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8:30 AM EST, Monday, July 2: Money should buy happiness. We traveled the Adriatic on Ivan Antisic's boat, the m/b Bozidar, with Ivan skippering it.

Ivan (and Croatia) are doing so well with tourism he just built a second, bigger boat. It's called Secret of the Sea. It's three times the volume, eight meters longer, has two engines, a thruster for parking and A/C in the guest quarters. It has "more luxury," says Ivan.

When I asked him if would build a third one, he replied, "If I build a third one, I must sit in office. I prefer here."

One of our tour guides was a lawyer. He preferred this also to the office.

How does one capture the Adriatic's full beauty? The pristine cleanliness of its waters, its azure blue skies, its volcanic islands -- many smelling of wild lavender. The white dots are boats and yachts.

Here's me doing a snow angel. It's so salty, you can't sink.



We met an American couple from Las Vegas, who had just bought a house in old-town Dubrovnik. He consults with American companies. He uses Vonage and his Croatian DSL line to call his clients. They think he's calling from the States. This is old-town Dubrovnik.

Croatian food is boring, but Austrian isn't. We flew Austrian Airlines. It has the worst seats, but the best food, which they highlight by giving you menus with funny cartoons. Austrian will sell you a two-for-one in business class if you use the American Express Platinum.

The Australian dollar has reached a new 18-year high..
Since late June, the Australian dollar has traded at levels not scaled since February 16, 1989, when the currency was worth $US0.8646. The Australian currency has now broken the $US0.8500 mark five times in the past 10 days.

Staying in touch abroad:
1. The cheapest, easiest is via a BlackBerry that's internationally enabled and has flat rate email service. Hence, email is free.
2. The cheapest way to call is via Skype. You must carry a computer headset.
3. The second cheapest is to buy an unlocked GSM phone on eBay and buy SIM cards for each country you visit. Local calls then are pennies, not dollars. You buy SIM cards at the local newsstand or tobacco shop.
4. Webmail -- Google gmail, Yahoo, etc. -- works easier than carrying a laptop and trying to use Outlook and find an SMTP address. Every podunk town these days has Internet cafes. If you do carry a laptop, it's generally easy to plug in -- if you know how.

Travel tips:
1. Take big bars of soap. Europe hasn't discovered real soap yet.
2. Take the Duxiana Travel Pillow. It's great for sleeping on planes.
3. Take SP30 sun block. The sun can be fierce.
4. Take Woolite. It makes sense to wash your own stuff. Hotel washing charges are exorbitant.
5. Expect airline delays. Bring books, power bars. We didn't have any. We were lucky.
6. My newest Canon SD850 camera worked like a charm.

Great marketing lore
The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in the bathroom.

Men and women at various ages:
At age 10 -- You take her to bed and tell her a story.

At 20 -- You tell her a story and take her to bed.

At 30 -- You don't need to tell her a story to take her to bed.

At 40 -- She tells you a story and takes you to bed.

At 50 -- She tells you a story so you don't come to bed.

At 60 -- You stay in bed to avoid her story.

At 70 -- If you take her to bed, that'll be a real story.

At 80 -- What story??? What bed???

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads. Thus I cannot endorse any, though some look mighty interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Claire's law school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.
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