Never. There are days however when I feel I need to just stop moving for a week or two. I sort of feel like that now. I found a month in Egypt to be the most stressful month I’ve had while traveling. I’ll be writing more on that soon.

Honestly, I’ve never really had a 9-5 job for more than a few months in my life. I have a very difficult time working for others. I once had a minimum wage job after I graduated college working at a factory that made baseball cards. I figured out how I could eliminate my job after working there a day and told my boss. They didn’t care and I decided I never really wanted to work for someone else again.

@Muscati What do you with your stuff while you’re out taking in the sights? Do you trust the safety of the hotels you stay in?

For the most part, I do trust hotel/hostel rooms, but not 100%. When I’m out for the day I usually have my camera bag and all my camera gear with me. I will also have my iPod Touch in my pocket. The most valuable thing I leave in the room is my laptop, which I will always have locked with my cable lock. I don’t worry about my clothes being stolen. It would probably benefit me to get some new clothes at this point. Many of the lower end hotels and hostels do not provide daily room cleaning, which is actually a bit safer than hotels which do.

@umarsiddiqi how do you come up with cash required to pay the bills? Do you carry a lot of cash with you?

I get cash from ATM machines. I usually take out between $100-200 at a time. Depending on where I am, that can last a few days or more than a week. Using a credit card is also dependent on where I am. I have seldom used one since I’ve left Australia. Since I’ve been in the Middle East I’ve paid for a few hotels with it, but I mostly use cash. I have never used a travelers check. Most places don’t even accept them anymore.

@adam230 Has the popularity of your blog ever made you feel like a celebrity?

In the big scheme of things, this blog isn’t that big of a deal. The day I have groupies is the day I will feel like a celebrity……….FYI, I am taking applications for the position of groupie.

@linnetwoods Has anyone asked you whether you would have planned the trip differently with the benefit of hindsight & if so, how?

Um, you just did I’m not sure I would have planned it much differently. I went to the Pacific first and I’m glad I did. If I ever have to fly across the Pacific again, I’m going to make some stops in the Pacific.

@coqui2008 What’s the scariest country you have visited and why? or Which country have you felt the least safest in and why?

The biggest worry I had before I went somewhere was before I flew to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. Some article just came out which had listed it as the biggest “hell on Earth” a few days before I left. In the end, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It isn’t a place you want to spend a lot of time, nor do you want to walk around at night.

@Ashlenet If there was one language other than english you could be fluent in, what would have helped you most on your travels?

If you look at the list of places I’ve been, I’ve covered a lot of languages. Many of those countries, especially in the Pacific, commonly speak English. At this point in my trip, the most useful language would have been Bahasa (Malaysia/Indonesia/East Timor), Japanese, or Arabic. In the long run, the most useful languages would probably be Mandarin Chinese or Spanish. Spanish is something I really want to work on during the next year.

This is the big one. Lonely Planet is the 800 pound gorilla in the travel industry. I am nominated in the category of Best Travelogue and Best Image Blog. Voting is easy and requires no registration or giving up your email address. All you have to do it click.

http://lplabs.com/2009/02/25/voting-open-for-the-2009-travel-blogger-awards/

Mr. Dryden: Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you’re neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it’s a burning, fiery furnace.
T.E. Lawrence: No, Dryden, it’s going to be fun.

-Lawrence of Arabia

TE Lawrence during the Arab Revolt in WWI

My all time, #1 favorite movie is Lawrence of Arabia. It is good on so many different levels it is hard to describe. If you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to do so. See it on the largest screen you possibly can. I have had the pleasure of watching it twice in my life in 70mm, once on a giant parabolic screen.

Most of the movie was filmed in Jordan and the stunning desert scenes were all shot around Wadi Rum, where I’m off to tomorrow. I’m excited to go and I’m excited to take photos. The weather is starting to warm up here, so I hope the night time conditions aren’t too cold. I’ve done the sleeping outside in the desert cold when I went to Uluru in Australia, and I have no desire to do it again.

I have no idea if I am going to have internet access in Wadi Rum. I’m guessing not, but who knows. I’m always surprised at where I find it.

After a few days in Wadi Rum I’m off to Petra for a few days before I’ll head back to Aqaba and cross over into Israel. I still may go to Amman, but I’ll have to cross over the border again. If I don’t do it that way, I’m looking at a trip up to Amman, back down to Aqaba and then back up the border to visit the sites in southern Israel.

This is the big one. Lonely Planet is the 800 pound gorilla in the travel industry. I am nominated in the category of Best Travelogue and Best Image Blog. Voting is easy and requires no registration or giving up your email address. All you have to do it click.

http://lplabs.com/2009/02/25/voting-open-for-the-2009-travel-blogger-awards/

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The item this week is a cheap necklace of what I think are lapis lazuli bits I got from an alabaster store on the west bank of the Nile near Luxor Egypt.

I was looking for something cheap to give away and I saw this necklace and figured it would fit into an envelope. I asked one of the guys working at the store how much it cost and he said “for you my friend, you may have it for free”. At this point my BS detector started going off because nothing is free in Egypt. Sure enough, without skipping a beat, he then asked for a 10 pound tip. 10 pounds is about US$1.80. I asked him why he just didn’t sell me the necklace for 10 pounds and avoid the song and dance of giving it to me for free with a tip. He then wanted 15 pounds, and I gave him the necklace back, and he then suddenly settled for 10 pounds.

I’d say this necklace has a retail price of $1.80 but the fact is if I had bothered to haggle, I’m sure I could have gotten it for half that price.

So this can be all yours for the low, low price of nothing. All you have to do is 1) vote, 2) leave a comment with “I voted”.

I’ll close comments in a few days, pick a random number and email the winner.

This is the big one. Lonely Planet is the 800 pound gorilla in the travel industry. I am nominated in the category of Best Travelogue and Best Image Blog. Voting is easy and requires no registration or giving up your email address. All you have to do it click.

http://lplabs.com/2009/02/25/voting-open-for-the-2009-travel-blogger-awards/

Welcome to the new Everything-Everywhere.com!

This is the third iteration of my website. My previous two were free WordPress themes which I customized on my own. Given my constrains of time and talent, the site was never quite what I wanted it to be. This time I got it right.

The process started way back in November when I was in Vietnam. I had a some unique requests including making my daily photo and my current location more prominent. The result of this process is what you see today.

I went with a dark background because it makes photos look better than a white background does. I also had a black background with the first version of my site and it seemed to work. You can also easily scroll through the last week of daily photos in the photo carousel.

I’ve also placed my travel map and links to my top commenters on the front page. I’ve been pretty lax about commenting in the past but I am going to get more strict about it from now on. No more links to pingbacks, no more using keywords as your name, and no more dofollow links in the comments. I was getting way too much comment spam.

In addition to the new site, with the help of my friend and programmer extraordinaire Jason Nuget, I’ve also launched a new widget for iGoogle and Macintosh Dashboard widget that will display my daily photo. If you use iGoogle (or even if you don’t) please install the widget and give it a review so others can easily find it in the iGoogle widgets section. We may also come out with a Yahoo widget as well.

The final thing I’m launching is a new bi-weekly newsletter which will give a summary of my last two weeks of travel as well as other goodies which will not be found on the website, including contests, photos, and other bits of information. Subscribing is really easy; just put your first name and email address in the form on the top of the page. That’s it. It should go without saying that I’m never going to give your email address out to anyone, or let 3rd parties use it to sell you stuff.

The newsletter is NOT the daily feed from my website. If you want to get photos and blog posts every day in your RSS reader or your email inbox, just click here.

My next big project will be a full blown, customized site for my travel photography. It will be tightly integrated into my blog and really showcase all my travel photos. I am also going to create a calendar like page where you can easily browse past photos of the day.

If you like my new site, please show your approval by voting for it as Best Travelogue in the 2009 Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards. It is coming down to crunch time and I need all the help I can get. I am behind by about 100 votes. As God as my witness, this is the last time I’ll ever ask you to vote for me for anything again. Voting ends on March 20th, so please vote now!

This is the big one. Lonely Planet is the 800 pound gorilla in the travel industry. I am nominated in the category of Best Travelogue and Best Image Blog. Voting is easy and requires no registration or giving up your email address. All you have to do it click.

http://lplabs.com/2009/02/25/voting-open-for-the-2009-travel-blogger-awards/

Last night I was walking back to my hostel and I realized something. I was walking down a side street in a foreign land, exotic music playing (there was some sort of celebration going on), smells of grilled meat in the air, old men on the sidewalk smoking their shishas and drinking tea, and women walking about in their hijabs. This was exactly the sort of scene that people dream of being in when traveling. I really didn’t notice. It was just another day for me.

When I began my trip, I was like everyone else who dreamed of traveling. I read books and websites, I made lists, and I awaited for the day to arrived. I spent about six months with my house on the market before it sold. Eventually, everything came together. I found a buyer, found storage, rented a truck for all my crap, got rid of somethings and sold other things. The night before I closed on my house I didn’t sleep because I grossly underestimated the number of boxes I’d need for some things. I had to move the excess stuff to a nearby motel so I could be out in time. I was very tired.

Having previously moved all my stuff to a storage unit near my parents house in Wisconsin (I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota) I drove to Wisconsin to stay with them for a few weeks while I took care of final business: getting shots, buying bags and clothes, and taking care of insurance. I really didn’t do any packing or actual preparation until I was out of my house. I did everything in about 2 weeks.

I get many questions from people about how to this or that when traveling. The answer to all questions is to just jump in and swim. When you are in a new place where you do not speak the language, you will be forced to figure things out. You really can’t plan for it. At first you might be apprehensive, but eventually you realize that you can get by and many of your worst fears will not pan out. The things you see on the news are not the reality on the street and no matter where you go, it is just full of people going about their lives just like anywhere else.

I am also often asked what I’ve learned while traveling. I’ve given this some thought. Here is what I’ve come up with:

• I can remember almost everything from the last two years. I can usually pinpoint to within a day or two where I was or when something happened. There are entire events I can’t even peg to the correct year from before I left. Everything sort of blurs together when you do the same thing every day of your life. I’ve have moments where I’ll stare out in space just because I end up with a flood of memories which were spurred by something I just experienced. What I’ve written about on this site is only a fraction of what I’ve done and seen.
• I’m pretty sure I can do anything. Not that I suffered from a lack of confidence or anything before I left, but when you spend two full years with nothing by your own wits and no one else to fall back on, I can’t say I’m too worried about the future.
• I don’t worry about little things. I see many people on vacation who flip out over very simple things. Incorrect change, miss communication, etc. I don’t get worked up over things I have no control over. (the only exception is the delay in getting my new website up because my web designers decide to just cease communication with me for weeks at a time). I had to spend a week in Samoa once because I missed my flight to Tonga. Oh well.
• What you see on TV is a lie. The news media likes to sell sensationalism. Boring doesn’t sell. Most of the world is boring. It is people going about the business of living. The result is that people are terrified of places they only know about from the bad news on TV. Murders and disasters in their backyard as dismissed, but the same things elsewhere are exaggerated. Even in war zones, if you do the math, the odds of anything happening to you would be well less than 1%.

So what does the future hold for me?

I am often asked how long I’ll be traveling for. The answer I’m giving is: forever. I have every intention of making this into a career. That doesn’t mean I’ll be on the road non-stop for the rest of my life, but do plan on keeping this site and what I’m doing going indefinitely. I’ve begun talking to several book publishers and have a fairly solid plan for what I’m going to be writing. I also will be opening up my photography for sales in the near future. I also hope to be doing speaking engagements once I get back to the US.

I will not be gone for two years stretches at a time anymore. I’m planning on taking 3-5 month trips to different countries and regions like China, India, Russia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Those trips would be huge trips for most people, but having done this trip, I think I could do 3 months standing on my head. Doing shorter trips will allow me to focus more on taking photos and video and processing it all when I’m doing. Currently, I have to process everything on the road.

I’m also interested in timing my trips to coincide with certain events. I have been traveling without real thought to when I’ll be in a place. I’d like to go be in Rio for Carnival, I’d like to be in Spain for the running of the bulls.

I will also travel with someone else and do more video and podcasting. I’ve put this on hold until I can do it properly. I don’t see any point in doing something half-assed on a schedule I can’t keep. Expect a few podcasts to dribble out in Europe if I can find someone to help with the camera work. I have no idea who I’ll travel with. On Twitter I made a joke about doing something like the “Worlds Best Job” contest but make it the “Worlds Worst Job” because you’d have to travel with me Surprisingly, my joke got a lot of serious responses.

I’m also going to explore North America. The more of the world I see the more I realize that there are a lot of amazing things to see next door. I plan on taking a road trip out west sometime this summer and visit Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, both of which I’ve never been to. I’d also like to spend more than a day in Yellowstone, which is all I’ve been able to see of the park.

The final thing I want to do is to meet with more people while I’m on the road. As more and more people discover me and what I’m doing, the greater the number of people I can meet while traveling. I could have met up with many people in Japan or the Philippines if I had only known about them when I was there. A second trip to those countries would be a totally different experience now.

As for the next few months, I’m undecided as to what I’m going to do. My initial plan was to get back to the US sometime around March/April after going through Europe. Clearly that isn’t going to happen. I still want to spend 3-4months in the US before setting out again later in 2009. It will be a matter of how much of Europe I want to go through before I do that. I’m considering going to London directly from Rome and leave most of Europe for a future trip.

So that is my rambling annual State of the Trip report. I thank everyone for following along and for all the emails and messages I get everyday. I do appreciate it.

This is the big one. Lonely Planet is the 800 pound gorilla in the travel industry. I am nominated in the category of Best Travelogue and Best Image Blog. Voting is easy and requires no registration or giving up your email address. All you have to do it click.

http://lplabs.com/2009/02/25/voting-open-for-the-2009-travel-blogger-awards/

In some ways, I find Alexandria really depressing. This is a city where almost every building is 100 years old and looks as if nothing has been repaired in all that time. The buildings are old, the buses are old, the street cars are old, there are rotary telephones all over, and you get the feeling you’ve stepped back in time about 50 years. It is on a par in terms of development with Vietnam, except Vietnam is growing and Egypt is still living in old, dilapidated buildings. They are like Benjamin Button countries meeting in the middle. Alexandria seems to have its best days well behind it.

All of that needs to be considered when you realized that Alexandria has one of the nicest buildings, and certainly nicest library, in the world. The New Library of Alexandria, the Biblioteca Alexandria, was built as an international effort with several foreign corporation and NGO’s pitching in. As the collection of books goes it probably has less than most university libraries in the US, but it is still a feather in the cap for Alexandria and all of Egypt. That being said, it is really, really out of place here.

Today I managed to see most of the few remaining ancient sites in the city: the Roman theater, Pompey’s Pillar (which was erected 250 years after Pompey was killed in Alexandria), and the catacombs. The sites were managed much better than the Pyramids, but still had a lot of room for improvement. There doesn’t seem to be a ton of tourists in Egypt right now. I guess winter isn’t the high season.

I should also address the bomb blast in Cairo. Just so everyone knows, I was in Alexandria when it happened. I’m not scared or worried. In a country with 80 million people, things happen all the time. Almost every attack like that happens to groups of tourists on package tours and I travel alone, which paradoxically, is safer when it comes to this sort of thing. I haven’t even heard a word about it in the news here….not that I’d really know because I can’t read/speak Arabic.

Tomorrow I’m going to investigate doing some dives in the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and visit Fort Qaitbey. The next day I’m off to Abu Mena and then Upper Egypt (confusingly in the south of the country. The Nile flows to the north).

Originally posted on Everything-Everywhere.com. Follow me as I travel around the world.

Moonscape, The Breakaways, Coober Pedy, South Australia

This very alien looking surface isn’t Mars, it is the Breakaways in South Australia. An extremely flat, rock strewn stretch of land which is very similar in composition and color to the photos returned by Martian landers. Note the moon in the upper left, which I thought made for an interesting contrast: moon and the moonscape.

Originally posted on Everything-Everywhere.com. Follow me as I travel around the world.

Moonscape, The Breakaways, Coober Peady, South Australia

This very alien looking surface isn’t Mars, it is the Breakaways in South Australia. An extremely flat, rock strewn stretch of land which is very similar in composition and color to the photos returned by Martian landers. Note the moon in the upper left, which I thought made for an interesting contrast: moon and the moonscape.

Originally posted on Everything-Everywhere.com. Follow me as I travel around the world.

Fishing near the wall of Hue Citadel, Vietnam

Originally posted on Everything-Everywhere.com. Follow me as I travel around the world.

The photo I use on every networking site

@cyberdyne Have you considered changing your twitter icon as you travel to represent where you are ?

I made a conscious decision to keep my avatar the same. In fact, I use the exact same photo on every network I belong. People recognize images before they read names. The Easter Island photo I think is representative of what I’m doing and was taken early in my trip. For better or worse, I’m now the Easter Island guy. If I change it, people may not recognize me. I know that happens when people I follow change their avatar. I do however, change my location in Twitter every time I change cities. It is a great way to find other people on Twitter near where you are. I suppose I might change it in the future, but I don’t recommend constantly changing your image.

@urpisdream Any advice for people trying to figure out how they can start up their own ‘everywhere trip’?

Don’t put too much effort into planning. Reading and researching about where you want to go is fun, but trying not to set an extremely rigid schedule. The biggest trick is unwinding all the stuff in your life which will prevent you from going. Cars, jobs, mortgages, etc are all reasons people have for not traveling. The actual act of traveling is pretty simple. Conquering all the reasons for not going is the real accomplishment.

@kalpeshk What was your main motivation for the trip and the most significant realization from your travel so far?

The motivation was that I enjoyed traveling and I didn’t want to wait until I was facing death to go do the things I wanted to do. At this point in my life I could do it and enjoy it.

As for the realizations…well, there are a lot and it would be hard to summarize it in a few sentences. Without any explanation behind it here are a few: culture matters, everyone is proud of where they are from, most people are good, and nothing is as simple as it appears.

For a more detailed explanation, you will have to buy the book

@rjhintz Where, if anywhere, do you take prophylactic medication for malaria? Have you had to pay bribes at borders?

I have been carrying around a bottle of Doxycycline since I started my trip. I took it in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands but haven’t bothered taking it otherwise. It think it would be more important to use in Africa than the places I’ve been.

As for bribes, I haven’t had to pay any border bribes. If you look at the list of places I’ve been, a lot of the countries are Islands. Oddly enough, I’ve only had to make a few land crossings: Brunei to Malaysia, Singapore to Malaysia, Cambodia to Vietnam, Laos to Thailand, UAE to Oman. I also entered South Korea and Macau by boat. I think border bribes would be a bigger deal in Sub-Saharan Africa or Central Asia, which I haven’t visited yet.

@d_rjoseph alright, what kind of camera, memory card(s), and batteries do you use?

I have a Nikon D200 with 2 rechargeable batteries. I have a 4gb compact flash card as my main memory card and a cheap 2gb compact flash card in my camera bag in case I need more space. I always keep a fully charged battery in my camera bag.

@susandeane Where on your travels have you encountered the friendliest folk? Which of all those countries is the friendliest?

Some people are more outgoing than other. Many Arabs I’ve met will give you the shirt off their back in the name of hospitality, but might not go out of their way to say “hello” on the street.

Off the top of my head I’d say Samoans or Fijians. They are really, really nice people who will go out of their way to say “Bula!” or “Talofa!”. Just don’t mess with them on the rugby field!

@JustNomadic How do you research your next location – guides, web, people, tourist boards etc?

I never use guidebooks. They are expensive, heavy and usually out of date. I might page through one if a free one is at a hostel, otherwise I primarily use the internet and talking to locals. You can also find a ton of free information in most hotels. There is an entire industry anywhere you go built upon providing you services to go see things. The larger the city and more popular the attraction you are visiting, the less you need a guidebook.

Originally posted on Everything-Everywhere.com. Follow me as I travel around the world.