I’ll be back early next week with much more about our time in Bali, but I just wanted to thank everyone who comes to Thrilling Heroics for making 2011 a wonderful year, wish you Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and express my sincerest hopes for a very happy New Year. 2012 is going to rock!

Every week I get a load of great emails in my inbox from readers. A while back, I received this comment from Sam (edited for length):

Man you really inspire me. I read your website at least 3-5 times a week. Since I graduated from high school I’ve always said I wanted to travel the world. Unfortunate obstacles have led me to say ‘#@%& I want to do this’. I want to live my life on my on own terms. I’m saving money now to get started. I want to thank you, keep doing what you’re doing man.

You probably have no idea how frequently you guys make my day, with subject lines like “Wow! This site is incredible!” … “ridiculously inspired.” …and “Thank you for doing what you do.” Your gratitude, appreciation, and feedback are what makes this all worthwhile. I am incredibly excited and humbled any time somebody says that this site or my writing have helped to inspire in any small way.

I receive lots and lots and lots of great questions, and I try to respond to as many as I can. Lots of people who want me to get on Skype and help them with their business ideas. Even people who want me to do some nebulous consulting work with their companies (from small projects to one very large foundation even).

But there just aren’t enough hours in the day! There are simply too many insanely interesting people out there who want to live life on their own terms, or build some cool, useful resource or project and share it with the world. That’s why I started Digital Nomad Academy at the beginning of 2011, as a comprehensive learning center for aspiring online entrepreneurs, where I can focus my time and energy and multiply the benefits many times over to teach, encourage, connect, and support many students all at once. And it certainly has become the focus of my time this year, along with many other incredible collaborators who have generously shared their time as faculty instructors and guest speakers.

I wish I could help every single person who comes to me with questions one-on-one, but I’ve consciously decided to invest my limited time into building something scalable, sustainable, and that will help many hundreds or thousands of students over the next several years (hopefully many more years).

But my faculty and I can only teach you so much. We can give you the business “recipes” if you will, share the techniques and tools that work for us, and connect you to a larger network of like-minded, ambitious people, including successful experts who’ve done it already. But actually building a business that will help provide you with the lifestyle you desire still requires an immense amount of time, effort, and investment that only you can do.

If you’re one of those people who’s been dreaming of starting your own business, quitting your stupid job, and creating a lifestyle you’d really enjoy (hint: ideally, the business part needs to come first), or traveling around the world, but you keep putting it off because of the latest TPS reports that have landed on your desk, this week’s important final exam, or you’ve spent the last 4 months planning the family Christmas celebration, or whatever else keeps you busy… let’s make 2012 the year everything changes.

I’ve put almost all of my energies into DNA this year, to the detriment of most of my other projects. We’ve brought together an incredible community of teachers and of exceptionally bright, motivated students. Many of them have already quit their jobs, started up their own small businesses, started freelancing, gone on short mini-retirements to Europe, moved to the peaceful countryside here in Asia, or set out on epic trans-continental road trips down through Central and South America!

Digital Nomad Academy will continue to provide a stellar learning environment for a long time to come, and as we bring in more and more students, it creates increased opportunity to meet each other, partner with each other, trade services with each other, and together we all improve and build our businesses up. The admission fee is a significant investment, but I believe we will continue to over-deliver by far, and the lifetime value to everyone involved will be priceless.

But I know this is not within everybody’s reach. I’ve heard your requests, and I’ve thought a lot about a financial aid program for the Digital Nomad Academy.

For the holidays I was feeling especially generous and I wanted to do something to give back, after all of you involved here and at DNA have made my year such a fantastic one. I want to help provide a chance for you to join me, my entrepreneurial colleagues, and our amazing students in building a community like none which has ever been seen before.

So, I will be sponsoring two full-ride scholarships, all-expenses paid, to our mentorship and training program at Digital Nomad Academy, so you can come learn directly from me and my all-star cast of faculty and guest experts, and collaborate with our incredible cohort of ambitious students.

What a great way to ring in the new year, right!?

→ Full details and applications for the 2011 Digital Nomad Academy Scholarship Program ←

That’s a $1,500 annual value for two very lucky people. This is a huge opportunity for you, but also for me, and for all of us. 2012 will be a year of explosive growth and improvement inside DNA.

If you want a shot at one of these two seats, absolutely free, all it takes is to get off the sidelines and show us what you’re willing to bring to the table for our student community. Go here to apply.

I hope to get your application, and hope to see you on the inside at Digital Nomad Academy in the New Year.

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas. And a happy New Year. Let me know where you’re spending your holidays in the comments below. I’ll be spending mine here on the beach…

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: The $3,000 Holiday Giveaway: Get a Full-Ride Scholarship to Digital Nomad Academy

Do you daydream about quitting your job and traveling around the world? What about taking it a step further and building a location independent career, so you can live and work wherever you want to?

I can remember the first time someone labelled me a “digital nomad” on a major blog… Two-and-a-half years ago these were the words of Corbett Barr—back when his site was still called Free Pursuits. Corbett listed me among the top 10 Digital Nomads to Learn From, alongside Tim Ferriss and Rolf Potts—two truly incredible writers who inspired me to follow my own path in life—as well as huge A-list bloggers Chris Brogan and Mike Elgan, and big names in the travel blogosphere including Christine Gilbert from Almost Fearless and Chris Guillebeau of Art of Nonconformity fame.

I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of the label at first, although I was immensely honored to be among such incredible company. I was excited! Reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek and Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding had been a turning point in my life—those two books opened my eyes to whole new possibilities and put a fire under my ass to create a life of my own design, and try my hardest to enjoy every moment of it.

Not long after in late 2009, Jonathan Mead used me as a case study in his manifesto The Zero Hour Workweek, which played off of the ideas in Tim’s book, but took them even further to encourage people to build businesses that basically allow them to get paid to be themselves. Soon I was being interviewed about my live-and-work-anywhere lifestyle, and people started calling my story inspiring, and asking me about my travel experiences and advice for overcoming travel obstacles.

Sometimes I’m a bit embarrassed by the buzzwords (digital nomad, location independent… and lifestyle design… there’s another one!) but eventually I embraced the title Corbett had bestowed upon me. Who’d have known that just two years later I’d be running a business course called Digital Nomad Academy with the help of Corbett himself and several other hugely successful remote-control entrepreneurs I look up to!

Like many people, sometimes I feel like the small (but growing) online niche we’re in is a bit too cliquey, too markety, and sometimes people get big egos, or they feel under pressure to maintain the appearance like they’ve got everything figured out and their lives are just so cool.

I know, because I’ve been there… but I’ll be the first to tell you, nobody has it all figured out. I’ve been broke as a joke many times along my journey, I’ve been stuck up a creek with no paddle many times on my travels, I’ve experienced immense business failures, I’ve been stabbed in the back, I’ve been discouraged. But, this is an incredible life we’ve all been given, and I’m grateful for the amazing adventures and obstacles I’ve experienced. I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything.

I’m even more thankful for the people around me who have helped fuel this adventure. It has its ups and downs for sure—I was defrauded and went through several down months. I wasn’t confident everything might not collapse at times. I took a break from blogging and let some of my friends use this platform to share their writing and their projects with you (I see no point writing unless I actually have something to say, but once I conquer the challenges laid out in front of me, maybe then I’ll have something of real value to share about them).

But despite the challenges of living an unconventional life, I have no plans to quit traveling, meeting new people, and having new experiences anytime soon, to stop experimenting with my own businesses, to ever go back to a 9-to-5 if I can avoid it, to move back home, or to stop blogging about this weird journey. Living life your own way, you will definitely be confronted with setbacks, and the journey will be more challenging than living according to someone else’s prescribed path. But it is absolutely, 100% worthwhile. 

My girlfriend and I are fortunate to live for now in one of the most beautiful regions in the world, in a three-story townhouse surrounded by forests and beautiful limestone mountains, all for a fraction of what it would cost back in California.

Emily and I recently spent a week in Singapore, and it was the most fun I’ve had in months! We were trying to decide what country to visit for a renewed visa and I decided I really wanted to visit old friends there. She teases me that I can’t travel anywhere unless I know someone there, and when I thought about it, I realized it’s not far from the truth.

Undoubtedly when most people think about travel, they tend to think of places, monuments and landmarks like the Acropolis of Athens, the Roman Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, London’s Big Ben, Bangkok’s reclining Buddha, Krabi’s mountaintop Buddhist temple, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Each of these are fantastic places I’ve been able to see on my travels. But what really has made my travels remarkable are the people I have met and the experiences I’ve shared with them.

I became very close with my French professor in high school, who was also a huge influence on me (as far as my interest in travel, culture, art, music and languages). The very first time I traveled outside the U.S. was a trip with some classmates to France, and what made it special was the wonderful family I lived with for a week on the Mediterranean coast in Cannes, as well as the time I spent with Mssr. Hodgins and my classmates wandering around Paris.

London is probably one of my top three favorite cities in the world to visit. Although I really enjoy wandering around on foot through London and sightseeing, it wasn’t the London Eye or the Houses of Parliament that kept me coming back… it was because I first traveled there on my own to visit my cousin Ian, who spent a year as an exchange student there, and it was the fun crowd of college students I got to know—James, the Toms, Sarah, Dav, Elaine, and many more—when I visited him for two weeks that made my experience so special.

I traveled to Spain for a three-week Christmas and New Year holiday with my friends Paul, Tim, and Ryan. Barcelona was a stunning city with great food, equaled by the gorgeous views and historical Old Town on Ibiza (and it’s nightlife), but what really made the trip special were the incredible friends we made—Meye and Barbara, two amazing women who took it upon themselves to show us all the best restaurants and pubs in town, introduced us to friends, showed us the parades and the local Catalans celebrations, and invited us into their homes for Christmas dinner!

Greece, Turkey, and Italy are infused with history, vibrant culture, and amazing sights (especially for someone who studied history at university) but what made my travels there special were the memories and time I spent bonding with family.

When I first arrived in Thailand, it was two Thai friends I met—Poon and Om—who spent three days driving me all around Phuket on their motorbike showing me the sights.

Bangkok is a huge metropolis with great nightlife, great food, a big flag on the backpacker trail. But what made it so much fun for me was the people. I got caught up there for a year and a half eating cheap street food all the time with Migration Mark, Joel, Ryan, May, Nalin, Bank, and Aum, going out partying, and running fun monthly mixer events and volunteering with Dwight Turner, Christina, Craig Gonzales, and others. I remember the first day Sean Ogle landed in Asia, and we went with my sister and my friends Chris, Ryan, and Nick to explore the ancient ruins and Buddhas at Ayutthaya, coworking with David Walsh and Derek Johanson, planning a TEDx conference with Rob, Greg, Andrew, Chris, Karla, Fluke, and more.

Travel puts me face-to-face with friends—many friends I’ve known for many years from school or work, but also many who I’ve met and become friends with through running my business online.

In Bangkok, mostly through Twitter and the Bangkok Tweetups that Dwight and I would put on, I also was able to meet in person with awesome bloggers Dan Andrews, Adam Baker, Benny “the Irish Polyglot” Lewis, Gary Arndt, Matt Goult, Jodi Ettenberg, Jonny Gibaud, Marc Gold, Ross Hill, Kevin Revolinski, Wes Nations, Ryan Martin, Mark Powers, and many more.

Warning: I’ve linked to a lot of people in this post! But I want to share each and every one of them with you (I’m definitely missing more than a few, too) not to gloat… not because I’m some celebrity, but because I’ve been blessed to meet so many truly cool people from around the world—each of them working on their own unique, interesting things—and each of them has at some point or another in my travels made a profound impact on my journey in their own small way. Because of that, I do encourage you to check out each and every one of these folks and discover how they’re making the world a more interesting place. I owe it to them to share what they’re doing.

In Bali I met Kyle and Bessie Crum doing yoga in the rice paddies, Stuart McDonald eating ribs at Naughty Nuri’s, Jez Tryner for a drink, and spent time with my friends Jerm and Vie at their lovely condo.

In Kuala Lumpur I met Nomadic Matt Kepnes while wandering around hostels, Dwight and Mark and I met our travel buddy Agnes (who drove us at lightning speed at 11pm one night to see the cozy little town of Melaka, on a whim!) through Couchsurfing, and I met Hani Khaursar, Vishen Lakhiani, Brian Wong and others on a subsequent trip when I spoke at a conference.

Phnom Penh has been home to my two friends Brittany Sims and Caron Margarete who, along with some of Cambodia’s footballers showed me the town and made me feel right at home.

Here in Krabi, I spent considerable time climbing and beach partying with my friends Alicia, James, Vanessa, Peter, Jane & Toto, and I finally met in person with my blogger buddies Carlos Miceli, Colin Wright, Adventurous Kate McCulley, Backpacking Matt Kyhnn, and Shannon O’Donnell, who’ve all stopped by on their travels.

When I traveled back to the States this year, in Austin, I met up with Markus & Ashley, Nick Reese, Jenny Blake, Ridiculously Extraordinary Karol Gadja, Where is Jenny Leonard, Andy Drish, Andrew Norcross, Thursday Bram, Technomads Chris & Cherie, and many other good folks for a week of awesomeness while South by Southwest was on.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a host of inspiring folks like Ramit Sethi, Corbett Barr, Amber Zuckswert, Charlie Hoehn, Lorna Li, and serial entrepreneur Rajesh Setty (and I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Chris Ducker there, who usually plays an Englishman in the Philippines).

Los Angeles is or has been the stomping grounds of my very good friend Ryan, entrepreneur Jun Loayza, blogger Jonathan Mead, dating coach Jordan Harbinger, my friends Dariane Nabor, Laurenne Sala, and many other cool peoples.

In past trips to Singapore, I’ve met other cool nerds (like myself) Adrianna Tan, Ziqi Koey (who also just visited us here in Krabi!), Guyi Shen, and many more.

This trip, Emily and I had an incredibly fun time together…  we did all the touristy stuff: we walked all around the city on foot, stayed on the beautiful riverfront in Boat Quay, gorged ourselves on amazing delicious food from all around Southeast Asia and beyond, we hung out at the marina by night and took in all the city lights, wandered all around the big fancy new Marina Bay Sands resort and casino, went to a Salvador Dalí exhibit, to the cinema, briefly to a concert hall, and much more. But our time together there also reminded me that one of my biggest motivators is the people I get to share it with.

It was seeing my friend and singer Shimona Kee for her birthday and enjoying the hip young local music scene, having a lovely homemade dinner with Michelle at her impressive 16th-floor apartment, having a drink, a shisha and a catchup with my old friends John Berns and Martin, and getting to meet Derek Sivers in person (the very down-to-earth, engaging, but brilliant and wildly successful gentleman who founded CDBaby) to chat about travels, businesses, failures, and planting multiple flags (BTW you absolutely must watch this fascinating, short 8-part video series by Sivers). Getting to interact with, have fun with, learn from, and learn about all these fascinating people that are all doing their own interesting things—that’s what makes travel so much fun for me.

Running my business online has meant I’ve built friendships with people all around the world. Interacting with people through Twitter alone has connected me to dozens and dozens of new people that I’ve actually become real friends and done business with.

The point is, I’m just an average dude—but because of the way I choose to live my life, the way I run my business, and the way I reach out to connect with other people out there, I’ve had an extraordinary experience making new friends all around the world. The tools I’ve used to build an international network of friends and colleagues are also available to you.

Being location-independent, running a business online, and being on the move—living my life this way has opened many doors to people and experiences I wouldn’t have back in my “normal” life, that I would have never dreamed I’d have. My passion and what drives my journey is the interesting people I meet… making new friends and having fun new experiences with them, learning from them, and growing with them. Your interests, what drives you, and the life you want to have may look entirely different to mine, but whatever they are, there are millions of people you can connect with out there in this small little world of ours. The amazing journey I have had, like many others, is only an example of what anyone could do. You only need to start opening doors.

What journey are you on? What are the people, places, and experiences that have meant the most to you along your path?

If you found this interesting, and if you’re anything like me, click here to get some incredibly awesome (and completely free) stuff to add to your toolbox and learn more about my philosophy. You won’t regret it→

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Setbacks, and What Motivates Me to Keep Exploring & Experimenting

To all my readers, I wish you a very happy New Year! Last week I shared my Christmas letter to my friends and family and shared a lot of the great things I’ve been fortunate enough to do this year, people I’ve met, and places I’ve seen.

Since this time last year, my visitors, subscribers, and revenue here at Thrilling Heroics have increased fivefold. My photography was published in Frommer’s Bangkok Day By Day guide. I helped my friend raise thousands of dollars for charity and get coverage from CNN. I officially became a regular, paid freelance writer with my staff writer position for SocialMediaMarketing.com. I interviewed social media heavyweight Gary Vaynerchuk. I’ve been involved in planning the TEDx conference coming to Bangkok in February. I traveled throughout Thailand, to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and near the Burmese border. I hung out with lots of cool kids that put smiles on my face, I met tons of extraordinary people from around the world.

I even got to spend my Christmas day out sailing with friends in Railay, Krabi (my favorite place) and cooking up a fresh fish dinner!

2009 has been a great year for ThrillingHeroics.com too! The Top Performing Articles in 2009 were as follows:

1. Steal My Blog Design: Announcing the Free ThrillingTheme for WordPress
2. 22 Inspirational Quotes for Living the Rockstar Life
3. 49 Tools for Living the Location Independent Lifestyle
4. Obey the Law Most of the Time (guest post by Colin Wright)
5. How to Turn Your True Fans Into Your Worst Enemies
6. 11 Incredible Positive Thinkers You Should Follow on Twitter
7. Choosing the Life Path Less Taken
8. 10 Travel Ninjas You Should Follow on Twitter
9. 14 Mandatory Manifestos for the Lifestyle Design Journey
10. Reach Your Dreams with Lifestyle Design (video)

[Interesting that half of these results are list posts. I'll definitely come back to the Twitter lists.]

I’ve also become Chief Marketing Officer for an exciting new startup with some truly incredible co-founders—Jun Loayza, Adam Baker, Carlos Miceli, Monica O’Brien and Andrew Norcross. We’re still keeping the project under wraps, but next week we’ll have a remarkable free manifesto for you all about living on your own terms and taking back control of your life in 2010.

I can’t top this 2008 article on how to set meaninful goals and reach your New Year’s resolutions, but on that note here are a few of my goals for the year ahead that I hope to share with you on Thrilling Heroics:

• Successfully build our new startup into a strong community for other twentysomethings that want to create their own “untemplate” lifestyle
• Participate in Josh Kaufman’s 12-week Personal MBA Business Crash Course (we’ll be giving away three free seats in this $500 program with the launch of the new site, so check back on Tuesday)
• Return home to attend the South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX in March, and the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in Indio, CA in April (make a small donation to help me get my SxSw ticket!)
• Increase TH to 50,000 monthly visits, 5000 RSS subscribers, PR 4, and break into the Alexa top 40k sites online with proper market research, SEO, and guest blogging on high-ranking sites
• Re-read Tim Ferriss’ new expanded 4 Hour Workweek and David Walsh’s SourceControl to systematize and automate my businesses as much as possible, and research outsourcing systems to virtual assistants & hiring service providers on Elance
• Spend 1+ months living in at least one of the following: Krabi, Philippines, Bali, Argentina.
• Implement the Bond Body exercise routine
• Increase passive income by releasing my first two ebooks, finding regular advertisers for Thrilling Heroics, getting my exclusive newsletter back up and running, building a portfolio site to showcase my photography, and possibly developing an online nomad school
• Check email only 4x per day at most, continue to eliminate distractions more rigidly, apply 80/20 principle at a regular interval, and increase productivity by applying principles from the 4HWW checklist for example
• Create an updated Dreamline worksheet every 3 months to define & make sure I’m on track to reach my travel & lifestyle goals

What are your goals for 2010? Will this be the year you take back control of your life? What is the one thing you most want to learn to achieve your dreams?

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Happy New Year from Krabi! Best of 2009… Goals for 2010

Dear friends and family,

My year abroad has been an incredible experience. Although I miss home and all the people I left behind, I’ve had the time of my life, met fascinating people, been able to do some incredible things, and have grown in many ways. Since I moved to Thailand about 13 months ago, I have largely attained the travel goals I set out for myself and learned the things I’d wanted to learn. I’ve adjusted to the slower pace of life in Thailand, and the more laissez-faire attitude.

Mai Pen Rai

I watch tourists who just landed and can’t relax, can’t get off their Crackberry addiction, and get frustrated when the waitress (who can’t speak any English) gets their special order wrong. As a long-term traveler, you begin to understand the local customs, you learn to go with the flow, laugh at the vast language barrier and frequent mix-ups, take challenges as they come, and basically just enjoy whatever life throws at you. You learn to stop freaking out about misunderstandings, problems, and the unexpected. You learn to have a “jai yen”—a cool heart.

Failures

I failed at quite a few things this year. I attempted (mostly unsuccessfully) to reposition my social web development business to consult mainly with non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs. I didn’t reach my income goals (not by a long-shot). Quite the opposite, I was very nearly a pauper for a majority of the year! But when you start to make friends, be ready for the right opportunities, and search for alternative ways to do what you want to do, you don’t need a lot of money to live well. Especially in Southeast Asia.

I sold nearly everything I owned last November and have learned to enjoy a minimalist life of simplicity, with few possessions. It’s a portable lifestyle with few distractions that allows me to spend more time concentrating on work, reading, writing, and spending quality time with my friends. I’ve been able to thrive with only about $700–1000 a month in living expenses, transitioned to a cash-only economy, and what money I do earn I typically spend on travel and other experiences, rather than things.

The Unexpected

I’ve had a lot of unexpected growth and unusual experiences. Come to Asia and you’ll see families of five crammed on clumsy motorbikes weaving precariously through traffic, elephants in the streets, quirky red-light districts where students, monks, and prostitutes share the same sidewalk, you’ll eat fried bugs, and much much weirder stuff I’m sure.

I live in the heart of Bangkok, in a building with five of my best friends. I hang out almost daily with a refugee who fled religious persecution in China (but you can call by his name, Ryan!) I pay extra for the fastest “high-speed” DSL in Thailand and spend most of my days at home working on the laptop. I know the minimart owner downstairs, the salon & massage shop owner up the street, and the owner of the wine bar/bistro across the soi. I couldn’t ask for more.

The Fun Part

I’ve dated a few beautiful Thai girls (and picked up a good amount of the language). I’ve dated a few travelers. I got to feel like James Bond. My friend Dwight Turner and I discovered a way to drink beer to benefit charity(!), catalyzed a monthly staple in the Bangkok event scene, and hosted massive parties at posh clubs way out of my league.

I worked with Dwight to develop a strong internet presence for his grassroots Bangkok volunteer organization, and spent a significant amount of time helping raise money, volunteer with kids, and make a difference.

Successes

Thanks to all of you guys, I built a real community of engaged, loyal readers here at Thrilling Heroics, with thousands of RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and over 12k+ visitors per month. I rank in the top 60,000 sites on the web, which is quite an accomplishment when you’re competing with thousands of millions.

I’ve experimented quite a bit with my businesses and work. I taught business English to masters’ students at Mahidol University School of Management for five weeks. I currently am involved in organizing the TEDx conference that we’ll be bringing to Bangkok in February, one of my dreams! The last few months, I’ve been working with some awesome awesome partners on an exciting new project/business for the new year (more on that next week).

Some other random stuff I’ve done while traveling this year:

• I climbed over 1,000 steps to reach a temple on a mountain top in Prachuap…



• …where I defended some girls from Coke-addicted attack monkeys.
• I’ve spent an afternoon learning from and sharing a meal with a Buddhist monk.



• I got stranded in the Thai countryside on the way to a friend’s hometown in northeastern Thailand when our car broke down.
• I dragged my parents to Asia and spent 2 weeks living in luxury on the gorgeous beaches of Phuket & Krabi with them.



• I took LOTS of jumping photos!



• I spent my birthday week celebrating at posh rooftop bars that would cost hundreds of dollars back home, and hanging out with gorgeous women!



• I traveled with good friends and saw the Mekong river in Laos, the breathtaking ancient wonder of the world—the Angkor Wat temples in Camobodia—and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur—two of the world’s tallest buildings.



• I saw the skulls of tens of thousands of victims of genocide and witnessed school classrooms turned into torture chambers.
• I mastered the Asian squat toilet.



• I saw elephants dancing, and went elephant trekking in the jungle.



• I survived political protests in my neighborhood, with automatic gunfire, gasoline bombs, Molotov cocktails, and tear gas flying around.



• I visited home, roadtripped with some close friends from Northern California to the SoCal desert to go to my favorite three-day outdoor music festival—Coachella—to see Paul McCartney, The Crystal Method, M.I.A., The Killers, The Chemical Brothers, Thievery Corporation, Groove Armada, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and more play at the Empire Polo Fields (and we won VIP tickets for life!).



• I discovered paradise.



• I adopted a Thai mom who made us lunch on the beach in Krabi every day.
• I shook hands with people who lost their homes, their jobs, their limbs, and their families in the tsunami.
• I volunteered with a large children’s home in the Thai countryside and took all the kids to the beach in Pattaya.



• I dined on sidewalks and in alleyways for a year.



• I got to meet Chris Guillebeau, Nomadic Matt, Chris “Travelhappy” Mitchell, Chris “MyEggNoodles” Osborne, Jonny Gibaud, Mark Eckenrode, Caron Margarete & Brittany Sims in person. I also spent a lot of time with my blogging buddies Migration Mark and Brooke “Business Backpacker” Ferguson.



• I helped raise and deliver thousands of dollars to two orphanages near the Burmese border…and got to spend some cherished time with one boy a week before he lost his life to a struggle with sickness.



• With a diet consisting mostly of incredibly delicious Thai noodle & rice dishes and fresh papaya salad, I lost about 25 pounds without even trying.
• I added Beijing, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan (although I didn’t see more than the airport) to my passport.
• I became close friends with many fun, eccentric Canadian, American, English, Swiss, German, Australian, Mexican, Italian, and Swedish expats—backpackers, climbers, divers, English teachers, aid workers, fundraisers, journalists, photographers, club owners, news editors, UN workers, artists, musicians, resort owners, technologists, lawyers, chefs, investment bankers, refugees, business magnates and beach bums.

Do I plan on quitting the untemplate lifestyle and moving home anytime soon? Hell no. I’ll visit California probably in March and/or April, return here to Thailand (as long as they’ll let me stay), and possibly spend some time in Argentina. More on that next week.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

—Ayn Rand

Merry Christmas! Please let me know how your year was with a comment below.

I’ll be missing you all, but hope you have great holidays, and hope you come for a visit in 2010!

Cody McKibben
23 December, 2009
Ao Nang, Thailand

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Reflections After a Year Living Abroad

Jan 3: Thursday, while trekking across town for Paul’s misplaced passport, he and I met the El Diablo himself on La Rambla. The Devil first tried to fool with us, but then kindly gave us directions to the Picasso museum. However, as it started to rain, we retired back to the hotel for the night.

Jan 4: Friday, Paul and I enjoyed a café con leche across the street from the towering Sagrada Familia church, a Gaudi design that has been under construction for 125 years through the contributions of the public. Paul treated us to a fun bus tour that circles the entire city. But, it’s eye-opening how much of the city we had seen already with a few locals as our guides! We got off on Diagonal avenue for an €8 buffet (way cheap for 3 plates of food!), and later that night we met up with Tim and his French friend Nathalie at an Irish Pub in the Ramblas. Besides two others, there was a red-headed American gal tending the bar—turned out she was an expat from Southern California working to finance her stay here in Catalonia. Again, it’s funny how many people you find from back home when you’re half-way across the globe! Late that night, it was too late to catch the metro, so on our walk home, after all the Guinness had made my stomach rumble, I decided to give a Spanish Burger King a try. Can you believe a simple whopper will cost you the equivalent of about 5 bucks in Spain! No fries, no drink…just a whopper.

Jan 5: Saturday was Three Kings Day as the locals refer to it, the Catholic Epiphany. We completed the second leg of our city tour, scoping out Parc Guell again, the Palau Reial, the F.C. Barcelona Stadium (a.k.a. where BC’s soccer team plays, for you beginners), Montjuic mountain, the facilities built for the 1992 Summer Olympics, and the Palau Naçional museum.

I guess that traditionally, in Spain, Three Kings Day is when children would receive their Christmas gifts. It makes more sense really, framed within a Christian viewpoint, that the three kings would bring gifts, as opposed to a jolly old fat man in a red suit. I don’t really remember him in the nativity story! So, we joined a few local Catalonian gals—Meye , Iva, Joanna, Núria—that evening for the Three King’s Day parade that snakes through Plaça Catalunya. It’s more for kids really, but around here it’s apparently huge, and pretty fun to see, as a visitor.

Later, we all enjoyed the finest sampling of local Spanish tapas and wine that €20 can buy, at La Vinateria del Call in the Barri Gottic (Meye knows all the best local spots!), followed by a few drinks at the popular nearby DJ bar and disco.

Jan 6: Sunday morning was Tim and Paul’s time to say goodbye and catch their planes home. It was a pretty decent day, so I voyaged over to the beach near Villa Olympica for a while, then I strolled through the Museu Picasso, with great collections not only of his own work, but also many pieces from his private collection of other artists’ work. It was very interesting to see where he got his inspiration! Finally, I enjoyed some prime people watching in the nearby Parc de la Ciutadella. It’s a huge city park—the kind I only wish we had back home. There are people walking dogs of all breeds, lovers basking together, joggers, bicyclers, elderly men enjoying a quiet solitary walk, peddlers, ganja dealers, parrots, peacocks, and a city zoo! Parents playing tag with their kids, young men playing soccer in the wide alleys, a father playfully wrestling with his toddler son, hippies jamming in music circles, and street performers practicing their juggling techniques. It’s an interesting collage of people of all different demographics. Much like Balboa Park in San Diego, it’s the kind of peaceful, pretty, lively place you want to spend all your lazy Sundays!

Later that night, I met Meye at Plaça Molina near her home at north end of city. As a Barcelona native, she had said earlier that the lookout point atop Mount Tibidabo is the best place to see the whole city, so we made the drive to the top to see Barcelona glowing in the night. Tibidabo mountain overlooks the entire city, and has a glimmering church at its summit. It was a great spot to take some of my last photos of Spain. Afterward, we chatted more about travels and business (she operates her own business called MascotRaceClub) and enjoyed some warm coffee at the Mirablau cafe on the hillside overlooking the city streets below.

Jan 7: For my final day in Barcelona, I spent the afternoon sunbathing, reading, and trying not to stare at the topless runner that kept racing back-and-forth across the beach at Villa Olympica! Later, I continued my book from the park bench and did some more people watching at the vast Parc de la Ciutadella again. Not as many people playing and enjoying the sun’s rays as a Sunday, but still a great place to enjoy the good weather. But, I couldn’t stay long; I had to catch the Renfe train across town to get to the airport. It’s time to go back home.

Jan 8: Originally, I’d hoped to catch a friend or two as I passed through London on my way home, perhaps grab a pint with Sarah and crash with Farmer Tom. But, unfortunately engine trouble set us back two hours, and by the time I got through the customs queue in London, I knew it was too late. They have university and work in the morning, so I gave up and spent a long, sleepless night at a Heathrow airport cafe. I finally arrived in Washington, D.C., where my cousin Ian was awaiting my arrival at Georgetown University. We borrowed his housemate’s SUV, drove over to Capitol Mall, and checked out the Lincoln and FDR memorials by night.

Jan 10: I got the chance to meet my colleague Karen Seeh, a successful nonprofit and sustainability consultant who I’ve worked with online several times but never met in person yet. Later I joined Ian and his friends for a fun evening at the nearby Georgetown pub and piano bar with fellow grad students.

Jan 11: Ian and I explore Capitol Mall, including the White House, the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, the Nation’s Capital, and the Washington Monument. Later, we go for some great music and good vibes in the Adams Morgan neighborhood with Karin and Amanda, a few lady friends we made at the piano bar the night before. Nicole, who spent a year in D.C. as an intern for National Geographic, gave me all the hip tips about the nightlife and music scene in town, and the Adams Morgan is a trendy part of town with great dub music and lots of hoppin’ night spots.

###

Also, I just couldn’t help but share Nicole Pefley’s awesome list of awesome things to do in Washington, D.C., because it should benefit others just as it benefited me! I didn’t have time enough to utilize the whole list, but all her hard work shouldn’t go wasted. Let me know if you try out any of these places and enjoy it! Signing off. Here it is:

Top 12 Badass Washington, D.C. Nightspots

by Nicole Pefley

1. Tryst – Adams Morgan (on the main drag 18th st.) -Chill coffee
   house by day with cozy furniture, hip bar with great dub by night.
2. The Diner – Open 24/7, great alternative if you still haven’t eaten
   (they’ve got whatever you’re craving, I guarantee it), cousin and
   neighbor of Tryst. There’s a whole slough of sweet brunch places on
   18th, as well as where most of the Ethiopian restaurants are. GO TO
   ONE. They’re cheap, tasty, and have amazing jazz. Just ask your cab
   driver.
3. Old Glory – Georgetown. Good atmosphere
4. Blues Alley – GTown. Solid blues joint with great jazz too. Show up
   in advance (1 day prior) to buy tix (See also Madam’s Organ in Adams
   Morgan)
5. 18th St. Lounge – Fruit Loop (Dupont Circle) – Tucked in a narrow
   doorway by a mattress store. The best lounge in D.C. Period. Dress for
   it.
6. Cafe St.Ex (as in St. Exupery, author of Le Petit Prince) – 1847
   14th st. NW. Great Belgian beer, Samba and Bossa Nova beats
   sometimes–great vibes always.
7. Cafe Citron – Dupont – nice happy hour that turns into a hot salsa
   club later
   (see also Habana Village in Adams Morgan)
8. Capitol City Brewing Co. – Cap. Hill – Great brewpub with a good
   happy hour, inexpensive and extensive menu, across from Union Station
   in the historic Post Office Building
9. Hawk and Dove – Cap. Hill – Free food at happy hour and good
   political buzz- need I say more?
10. The Front Page – Dupont – Waaaay too many nights here. Another
    killer happy hour hang.
11. Union Pub – Cap Hill – 201 Mass Ave NW, Where I got my first DC
    buzz. Every night has a different happy hour deal. The brews are
    great, like the food, and on thurs. when I was there any beer was $1
    for the ladies. Worth investigating!
12. Tune Inn – Cap Hill – 331 Penn Ave SE – My favorite D.C. dive, bar
    none. Which is appropriate, since it’s really not much of a bar.
    Dingy, with good late night burgers. And check OUT those bathroom
    walls! Scary, but good times:)

And would it be an email from me to someone traveling to one of my
favorite cities without recommending at least one (ah hell I can’t
help myself) restaurant?

• Mai Thai – my fav Thai place in D.C., in Dupont on P st if I
  recall. Lovely interior, bitchin drinks and ridiculously good prices
  for the stylish and beautiful Thai interior. Enjoy what tastes like a
  $40 dinner for $20.
• Les Halles – 1101 K St. – A French bistro place serving those
  working-class unforgettables, steak, fries, salad, anything else
  French you may be craving, and even the finer things like pate foie
  gras with calvados. Won’t break your wallet either. Did I mention the
  great wine list? I should.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Our Journey Through Spain Comes to an End; and a Brief Visit to the Nation’s Capital

Mon Dec 24: Munich is completely frosted over, but the pilot made the softest landing I’ve ever felt. I had to double check whether we had even touched ground yet! Thank goodness for German perfection. This was a quick one-hour layover, so I was happy that we weren’t set back in Washington. The next flight was a very quick jaunt to London, during which every crew member spoke German to me, even though it was quite obvious that at least 60% of the passengers were British!

Upon arrival at Heathrow, I had a four-hour window in which to get my boarding passes and eat a decent meal before the last leg of the trip. Unfortunately I was met with what looked to be about a five-hour queue at the British Airways desk. Making the best of it, I met a friendly Romanian student, Mircea, doing an IBM internship in New York. The poor guy had gotten stuck in London on his way back home for Christmas, but we had a lot to chat about — very nice fellow!

On the final flight to Barcelona, I met a couple from Seattle on their way to see their parents in the south of Spain, and spoke at length with my neighbor, a kind older British gentleman, who told me of all his travels and shared that he was moving to Spain. After wandering around aimlessly for a short while, I met Paul at the BCN airport and we happened across a very nice local who pointed us in the right direction to catch the train into the heart of Barcelona. We followed Tim’s directions toward La Rambla, the mainstreet through downtown Barca, but the local tel # didn’t work at the payphone, so Paul and I had to guess our own way to the apartment. =)

The flat is AMAZING — it IS as awesome as the pictures, thankfully! Tim and Ryan have some impressive stories to share about their time traveling through Morocco and Spain so far. The four of us went for a beer at a little tavern on La Rambla, where we met a friendly German traveler who let us chat with him for a while. We then stopped in to witness the midnight mass at La Catedral — a good way to spend Christmas Eve. This seems like a fun place to spend Christmas — almost every street is literally decked out in lights and decorations that span across from building to building! At about 2AM, we did the Spanish thing and headed over to Fellini, a dance club just around the corner from our flat. The clubs here don’t really get going until around 1 or 2AM, and on party nights, the party goes until 6 in the morning. (Then apparently, some of the girls say, people go to work around 10 or so and then real hardcore purists take a siesta break around 2 – 5!) The club had a great selection of top hits and electronic music, and Tim and I kept it going to some energetic house and trance until about 6:30! It was probably the most intense dance club experience of my life! And this is only day 1 in Spain! But what better way to start off Christmas Day?

One of the rooms in our posh flat.

Ryan, Tim, and Paul standin’ on stuff at Fellini.

Tues Dec 25: I woke to the sounds of Tim’s Moroccan drums at about 3:30 this afternoon. I know that makes me sound like a lazy slob, but hey, it was a looong trip, followed by a long night! It’s okay, we can get a chance to catch up during the afternoon siesta, and dinner around here isn’t until about 10PM or later. My kinda place! =)

Paul, Tim, and I wandered up La Rambla a ways to Plaça Catalunya and grabbed a cafe con leche. We later stopped in a take-away Asian food restaurant for some Christmas fried rice across the street from our flat, where I chatted at length with Tim about his travels through Thailand, his leadership retreats that he has given around the world, and his first book on personal development and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, coming out soon. I crashed again for an hour or two, but awoke to the whole gang back at the place, and Ryan was busy whipping up an awesome meal for us all. The four of us enjoyed some marinated pork, spicy ravioli, Catalan peppers, salad, and champaign for Christmas dinner, and shared more adventures while listening to some peppy Berber pop music! It’s my first time meeting Tim and Ryan, and Paul’s first time meeting Ryan as well, so it’s fun to all get to know each other at the same time, and to have such interesting and fun-spirited travel partners! Tim lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and runs Grand Dynamics, while Ryan is a physician’s assistant in SF.

Tim, Paul, and myself at Plaça Catalunya.

Sitting down for a great Christmas dinner.

Post dinner-time, we all had a caipirhana at a packed little bar down our side street, and then Paul and I wandered down toward the marina. We walked around the city for a few hours and saw Port Valle and Port Olympia, where we’ll stay on our way back through Barcelona the second half of the trip. One unfortunate thing about European nightlife is that there IS NO escape from smelling like cigarettes! My sweaty airplane shirt smells better than any of the clothes I’ve worn out since! Haha. That, and the fact that my whole body is now thoroughly sore from yesterday’s five hours of dancing and todays hours of walking, so I took the opportunity to use the other guys’ shower for my first HOT rinse in four days! (One drawback to renting a place as opposed to staying in a hotel — the plumbing on our side of the apartment is out of whack.) Now I’ve been up typing and listening to the soothing sounds of Mallorca on the TV, and I think it’s like 5:40 or something crazy in the morning again, so I better get some rest before tomorrow!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Spain for the Holidays, Part I

Tim and Paul are experienced globetrotters, so I’m really looking forward to this trip as a great “training wheels” experience before I go conquer Thailand all on my own! Tim Walther is president of Grand Dynamics, an awesome company that does corporate retreats and team building adventures. He’s also an accomplished rock climber, and he and his buddy Ryan have already been traveling across Morocco and Spain this month doing climbs. Check this site to see some of their recent adventures — these are the guys I’m going with! So far this December, they’ve already ventured to desert kasbahs and been bitten by camels, climbed with a 7-time female Spanish climbing champion, attended a Barça v. Stuttgard futbol match, and more! So I know this is gonna be unforgettable!

Tim and Ryan will be awaiting our arrival on the 24th in Barcelona, where we’ve already booked this incredible executive apartment — 4 bed/3 bath in the heart of the city center on La Rambla. Look at these photos — it’s incredible what you can find at such a decent price when you know where to look.

After the 29th, the plan is to hit up Ibiza, one of Spanish Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is home to the biggest night club in the world and is best known for its intense summer parties, with thousands of European vacationers flooding in for beach raves and foam parties. But it also has a softer side — winter is the off-season, and though several of the clubs close down, the locals say it’s the best time of year, with blooming almond trees, relatively warm-ish temperatures (highs of 61-62), and space to enjoy the beautiful beaches.

We might do Pacha for their giant NYE bash, maybe Amnesia, and DC-10 for their all-day after party. These Ibiza clubs have become the center of the worldwide electronic music movement — tons of house and trance and others of my favorite eclectic musical tastes all come out of this spot, so I’m super excited! The “Balearic Beat” sound in the 80s and 90s was typified by heavy, slow, R&B-influenced beats, with drum ‘n bass, laid-back swing-beat patterns, soul, Latin, African, funk, and dub ingredients. DJ Paul Oakenfold imported this awesome sound to London and it influenced electronic music around the world. Ibiza is also a haven to artists like Sasha, John Digweed, David Guetta, New Order, and the ambient chill-out music of Café del Mar.

I’ll do my best to keep you all updated with some fun travel journals while I’m abroad, so keep an eye on this site. On my way back, I hope to check in with a friend or two in London for a night (I’ll being staying January 7th if anyone’s reading), and then visit my cousin Ian Achimore for a few days in Washington, D.C. (where he’s attending Georgetown) before I return home.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Invading Spain for the Holidays!

1. Keep exercising and stay fit. I have to conquer my asthma problem, keep running in the evenings at home, and I would like to start a new habit of taking a morning walk at work.
2. Register a dot com domain for myself and the blog. But, this means I need to find a friend who can help me design a professional homepage and possibly redesign the blog with significantly less than $1000.
3. Read at least one book a month that will help me realize my dreams. Since Christmas came, I’ve already got my books for the next 8 months:
   • Tom Peters’ The Brand You50
   • Rajesh Setty’s Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps
   • Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People
   • Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes’ The Innovation Paradox: The Success of Failure, The Failure of Success
   • James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds
   • Jay Abraham’s Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got
   • Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone
   • Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s Freakonomics
4. Start a new business, and donate one percent of sales revenue to improve the environment through 1% for the Planet (started by the founder of Patagonia).
5. Reflect on my past week and plan my upcoming week. I also need to use my calendar better and want to look into using an online calendar that will sync with my Apple iCal (anyone have any tips?).
6. Start making a regular donation to the Save Darfur Coalition, a charity that sends aid to the victims of genocide in Sudan and lobbies on their behalf. This is a cause I have become very passionate about in the last year or so, and in addition to donating, I have pledged to get commitment this year from at least five friends to sign the easy online petition to the President and the new UN Secretary-General to strengthen the African Union forces in Darfur, to send a UN peace force, and to increase aid to Sudan (please follow that link if you’d like to help petition the UN to send more help—it is an easy 2-minute process).
7. Attend networking events and become a better public speaker through a club such as Toastmasters International.
8. Purchase carbon offsets for my Pontiac through a company like TerraPass.
9. Join GreenDimes, the service that keeps you off junk mail lists for 10 cents a day, and plants a tree for you each month!
10. Teach myself French again with language podcasts or CDs.

What are YOUR New Years resolutions?

Please share in the comments!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: My 2007 New Years Resolutions