I was having this conversation with a friend about Toastmasters. He just started going himself. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a group that helps people overcome their fear of public speaking; to become better communicators. I said to him, “I’m counting on getting older to just take care of that itself.” What I meant was this: the older I get, the less I care what others think about me.

Which reminded me of a quote that Ram Dass said in the documentary What About Me? He said, “When you get old, you become wisdom. You don’t have to know anything. You just…become wisdom.”

How about you? Do you find that the older you get, the closer to you you get?

[Note: The feature pic of the kitten has nothing to do with this. It's just a cute kitty. And I don't care. So, in a way I guess it does relate to this post.]

47B. That’s me. Aisle seat. On a 17-hour flight, I made sure to take an aisle seat.

I was flying from LA to Bangkok and was seated next to a short 50-ish Indian man wearing bright yellow Bermuda shorts. His eyes sparkled behind big gold-rimmed specs and his moustache stretched across his face as he smiled.

Pam Mandel — a.k.a. Nerd’s Eye View — opened up her blog for August to guests. She was gracious enough to host a piece I submitted.

Read the rest of the above story at Lessons from Seat 41A.

It’s been 27 days now that I’ve been traveling solo. It started with a 10 day press trip to Thailand. I’m hesitant to call that solo travel as I really was never alone, apart from sleeping. So that doesn’t really count.

My NY host's kitty, Penny Lane

My first real taste of it was when I returned from Thailand to New York, where Yvonne and I had spent the previous three months living. Yvonne was long gone to Montreal via train. I rustled up a Couchsurfer in Brooklyn to stay with, right near where Yvonne’s and my first NY home was. I returned to one of our favourite cafes, the Glass Shop on Classon Street in Crown Heights. It’s an Aussie style cafe, run by a Melburnian, so of course we loved it.

I hung out with my host and her friends one night. I did laundry by myself. I met with friends we’d made over those three months. And I met with fellow Matador editor, Leigh Shulman (our first in-person meeting). I even made it to the Megabus stop at Penn Station on my own. Although when I got there I stood in the wrong lineup for a while (the one for Philadelphia). But I should be excused, because the guy in front of me, another Canadian, told me it was Toronto-bound. We eventually figured this out and changed lines together. He became my bus-friend.

In Toronto I was shocked at the train map. THERE ARE ONLY TWO LINES (not counting a little stub line with 4 stops). I couldn’t believe it. I found my couchsurfing hosts, who were asleep when I arrived, and who went back to sleep after letting me in. After sleeping for one hour on the 11 hour overnight bus ride, I too went to sleep. I woke up at 2 in the afternoon and we had a proper introduction.

Over the next couple of days they would take me to an outdoor Jazz Fest at the Beaches and to the Kensington Market for pedestrian Sunday (the last Sunday of every month they close the streets to cars). I met with travel writers Mariellen Ward and Natalie Taylor. I also met Mojo, an online friend I’d met through the Matador Community and kept in touch with on Facebook. He introduced me to some of his friends. We went and saw Meaghan Smith at The Drake. (For the record, she is one of the most unpretentious and personable artists I’ve seen.)

Kensington Market pedestrian Sunday

Without Yvonne, I somehow figured out how to get my ass from downtown Toronto to Pearson airport on public transit ($3) without first ending up at the opposite end of the system. That’s an accomplishment, trust me. (Aside: while we were in New York, we were taking the train home one evening. We were sitting in different areas of the train as it was busy. I was reading my book when I got a phone call. It was Yvonne telling me that I forgot to get off the train at our stop.)

I arrived in Halifax late at night and found my way to my Couchsurfing host a little after midnight. He was on his way home after stopping somewhere for a beer and I had to wait 10 minutes outside his apartment door. He was extremely hospitable, even having an entire spare room and bed for me (his brother had just moved out two weeks prior). He offered his joint to me a couple nights later, which I declined as I haven’t smoked the stuff in years, and in my headspace I wasn’t taking any chances. I gave him a beer.

Cailin and Andy near Peggy's Cove

I then moved to my last Couchsurfing host before moving into a sublet for August. I was offered everything. I went and saw Inception with her and her friends. I had life-important talks with her and her boyfriend. They took me to a Zen buddhism talk. And they took me with them to volunteer at a local cemetery.

I am now moved into a house in a really nice and quiet part of Halifax. The streets are lined with trees and people don’t lock their doors. My roomies are great. One is also only there temporarily for August. She is in the middle of a divorce and needed somewhere to stay until her permanent home becomes available in September. She seems to be handling it about as well as one can.

I went on a mini-roadtrip with Cailin O’Neil and Andy Hayes, but not before getting smashed with them the night before and meeting Sam Elliot (he bought us a beer!).

It’s refreshing to know, finally, that I can do this on my own. That you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be. In fact, sometimes you can’t be alone when you want to be. Alone. Such a negative word. But that’s the idea here. How to be comfortable alone.

How To Be Alone by Tanya Davis

THAT IS ALL.

Photo: retro traveler

I’m trying to remember what notes I had in it. The names of two dozen cafes I visited in New York.

Notes from a 17-hour plane ride in which I sat beside an Indian man who sobbed while writing a poem about his wife’s elder sister — his wife died 3 years ago, the sister (who supported him through his grieving) only days before we met on that plane.

Some phone numbers, names and ISBNs of books I want to read.

Random thoughts that I wanted to return to. I have a habit of writing things down and then not returning to them.

I always meant to go back through that lime-green mini-Moleskine to pick out what I wanted to pursue.

Guess that’s one less thing on my plate now.

The closest I’ve come to solo travel was when I hopped a plane in 1996, when I was 20 years old. I’d just dropped out of college and was on my way from Vancouver to Mexico. It was Christmas Eve and the flight was cheap.

I’d landed a job as an animador — an occupation that essentially entails playing with hotel guests in the swimming pool — in an all-inclusive resort in San Jose del Cabo, about a 30 minute drive south of the more famous resort town of Cabo San Lucas. “Landing” the job was easy; my older brother was my boss.

It was a 6-month gig and I didn’t even need to speak Spanish. Which worked out well because I couldn’t. Still can’t. I was picked up from the airport and driven to the hotel where the familiarity of family awaited me.

The path ahead

Hardly solo travel.

I returned to Vancouver after the six months were up, went back to school, then got a job. It was another seven years before I would travel again but still, never alone.

I met my wife in 2004, in the summer. Summertime, I think, is the season for bonding. That is, at least, if you like the outdoors. We bonded over walks along the ocean, hikes in the mountains, and just general summertime carousing. We grew very close, despite the big differences in our personalities. She has the fire of a Cancer (and a German); me, the calmness of a Capricorn (and a Canadian). I like to think that we cancel out each others deficiencies — that the sum of us is greater than the individual parts, as they say. She would probably disagree, but hey, that’s part of her charm.

We began to travel. A lot. And in close quarters. We lived in a campervan for months at a time in Europe. We shared tiny kupe berths for days at a time on Trans-Siberian trains. We never left each others sides until we landed in Melbourne and got day jobs. And even still, we spent most non-working hours together.

Two years after arriving, we departed Melbourne. Six months later, we’ve been living in New York for almost 12 weeks after cycling around Cuba for five, enjoying Vancouver for four, and trotting around Oaxaca, Mexico for three. The stresses of being around each other so much for the past several years is clearly straining our relationship. There is only one thing to do: travel apart.

So we’ve decided to do just that. We’re giving ourselves a month to start, and just see how that goes. Neither of us has much experience in solo travel, but I suspect Yvonne will do quite well, seeing as how she currently plans and organizes pretty much everything. She truly is the woman behind the man. I, on the other hand, am a much bigger question mark.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned in my past travels, it’s that things always work out. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But bottom line, we haven’t died. We survive. That’s what we do, and no matter how unprepared or uncertain we are, we manage to get by. It might take more money than anticipated, more time, more uncomfortableness, but we always emerge on the other side relatively unscathed. And we always learn a lesson.

So I’m quite confident that I will survive this time on my own. I have to. The only alternative is to die, and I’m not ready for that.

What I think I’m terrified about, is being away from Yvonne for so long. That and the prospect of what lies on the other side of this time apart. What will this do to her? What will it do to me? What will it do to us? Just like traveling to a new country, this is unchartered territory for us. Only, we don’t have a guidebook to help plan.

I might be the last blogger to post something about TBEX (probably not though). I’m usually a little late to the party, and this time’s no different. I need to fix that. For example, I was too late to buy tickets to TBEX and had to settle for Lounge Access. However, luckily for me (and anyone else who bought these) I was able to attend the main event in the auditorium due to empty seats. Also, I definitely took advantage of the kick-off and after-parties. God bless free food and drinks.

There were a few disappointments so perhaps I’ll start there so I can end on some high notes.

There was a lack of information regarding Lounge attendees before the event. Questions I’d posed went unanswered. “Are we considered attendees?” “Are we allowed to go to the after-parties?” “What, exactly, does lounge access give us?” In the end, of course, it all worked out and it turned out we had access to everything a “real” attendee had access to. But I don’t think that was by design. As a Lounge Pass holder, I felt like a second-class citizen and others I spoke to felt the same way.

No wifi. Not that I really needed it. And fair enough, there were technical problems that prevented it from happening. But other than a brief mention the first day in the morning that it was being worked on, as far as I know it was never mentioned again. A simple, “Sorry guys, but wifi’s not gonna happen this weekend” would have been nice.

Mike Barish talking Australia

The party attitude. Don’t get me wrong here. I love a good party and fully enjoyed everything that TBEX provided. But it almost felt like it was just a big drinking session with a blogging conference on the side, rather than the other way around. Booze, alcohol, beer, tequila, martinis, hangover, drinking, late night.

These words were mentioned at almost every turn, and over the microphone. Not everyone drinks. Not everyone parties. Is it possible to keep the two separated and have the best of both worlds? Do we all need to know who drank too much last night and who’s hung over? (Usually, this is obvious without words.)

OK. Now that that’s out of the way…I was pleasantly surprised with the event as a whole. I was fully stoked to finally meet in person some of my Matador colleagues that I’ve only had online conversations with. Bloggers like Lola Akinmade, Candice Walsh, Nancy Harder, JoAnna Haugen, Andy Hayes, Eileen Smith, and Abbie Mood.

It was fantastic just meeting everyone else I met, which was much less than I didn’t get to meet. Mike Richards from Vagabondish.com, who I’ve written for before; Alison Stein Wellner from Perceptive Travel; Mariellen Ward, who is behind the India blog BreathDreamGo; Cailin Oneil, the filmmaker behind Travel Yourself. Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to meet Mike Barish from Gadling, but I’m a fan now. And I just found out he’s a comedian too. It all makes sense now.

Meeting all of you in person really made things real, tangible. I sometimes question what I’m doing. Does any of it matter? With everything so virtual, it sometimes feels so unreal. I left the conference energized and inspired.

I also had a swell of pride at the announcement at the end that next year’s TBEX will be held in Vancouver, Canada. Unfortunately, I haven’t lived there since 2007. But who knows, maybe I’ll find myself in that part of the world come next June, and if I am, I will most definitely be there.

Thanks for the good times and conversation everyone, it’s so nice putting the real person behind the gravatar.

[Feature photo courtesy Lola Akinmade]

I first started working on this website while we were still living in Australia. I think it was around November 2009. It’s about seven months later, and I’m finally comfortable going public with it. My wife, Yvonne, is the creative mind behind the look/functionality. I’m the technical guy. I don’t have much background with website building other than toying around with HTML back in the late 90s.

We purchased the Thesis theme for Wordpress. Not only is it a fantastic and flexible theme with many built-in SEO advantages, but access to an active support forum comes included with it.

I’ve been a regular customer at this forum, searching it to find out how to do things (because most have already been done) and if I had a special request, I just posted a new topic and usually within a day I would get a helpful response, sometimes from people who freely gave me some PHP or CSS code.

That’s the other thing. I knew next to nothing about CSS or PHP, but in the process I’ve learned a lot. The reason the site took so long to put together, other than just the extraordinary amount of time required to import/reformat old blogs, upload pictures, create content, figure out the functionality, and style the site is that we’ve been traveling since leaving Oz in early January.

But anyway. I’d love for you to check it out and give some honest feedback:

http://vagabonderz.com

Our new home!

[Note: After some internal debate, I've decided not to post the offending person's name or Twitter handle here. Perhaps he was having a really bad day, who knows. However, it wouldn't take much investigative work to find out who it is if you really wanted to know.]

IT WAS BOUND to happen at some point, I guess. What’s that saying? You can only please half the people half the time? Something like that.

The gloves come off

But it’s how you react to something that doesn’t please you that counts. I recently wrote an editorial piece called Glamping: What, Exactly, Is Up With That? In it I voice my opinion about the word glamping. I fucking hate it. Sorry, but I do. It’s nothing more than marketing bullshit invented to appeal to an upscale crowd. I’m just calling it out is all.

As for camping in luxury, do I have anything against that? Hell no. I like comfortable beds and plumbing as much as the next person. What some readers obviously didn’t get was that it was an attack on the term (as opposed to the act of), and the idea that it was made up for the express purpose to make as much money as possible from it. It’s not hard to imagine a boardroom full of marketing-types in suits whiteboarding it all:

“Hmm…luxurious camping. Lamping?”

“Nah, sounds like a festival of lights or something.”

“Ok, ok. Well, it’s also glamourous. Wait. I got it. Glamourous camping. Glamping.”

“That’s it! Glamping. Oh man, they’re really gonna eat this shit up.”

Twitter Drama

In the piece I link to a popular glamping website. I’m not going to link to it here because I’ve already boosted their SEO ranking enough with the link at Matador, and after being attacked by the editor of this site, I probably don’t need to do him anymore favours.

After fellow Matador editor Leigh Shulman got involved in the Twitter convo, everything unraveled like an episode of Melrose Place. That’s a total exaggeration, but I couldn’t resist a bad 90s reference. Here is how it all unfolded:

1. (from personidontwanttomention) RT @MatadorNetwork: Glamping. What, Exactly, Is Up With That? http://bit.ly/ceCUjd <-- Another terrible blog post about glamping #fail

2. (from personidontwanttomention) @vagab0nderz That's a dreadful article you wrote on glamping; I may tell you why in a comment

3. @personidontwanttomention Ha. Bring it on! I welcome all conversation to the table!

4. @vagab0nderz I would've commented but your post has only sent a paltry 19 visitors to our website, so I'm not sure it warrants our time.

5. @personidontwanttomention Easy. No need to get snippy. I guess insulting me warrants your time, right? How professional.

6. @vagab0nderz I didn't insult you; I merely stated a fact. And neither was I snippy.

Leigh (thefutureisred) enters the room.

7. @personidontwanttomention Do u normally comment 2 say commenting isn’t necessary? I loved @vagabonderz #glamping article. (maybe I’m biased. As are you)

8. @thefutureisred It was a dreadful article, lacked research and balance. The sort of shite you’d read in a tabloid.

9. @personidontwanttomention We’re talking #glamping, right? Not #neurosurgery?

10. @thefutureisred No, we’re talking about a badly written article by a dipshit* travel blogger

11. @personidontwanttomention If you want to clear things, why not leave a comment on the post with your thoughts?

12. @personidontwanttomention Methinks you do protest too much.

13. @thefutureisred Methinks you should mind your own business

14. @personidontwanttomention Then don’t send the message out on twitter. (ps smiley face doesn’t = less rude & (yes) unprofessional.

15. @thefutureisred I didn’t, you jumped in on the conversation and judged me first, in 140 characters no less. #fuckingidiot

16. @personidontwanttomention tsk tsk. anger management can help that, you know.

17. @thefutureisred Well, don’t lecture me on being ‘professional’ when you’re using Typepad. FFS!

18. @personidontwanttomention So? I’m in good company. @sethgodin uses it too.

Our friend @personidontwanttomention then tops it off with this general tweet: I’m getting flamed by pompous, dipshit, aggressive and brainless travel bloggers

[Late addition]

19. How lucky I am! Apparently I warrant the #fuckingidiot hashtag. Thanks, @personidontwanttomention!

20. @thefutureisred You are very welcome! Treasure it as it’s the first time I’ve used the #fuckingidiot hashtag

Let’s analyze this

Why? I don’t know. Because it’s fun. First of all, thank you Mr. personidontwanttomention for retweeting my article (at Twitter it’s common decency to thank all who retweet (RT) something you say).

Secondly, note his use of winky/smiley faces throughout. Normally this indicates a lessening of the tone of the statement. But given the fact that neither I, nor Leigh, know Mr. personidontwanttomention personally, it actually makes his statements more insidious. Intentional? I don’t know. It’s Internet speak for god sakes. Under normal circumstances I would give him the benefit of the doubt. But the “dipshit travel blogger” comment (see #10) does, in a way, cement his intentions.

So what can we learn from this whole episode? I would think: Maintain your composure. Followers of Leigh witnessed the degradation of the exchanges from Mr. personidontwanttomention. It doesn’t reflect very well for him. Of course, all he has to do is call us all brainless, pompous, dipshit travel bloggers and he’s off the hook. Because, really, it’s us, not him. Right?

Congrats personidontwanttomention, you’ve outed yourself to the travel blogging world.

*bold added by me, because I think it’s worth pointing out that, although he claimed to not have insulted me earlier, this I definitely consider a personal insult.

[Image: KWDesigns / Flickr]

I’ve been working with a writer on an article at Matador Trips. In three emails to me she addressed me as Carlos. Here’s the problem: my name is Carlo. And it’s not the first time it’s happened.

Don't let the looks fool you

I’m used to being called Carlos. I’ve gotten it all my life. It used to bother me a lot more, but I’ve learned to live with it. I’ll admit, I do look more like a Carlos than a Carlo (as if that makes it alright).

But it’s one thing in general social situations, quite another when you’re actually trying (what I hope is your best) to make a good impression. It’s simple and it takes no time at all.

DOUBLE-CHECK THE SPELLING OF THE NAME.

This simple little mistake speaks to me in volumes. After all, it’s the details that count.