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Farm, Ranch, and Adventure Vacation Service

If you live on a farm or a ranch or just in a big old house, near a river or stream or by the seashore, or near a national park, Disneyland, or any tourist attraction, you can begin a popular and lucrative vacation service that can involve your whole family.

More and more Americans are doing this each year, and while the variations are endless the basic idea remains the same: You take whatever special attraction your home or town or region has and parlay it into a small business by introducing tourists to these attractions. This might involve nothing more than using the spare bedroom of your farmhouse to put up a city couple for a week of quiet, clean country living. Sometimes it involves organizing a one-week bicycle camp-and-riding trip through the nearby national park. Or it might mean having a family of urban tenderfeet visit your ranch, ride your horses, and take in your breathtaking scenery for a week or two. You simply take what you have and work with it.

Many families find it a very profitable enterprise to spend their summer—or part of it—with paying vacationers who often become friends, returning year after year. And many vacationers would rather spend a relaxed change-of-pace week on a real working farm or ranch, or take a planned adventure trip with people who know the area well, than spend a great deal of money to stay at a motel and find their way on their own.

If you have any interest in pursuing this vacation service, you should write to Farm and Ranch Vacations, Inc. (36 East 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10022). This organization issues three publications that could be of great interest to you. The books are Country Vacations U.S.A. and Adventure Travel U.S.A. Both may be obtained for $4.25 postpaid (or $5 via first-class mail). The third, a free booklet, "How to Harvest Vacationers", gives detailed information on operating a vacation service.

Income Tax Preparation

Every year about April 1, millions of Americans sit down with receipts and calculators and a sense of purpose, only to arise shortly thereafter, breaking inexpensive objects and muttering anti-American propaganda. It's tax time, of course, and the only people who get through the ides of April without at least a twinge are expatriates, infants, and people who hire "tax people". These "tax people" are men and women trained to deal with the complexities of the U.S. tax accounting system and who are expected to save time and money for their clients: They not only fill out your forms correctly, they also aid and abet you in saving money and avoiding audit.

You can become a tax expert and earn extra money at tax time (up to $500 a week at the height of the season) no matter where you live or what your experience with taxes and accounting. H & R Block runs the biggest tax preparation business in the field (they prepare about 14 percent of all long forms filed each year), and gives a complete correspondence course in income tax preparation. The course covers in eighteen lessons everything from filing requirements and wages to pensions and annuities. It costs about $100 and can be completed in as little as one month.

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