Working Nomad

Winter is fast approaching, there is a chill in the air and the clocks are about to go back robbing us in the UK of another hour of afternoon light. This can only mean one thing to the Working Nomad. I’ll soon be off to lower latitudes.

I have actually been away three of the last four northern hemisphere winters so it is no surprise that I’ll be taking off again. At this stage the destinations are not fully known but I will be following the sunrise to the East.

I don’t know what it is about Southeast Asia that keeps me coming back but the network of contacts and friends I have out there is certainly one key factor. It surely has nothing to do with the cheap living, warm climate, laid back beach lifestyle and widely available Internet

I might do a full circle and come back via the Americas this time which will add a different twist to my usual winter escape. We will see.

Who was it who said ‘Wherever the wind take me I will be’? Me, just then.

I am currently in Chamonix-Mont Blanc in the French Alps and I have discovered a new way of seeking out cosmopolitan places in the Euro Zone. Simply take a handful of your Euro coins and see where they originate from.

When I was in San Sebastian many of the coins were Spanish which reflects it’s status as a holiday town geared to locals. I remember handing a few French ones over to a Spanish shop keeper who looked slightly bemused when he discovered their origin!

In Chamonix today I picked up a handful of coins to pay for my cafe au lait and they were from Holland, Spain, Germany, Italy and Ireland - not one originated from France!

I am guessing if the UK ever joined the Euro currency then the make up of small change in Chamonix would very much reflect the number of Brits here. There is even a British section in the supermarket here with Marmite priced at €5 a go! I think I’ll wait until I get home to decorate my toast with the evil black stuff…

Today is a http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5368190.stm which is an annual celebration of the World Wide Web and how it is changing our lives.

They suggest bloggers write a post today about how the WWW has changed their life. I am guessing any of you who follow me regularly can see the evidence of how it’s changed my life.

So here are a few ways the web has changed my life, perhaps not for the better…

- I think the WWW has help contributed to a neck problem that I seem to have due to hours upon hours of sitting at a computer.

- The WWW probably cost me contract work in the past as it enabled programming to be sent offshore for a cheaper price.

- The WWW probably kept me indoors alone too much when I could have been out doing more sociable things with people.

Well I am going to end on a positive. The web has enabled me to start my own business and travel more. As a consequence of this I have managed to meet a very broad spectrum of people and try lots of new things.

For those who are not familiar with the regional stereotypes in the UK I am about to give you a quick overview. People in Scotland and to some extent the North of England view Southerners (geographically anyone south of Birmingham) as softies.

This perception has been continually reinforced over 2000 years of British history. Why do you think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Roman Empire only got as far as the Scottish border?

Well I am having to concede to the Scots as well, not a rugged army of crazy red-haired Highlanders but the Scottish weather. Yes I have already paid £20 for my train fare but the forecast of torrential rain and gales has blown my course due South.

Yep I am back off to the Alps, this time to the French side to undertake the http://www.grfive.com from Lake Geneva to as far as my little English legs will carry me in a week. The weather forecast looks kinder and it will give me a chance to get close to the highest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc.

By the way, I still have my passport because I have had a change of mind about getting a NZ work visa. I am still planning to go early next year but I have decided not to work there.

Well Ive started yet another project. I know Id said I would focus on finishing my current sites and adding affiliate programs to them but, lets face it, Im crap. And thats boring stuff anyways!

My latest project will be interesting in more ways than just how much money it might make me. Its an extremely niche idea that focuses on a particular event, in a particular city, aimed at a particular nationality of a particular age range probably with pretty similar interests.

The event is only one day out of the year which has me wondering if it will be worth it so itll be interesting to see if it pays off. Id guess that a minimum of 10,000 people would actually participate in the event with lots of other interest generated and another general audience than isn’t targeted beyond being in the same city but there would be possible interest from them year round depending on how I structure the site.

There are currently no other sites dealing with this event and my a www.travoholic.com site comes up first for Google in the major keywords so Id be able to For more information see type link at the bottom which would pretty much ensure that most people who search on Google will eventually make it to the site, whether it ranks high itself or not.

So after this long-winded load of bollocks I guess what Im trying to say is that Ive got a really niche market and I wont have an problems attracting them to my new site and am excited to see what can really be done with a niche market.

This is the type of thing where merchandise would hopefully sell well so I will be pushing some http://www.cafepress.com stuff and will spend some time coming up with clever designs and slogans. A guy from work is on board and says he has some cracking ideas so I will probably flog his designs as well and go 50/50 on the profits. But you rarely hear about Café Press when people talk about making money online so I’m pretty curious to see how it goes.

I have my doubts as well about whether I’d be able to attract any advertisers (that aren’t non-Adsense or affiliate related). I think that because the market is very targeted there would normally be some interest in reaching it but because the event is only for a day and there’d be a huge peak and drop in traffic I just don’t know.

So Im looking at this as my little niche experiment. I know that the site will be useful, will generate a decent amount of traffic (the related page on my site had around 300 visits per day over a short period of time), and will reach a pretty targeted audience. What Ill be able to do with this is anybodys guess.

Anybody have any guesses about what the event might be? Once I get the site up and running in a couple of weeks Ill post a link and will be in search of plenty of feedback!