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Every great business idea takes wings with the launch of a professionally designed website. Internet has redefined the way business is transacted and your website is the gateway to these business opportunities.

A verifiable online presence has become indispensable for every company – to lead its competition and to secure a dominant position in the industry. It’s not only important to reflect the business strategy of a company through its website but, it is equally important to engage your potential customers and partners into conversation.

Ursula and Eldrid Retief  take the alternative cruise to Alaska with the Alaska Marine Highway aboard the “Matanuska” from Bellingham, Washington State for an eight-day return trip along the Inside Passage wending along the coast through more than 1,000 islands. . .

The Alaska Marine Highway is without doubt the most unique highway in the world. Its scenery is certainly mesmerizing.

How many other highways can you drive along and see, often at the same moment, snowcapped mountain peaks, ice-age glaciers, hillsides blanketed with spruce and hemlock, tranquil fjords, beaches and streams?

Where else could you see otters feeding on kelp beds, fur seals, killer whales breaching almost within touching distance, sea birds and bald eagles perched on their nests gazing into the distance?

The Alaska Marine Highway System has ferried cars and passengers to some 32 communities in Alaska, British Columbia and the state of Washington for nigh on 50 years. The 11 ferries are a lifeline for the isolated fishing and logging communities along the south-eastern Alaskan shoreline. Other popular destinations visited by many Alaska Marine Highway travelers include Anchorage, Denali National Park, Fairbanks, and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.

But the route is more than that. It is a cheaper alternative to the expensive cruises in these waters. The ferry service gives passengers greater freedom than they would have on a cruise ship. The Matanuska carries 499 passengers, and provides 4 four-berth, 21 three-berth, and 80 two-berth cabins. The cabins may not be as luxurious as a cruise liner’s, but it’s a lot cheaper, although meals are extra.

The ferry car deck holds about 88 vehicles (these numbers vary from ferry to ferry). Drivers can plan their own itinerary and connect with other ferries to explore off the beaten track. Take your car to Skagway, Alaska, for example, and drive home via the Alaska Highway.

So come aboard the “Matanuska”, named for an Alaskan glacier, at Bellingham, Washington State, about 80 kilometers south of Vancouver, British Columbia, for the eight-day return trip along the Inside Passage, stretching 1,700 kilometers and wending its way along the coast through more than 1,000 islands.

The first voyage of discovery is the ferry itself: a cocktail lounge, a gift shop, a cafeteria, and a huge forward observation lounge.

The upper deck has a glassed solarium and a lounge with reclining seats used by travelers who don’t want to spend their money on a cabin, or by those doing a short hop. The airline-style chairs are comfortable enough for a night’s sleep. and there are showers in the washrooms. (Public showers are available on all vessels except the Lituya, Chenega and Fairweather.) In summer, campers even pitch their tents on the upper deck.

The Matanuska does not have dining room service but the self-service lineup in the cafeteria moves quickly (the M/Vs Columbia and Tustumena have full-service dining rooms). The menu is vast and reasonably priced; portions are also large (for size, try the omelettes for breakfast). There are at least three main dishes every lunch and dinner, often the freshest of locally caught salmon, halibut or red snapper, as well as fresh salads, sandwiches, soup and fast-food orders such as burgers and French fries.

We’re at sea for 36 hours before touching on the first port of call – Ketchikan, Alaska’s southernmost city. It is strung out for kilometers along a waterfront, most of it supported on pilings above Tongass Narrows. The cross streets are often simply wooden steps climbing the steep hillside.

If the ferries are running a bit late, you might not have more than an hour or two ar each stop. Keep this in mind. The ferry does not wait on slowpoke passengers.

Ketchikan tourist sights include wonderful shopping, Dolly’s house on Creek street, the home and working place of the town’s last “madam” and a museum. Along the waterfront are seaplanes and boats serving the logging camps and other settlements.

Most of Sunday is spent at sea relaxing and sightseeing – often with calls from the bridge to alert you to the occasional killer whale or other sights.

The next stop is Wrangell, the only community to have the flag of three nations flying over it. Wrangell began as a stockade built by the Russians in 1834, was leased six years later to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, and finally bought by the US in 1867. Gold miners headed from there for the Klondike and Cassiars. One stop worth making is at the beach to see the petroglyphs carved by prehistoric Indians.

Later the ferry stops at Petersburg, home of the largest halibut fleet in Alaska and proud of its Scandinavian heritage. Early next day it’s Juneau, capital of Alaska – and you can see the Mendenhall glacier as the ferry approaches the terminal.

The terminal is 22 kilometers north of Juneau, but there is a good minibus and taxi service to town, a bustling community long before gold was discovered in 1881. A walking tour will take you past many historic sites; you can stock up on gold nuggets and fossilized walrus tusk jewelry. The world’s largest concentration of brown bear lives on Admiralty Island, located just 10 minutes from Juneau.

Later in the morning the ferry heads to Haines, originally a trading post. From here, it’s only an hour to Skagway which, wonderfully preserved and restored, today still resembles the gold-rush town it was at the turn of the century – the main gateway to the Klondike, 800 kilometers to the north.

From Skagway, the ferry retraces its route to Haines and Juneau, then detours to Sitka, once the Russian capital of Alaska. Mount Edgecombe, an extinct volcano, towers in the background. The Russian influence can be seen everywhere in Sitka: Visit the onion-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral, for instanceHealth Fitness Articles, a fine example of rural Russian church architecture.

Many of the Alaska Marine Highway’s ferries have theater areas that show films of general interest and documentaries on Alaska and the outdoors and often provide special educational and entertainment programs.

As though there isn’t enough to see and do on the way.

Seeing Alaska by Ferry – The Alaska Marine Highway / Ursula and Eldrid Retief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Extensive news freelancers for many years, Ursula and Eldrid Retief are now Editors-in-Chief of several travel web sites, including Travel Tidings Alaska a free Alaska travel guide about Alaska tourism and Alaska vacations with travel information on everything from Alaskan cruises to cheap hotel rates, maps and weather.

Here is what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur online.

If you are looking to become that next successful entrepreneur, consider what other entrepreneurs have found as they worked through their transformation into a successful business person. Not every entrepreneur has used all of the following ideas, but most will acknowledge their importance in getting to where you would like to be in business.

Set goals
This idea may sound a bit obvious but it is ignored quite often in the excitement of getting a business started. You need to have an idea of where you would like to end-up with your business idea. In this way, you can begin to set intermediate goals that will get you to the end goal. Your intermediate goals may start with a daily task list that ends with the successful completion of a more prominent goal a few weeks down the road. As these intermediate goal successes pile up your ultimate goal is one step closer. Baby steps are the words here.

Know your market
Education is power can be taken to heart in building a business. You are sure to attract and recruit good people along the way, but you still need to have a good idea about how things in the market you are tapping work and why. Take classes, talk to others in the field and fall down a few times on your own so you learn the “hard way.”

Look through the clutter for good ideas
One of the skills that you will need to learn is how to sift through all the clutter that you will inevitably run into during your busy days. Some people just have the knacks of sorting through the static, but starting out, keep your baby steps in mind and what is needed to meet them. If the clutter is getting in the way of achieving that baby step ignore it, but keep it in mind for future reference.

Build relationships and tap the pain
If people are not helping you along your path they are potential sales. Understanding why these people want to buy your product or service is critical (how will this product make a persons life easier or better?) What pain drives them to need the product or service you are offering? Developing a pain list is a real priority even before you get going.

Taking a leap of faith
When it comes right down to it, you are going to need a bottle of aspirin. At some point every entrepreneur needs to be able to step off the edge and go-for-it. In some instances this may entail money commitment, in others time commitment. At some point all successful business people make that fatal decision of “all or nothing.”

Spend wisely
Making the “all or nothing” leap of faith does not mean that successful business people are foolish with their hard earned capital. Every successful entrepreneur has a different perception of how to go about allocating capital, but all indicate that money is not water. If a large capital expenditure is needed they say that they are prepared to make it, but only after prudent research.

Reinvest in yourself
As business begins to take off most successful business people indicate that putting profits back into the business before paying yourself a kings ransom is the way to go. You want to make sure to pay yourself but make sure you pay the company until a fairly stable financial structure has been formed. After this has been achieved, pay yourself a bit better understanding that expansion of the business will also take capital.

Passion, focus and sticking at it
Belief goes a very long way in starting a new business. If you believe in your ideas others will tend to follow. Passion will sustain you as well, during those dark times when more things then you would like aren’t going well. Unless you are extremely lucky, the process of getting a business off the ground is tough so you need to be able to stick with it.

Use smart people
Every single successful person in the world today will tell you that having smart people around you is the only way to go when starting and maintaining a new business. In most cases, these same people will also indicate that the people around them are smarter then they are. Remember also that this idea works all along the manufacturing and management spectrum. A shipping clerk will undoubtedly have a few good ideas that you had never thought of. Hiring wisely and being able to listen to those you are paying is a good idea.

Recognize the perception of the customer
Being able to understand the customer is a very important part of starting a new business. You are, after all, selling to them. If you do not recognize their needs how are you to sell to them? Once you recognize these needs working at communicating at their level is important. This takes timeHealth Fitness Articles, but it is a necessity.

Top 10 Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs / Pawel Reszka

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Here is how top experts are making money online. Check out this profit system that generates cash on demand every day.

Once you start your own Internet marketing business you will quickly learn that traffic is king. People can only find your blog when you have a link pointing back to it. In this article we will talk about the five best ways to get back links pointing back to your blog.

Once you start your own Internet marketing business you will quickly learn that traffic is king. You have to let people know that you are open for business. People can only find your blog when you have a link pointing back to it.

In this article we will talk about the five best ways to get back links pointing back to your blog.

1. Start a pay per click advertising campaign. Google Adwords is still the strongest pay per click advertising search engine in the world today. You can advertise with many others as well. Payperclicksearchengines.com is one website that contains hundreds of companies where you can advertise your website by bidding on keywords.

There are many things that go into creating a good ppc campaign. It will be important that you do not jump in with both feet until you have taken the time to learn the basics. Because it is still the fastest way to drive targeted traffic to any blog or website we list it number one.

2. Submit your blog post articles to social directories. Joining Onlywire is one quick way to do that.com. They conveniently contained over 20 social directories that you can bookmark your posts too. You will also want to consider joining others such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Propeller and any relevant ones that relate to the theme of your blog.

Every time you post in your blog you should bookmark that post to all of the social directories. This creates links back to each individual post giving you potential traffic.

3. Article marketing is still a fantastic way to create traffic and back links to your website. You should learn everything you can about this excellent marketing strategy. The bottom line is crafting a well-written resource box that contains a link back to your website is one way to get people who read your articles to visit your site.

Also when you hyperlink a keyword in your resource box search engines find it and come to your website as well. You begin to develop keyword relevancy over time by writing and submitting this with the resource box as many times as possible.

4. One great way to create back links is Posting comments in other people’s blogs. Every time you post you are able to include your name and your website address in some comments. Try to include your primary keyword in the name if you can.

This is four of the best ways to get back links to your blog. There are countless other ways and you may be comfortable with some of them. Regardless of how you do it the key is to get thousands of back links to your blog creating potential traffic for you and your business.

Need Backlinks To Your Blog-Try These 4 Ideas / Joel Nickerson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joel Nickerson invites you to visit his internet home business idea website for you information you can trust. If you are a home business opportunity
seeker he can help you find ideas and opportunities that really work. Please click here now: ===> http://www.instant-home-biz.com

Article about and unique way to drive targeted website traffic by just surfing the web as you always do. No special clicking or click counts required!

If you have a website or you promote someone else’s’ website as an affiliate, you need to drive traffic to it.

Without traffic, you won’t get visitors. And without visitors, you won’t make money, sales, get subscribers, etc. What good is a website without any traffic? And if the site is getting traffic, what good is it if it’s not targeted traffic?

There are many ways to drive traffic to your site, both free and paid. But we are not going to talk about paid traffic right now. That is a totally different topic and could take hours to cover.

So, back to free traffic. Some ways of getting free traffic to your site is by Search Engine Optimization, surfing for traffic, or getting it passively.

SEO takes time and a lot of work. When you join sites that are surf for traffic sites, you have to look at other members’ sites in order to earn advertising credits for your site to be displayed when another member is surfing.

The only problem with this is that although the traffic is free, it is not targeted. Everyone who is a member only surfs for the credit and very rarely even looks at the site, they just minimize their window on their PC and multi-task. So, the traffic is crap and worthless.

Now, let’s talk about the best way to get free targeted traffic. It’s called Instant Buzz. Instant Buzz is a service that gives you advertising credits as you surf the web like you normally would. What you do is download the toolbar for free, it only takes a minute. Then, you set up your ads in the members area. And bam, you ads are being displayed on other members’ tool bars as they surf.

You can also put Instant Buzz ads in emails that you send to your friends. These are called mail space ads. And your ad will get displayed in other members’ emails. The last thing you can do is put a hyperspace ad on your website
which will help you refer other members.

When you refer other members, you will also get a percentage of the credits they earn which will go towards your ad credits.

If someone likes your ad and is interested in what it saysFree Articles, then they click on it and end up on whatever site it was that you were promoting. Now that’s targeted traffic! And it was free.

So make sure you visit the link in the resource box to start driving targeted and quality traffic to your website today. It will only take you a couple of minutes to start bringing visitors to your site.

The Best Way To Generate Free Targeted Website Traffic / Mike Schantz

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To download this free tool or get more information about Instant Buzz, visit http://www.cyber-marketing411.com/InstantBuzz

On the Internet, by the end of the day, it’s all about traffic, and more so, it’s all about relevant traffic. Relevant traffic is the lifeline of your online presence and you need to make a continuous effort to keep getting good traffic to your website. Now, you can get targeted traffic from the following sources:

OK so you you have a website, but are you getting a return on your investment? Your site may look great but at the end of the day it is all about traffic, and more importantly relevant targeted traffic that converts. Now you can get more relevant traffic from: * The search engines: The search engines are the primary source of your relevant traffic, in most of the cases. It doesn’t cost you tons of money to get traffic from the search engines.

Millions of users conduct billions of searches every month. * Pay-per-click programs: Maybe there are not quite as hot as some of the search engines but they do guarantee targeted traffic more or less instantly. Sign up for a pay-per-click program like AdWords and you’ll be getting traffic within fifteen minutes. Pay-per-click advertising options are present on independent content publishing websites too. * Inbound links from other websites: If you publish compelling content then many website owners put your link on their websites to add value to their existing content.

Such links can be put their voluntarily, or through link exchange. Link exchange is discouraged these days, so the best way of making others link to you is to produce high-class, linkable content, on a regular basis. You can even interact on various online forums to increase your link visibility. * Emails: Up till a few years ago email marketing was considered the most effective advertising tool the world had ever witnessed.

Spam killed its charm but in some quarters it still performs well, especially the opt-in email newsletters. Email advertising campaigns, provided they are done properly, are still the best way of getting highly targeted traffic. * Blogs and RSS Feeds: Only the most ignorant can discount blogs and RSS feeds as highly productive tools in terms of generating targeted traffic.

Blogs are a constant source of quality information and hence they get instant traffic from other websites and the search engines. RSS feeds, without being intrusive like emails, instantly notify people whenever you publish something new on your blog or website. * Social media and bookmarking websites: Some of such websites are: Digg, Netscape, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. * Offline sources:

If you prominently display your URL on your visiting cards, letter heads, brochures and other stationery you can get some good traffic from there too. I have seen people printing their URLs even on their T-shirts and vehicles. In order to get traffic from all these sources, you have to take care how you create your website and how you organize your content. Given below are a few things you should constantly keep in mind while creating and maintaining your website, and while writing content for your website.

Stick to your central theme as much as possible; The more you stick to your central theme, the more expert content you’ll have. Don’t try to create content for every interest under the sun (or the moon, or the stars). Think vertical if you want to get high-value traffic. Cover all the topics that belong to your central theme. It acts like fodder to the search engines.

The search engines love specialized content; give it to them and they’ll give you loads of traffic in exchange. Sticking to your central theme also earns you great respect and loyalty, and also hundreds of inbound links. When you keep generating content on your subject, people take you as an expert and linking to you becomes a prestige factor. It also increases your keyword-density across your domain. Provide information that helps your visitors; This is what keeps them coming back to your website. You cannot always be selling this thing or that thing.

More than that, develop a bond with your visitors. Show them their happiness matters to you. Make your website a resource of useful information. Publish content that adds value. This is a sure-shot way of increasing traffic as well as loyalty. Information that provides help, for instance, how-to articles, get linked to a lot by other web masters and blog publishers, and this leads to higher rankings on various search engines. Conduct a thorough keyword research before generating content; Most SEO campaigns fail to zero-in on the right keywords. You’ll be surprised to know what all keywords and key expressions people use to find businesses such as yours. Target a few wrong keywords and you can bid good bye to an effort of six months of SEO.

It’s not always necessary to use keywords that your competitors are using. First of all, they might themselves be optimizing for the wrong keywords, and second, there might be a slew of keywords that are being used by the users but are being ignored by your competitors. Use your keyword research to find out such keywords and optimize your web pages for them. This will increase your traffic manifolds. Create a simple, accessible but elegant design; When you create quick-loading, stylish and accessible web pages you accommodate the entire spectrum of your prospective market — you don’t exclude particular sections of the society.

Even search engines prefer accessible websites because almost all accessible websites conform to the W3C web designing standards. Good design also means using the right colors (that cause no eye-strain) and right contrasts to assist seamless browsing. The navigation bar should be designed in such a manner that all your important pages should be reachable within 2-3 clicks. A well defined sitemap referencing all of your pages help your human visitors as well search engine crawlers. Do well-organised onsite optimisation; Onsite optimization means using your keywords at all the right places like within the header tags (), as anchor text (, and especially in the navigation) and with the bulleted lists ( and ).

In addition, try to highlight (bold) the occurrence of your keywords here and there, but don’t overdo it. Although this is not necessary, use the keyword at least once in every paragraph. Create a title (the text that comes between ) that not only carries your keywords, but also represents the true highlight of your page content. Never try to deceive your visitors with a title that does not completely represent the content of your page.

Your title shows up on the search engine results pages when your link appears on them. A compelling title makes people click it, and having those keywords in your title that people are looking for increases their probability of being clicked. Regularly create new, relevant content; People come to your website again and again if they are expecting something new there. Similarly, the search engines index and re-index your pages with greater frequency if you update your website regularly. Having many pages increases your chance of at least few of them getting ranked higher by the search engines.

Remain active on the Internet; Known people get more traffic on the Internet. Keep the buzz alive by maintaining an active blog, participating in the comments sections of other blogs and various subject-specific online forums. Blogs are a great way of getting high-quality traffic both from the search engines and from other blogs and websites. If you continuously generate quality posts and encourage productive conversations on your blog more and more people gradually start coming to your blog and some of that traffic gets spilled over to your actual business website.

Another benefit of maintaining a popular blog is that if you put your business website link their it gets extra point when the search engines rank your website. Link to others; Link to them and they’ll link to you. Linking on the Internet is a two-way activity especially if you are not a celebrity (if you are a celebrity people link to you anyway). If you select the outgoing links with caution it also tells the search engines that you link to quality information sources.

People who are looking for such links will visit your website repeatedly knowing that you constantly add new links. More often than not people to whom you link, link back to you. WellFind Article, I could have written a 101 Ways of Increasing Traffic To Your Website but my main purpose was to give you exactly the pointers you can use to increase traffic. Follow the steps mentioned above and you’ll definitely notice a surge in your online traffic.

How to get more traffic to your website / Gary Mattoc

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author: Gary Mattoc http://www.doublespark.co.uk Gary is the CEO of Peterborough Web Design Company Doublespark and also the Chief Editor of SEO Blog.

Expired domain market is a busy place where everyone would jostle and rush out to find their own expire domains with sense of deep conviction. In reality, buying an expired domain is not as easy as you feel it will be! There are several reasons and causes that motivate people like you and me to buy expired domain.. Here are some established tips and suggestions that will teach you how you can buy expired domain in an ever-busy market place.

Expired domain market is a busy place where everyone would jostle and rush out to find their own expire domains with sense of deep conviction. In reality, buying an expired domain is not as easy as you feel it will be! There are several reasons and causes that motivate people like you and me to buy expired domain. One of the best reasons for indulging in expire domain business is its ability to provide you very lucrative profits for the money invested into the business. Here are some established tips and suggestions that will teach you how you can buy expired domain in an ever-busy market place.

Generally, all soon to get expired domains go through three phases of life:

* Expired status, when the owner of the domain in question will have 40 days of grace period, when he or she can renew the domain again by paying a standard fee

* Redemption period, when the domain enters its decisive period of shut-down and the owner of the domain may need to cough up renewal fee, along with additional penalty.

* Locked period, when the domain name in question enters the deletion phase, which is usually 5 days long. And, on the last day, the name will be officially dropped from the database between 11AM and 2PM Pacific time. Soon after this time, anyone can register for the expired domain.

With these phases of expiration cycle, how does one buy expired domain? In fact, a simple search and buy method may not work in the real sense. There are smart entrepreneurs, who use better and quicker methods to grab the domains, before you actually do. It means that you may need to use methods similar to those used by these entrepreneurs.

Experienced people who are well versed in snatching expired domains always use smart methods. One such method is the “Drop Method” that promises you good expired domains. The Drop is that unpredictable three hour time period, in which the domain gets deleted from the registrar’s database and released back into the pool. If you feel that you can buy expired domain during the dropping process is very easy, you are sadly mistaken and confused. There are no fewer than three or four major services that specialize in snatching away all the good names that become available for sale.

To buy expired domain from a large pool of domains, you may wish to enlist the services on three major domain trading firms, so that you can hope that they will grab a domain name on your behalf. Three main expired domain name trading firms are:

* Snapnames.com,

* Enom.com, and

* Pool.com

All these three forms act and operate in a similar manner. They always use a network of registrars to aim at the ICAAN servers at frequent intervals and grab as many names as possible. As a normal rule, if you do not get your desired name, you will not pay a cent to them. All the three forms operate in slightly different ways and manner.

Another common way to buy expired domain is to approach the soon-to-expire domain owner and ask, if they can transfer the domain name to your name. Yet, another way is to participate in a regular domain auction and buy an expired domain at a very high price. Whatever the way you chose, your main goal should be picking a good and decent domain at an affordable price; to buy expired domain name from the open marketHealth Fitness Articles, you will also need to know how domain trading business works and operates in the real sense.

Several ways and means to buy expired domain / John Khu

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Khu is the well-known author of a new e-book titled “Expired Domain Secret”. He is also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is also the owner of the path breaking web site called http://www.expireddomainsecret.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Whether you’re heading to dinner on a luxury cruise or heading into the jungle to retrieve a lost artifact, the traditional fedora will have you going in style. Find out what makes the Indiana Jones fedora unique!

It’s ok.
Really. You’re not alone. There are thousands more people like you. And me.

You want Indiana Jones’ hat.
You don’t have any reason except…well, you want one. If you lived 75 years ago, it wouldn’t even be a question: of course you’d own a hat. And you’d feel naked if you left the house without it.

After all, just look at it! The sharp brim. The distinctive shape. The flavor of class and dignity that comes with that 1930s style.

Ah, the fedora!
But, in an age of superstores, low prices and lower quality, where does one acquire such a thing of beauty?

For me, the answer was obvious: why not contact the man who made Harrison Ford’s hat? Marc Kitter, along with his partner Steve Delk, hand-made all the fedoras used in the latest Indiana Jones film, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.

Kitter was contacted by Bernie Pollack, costume designer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. “He’d been told that that Steve and I had specialized ourselves on the Indy fedora and wanted to know if we could answer some questions. After quizzing us on brim widths, crown heights, ribbon width, fur quality and many other details, Pollack asked us for some samples. We sent in several sample hats and could do nothing but wait.”

According to Pollack, Spielberg had been worried. “Ah, I’m so relieved he [Spielberg] said. I lost sleep wondering if you would be able to come up with the perfect hat.”

Kitter said, “But, after a test shooting with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg, the dream came true and we got the order. My wife went on vacation and we started making hats up to 18 hours a day.”

Eighteen hours a day? If that sounds like a lot, it helps to know what goes into making a real Indiana Jones fedora. The best fedoras are made from fur-felt, never wool. In fact, the highest quality fedora is made from beaver.

It’s a long and difficult process. The fur is manipulated, treated and transformed into actual “felt”, arguably the toughest fabric known to man. (The fibers are interlocked and arranged in every possible direction making it almost impossible to tear.)

“The pure beaver felt used on my hats are specially made to my specs from a traditional manufacturer. This is the highest density felt I’ve ever worked with; and that adds to the durability of the final hat. We even add water-repellant to the felt during the manufacturing process.”

From there, the best fedoras are hand-crafted over a wooden block. “Wooden hat blocks have the advantage of letting the felt “breath” while it dries on them. This is one of the many details that isn’t always visible but prove valuable in the long haul.”

Ironically, one of the most important pieces of a high-quality fedora might be something that you rarely see: the sweatband. Since this is the only part of the hat that actually touches the wearer’s head, having the right material ensures comfort and durability.

Kitter’s hats use exclusive sweatbands made from kangeroo hide; the hides are traditionally tanned by a family-owned company in Australia. From there, they’re cut and turned into the most shrink resistant leather sweatbands available, known and loved by customers all over the world.

The finishing touch is the lining of the hat made from the highest quality bridal satin. “It looks and feels like silk but it’s more resistant to dust and sweat.”

The whole process can take more than 14 hours by hand and it shows.

So…what makes the Indiana Jones hat so unique?

“The Indy Fedora is a classic brown snap brim Fedora with a contrasting dark brown ribbon, but the — as is always the case with quality — the devil is in the details,” said Kitter.

“The blockshape used for the Indy Fedora is very uncommon nowadays. Today most classic hats have a tapered crown and are made from lightweight felt, mainly pure rabbit or rabbit beaver blends.

But, even if you never have to worry about wearing your fedora through the jungles of South America or racing the Russians for an ancient artifact, you still deserve a hat that will survive normal living.

“A high-quality fedora should be able to protect you from the elements, not the other way around. The hat should withstand heavy downpours, hot and humid summer days, snow….but it should do it with style. So, you’ll be able to wear the same hat to the restaurant at night,” Kitter says.

In other words, an authentic Indy fedora will get you positive feedback on a luxury cruise due to its velvet-like silky surface…but it’s just as appropriate with jeans and work-boots.

So, whether you’re looking for that final touch of class to go with a great suit and tie or you’re excavating the garden to make room for the begonias, the classic Indiana Jones fedora is the perfect addition to your wardrobe.

And yes, mine’s on the way.

Do you want Indiana Jones’ hat? / Tony Rush

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For more details on the Indiana Jones fedora or for ordering information, visit http://www.AdventureBiltDeluxe.com. Tony Rush lives in southeast Alabama with his wife, Jessica, three sons and a dachshund named Bentley who doesn’t know he’s a dog. He can be reached at tony@tonyrush.com.