answered, "Sure, why not?" The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his laptop, connected to his iPhone, and surfed to a NASA page on the Internet, where he called up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location, which then scanned the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. He then exported the photo to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, the image was processed, and the data was stored. Finally, he printed out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech miniaturized LaserJet, turned to Bud, and said, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” said Bud. He watched the young man select one of the animals and looked on with amusement as he stuffed it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud said to the young man. “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?" The young man thought about it briefly and then said, "Okay, why not?" "You’re a Member of Congress,” said Bud. “Wow! That’s correct,” said the young man, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guess required,” answered Bud. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment to show me how much smarter than me you are, and you don’t know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep." "Now, give me back my dog.”
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Note: FREETOGO is entirely free. Also, there are no ads on the site to interrupt your visit. However, that is not true for many videos because YouTube hosts them. They are free to watch but have ads. Yet, if you wish, you can eliminate the ads by paying to become a premium member of YouTube.
You can access YouTube’s Premium Membership signup here:
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The following still applies.
I invite you to check out the above videos and the many others curated for this website.
Also, see all the many ways people use FREETOGO at the bottom of the Travel Now page.
Most importantly, to help to improve the quality of life of everyone, please share this website far and wide, especially with anyone unable to travel freely. Sign up as a member, leave a testimonial, and visit the website regularly!
Get creative and have some fun traveling virtually. I look forward to the day when the term Virtual Travel will be as commonplace as the term travel.
Thank you.