They let me in! In fact despite what was said by the air stewards on Qantas it was painless and straight forward to get through US immigration and customs.

Qantas by the way continues to slide down my league table of favourite airlines. Their planes inside are now as tired looking as their staff. The meals are a joke. I got more food on a 3hr flight on Emirates (now numero uno for me).

Whinge over anyway. I have now been in the States for almost a week and having a fab time. I drove straight to Las Vegas after some nervous jet lagged driving through the freeways of LA and have now moved on to Sequoia National Park where I am about to embark on a short drive to gorp at the World’s largest living organism.

I know a lot of guys and girls who read this are from the USA so they might be interested in what I have to say generally about your nation.

America is a land of obesity?

Well I honestly don’t think it has much more of a problem than Australia or Britain to be honest. What I would say is that if I continue to eat three meals a day I might be adding to the problem by the time I get back home.

I had a buffet in a casino the other day and started off with a salad. I swear people were looking at me in disbelief.

The Latino influence

I don’t want to get involved in politics but California (and Vegas) would simply come to a grinding halt without the workers from South of the border.

I also hung out with a couple of Latinos for a while one night in Vegas and sadly witnessed some mindless knobs who were making some pretty disparaging comments towards them. Mindless knobs exist everywhere of course.

The girls love an English accent

It’s not often I am invited along with a group of 21 yr olds to celebrate one of their birthdays. Too bad their mum and dad were with them!

Americans are friendly and hospitable

Absolutely. This has been the case everywhere thus far.

The Grand Canyon is a must see.

Absolutely again!

Bears

I have to mention these big fellas. I have not seen one yet and I am not too bothered if I don’t catch a glimpse of the magnificent beasts.

Of course the night before I am heading somewhere where they exist in large numbers (only black bears and they generally don’t attack humans) National Geographic presents me with a program about Bear attacks in the USA! Eeeekkkk!

Just to ease the worry that some of my readers might have I am not going to be walking on my own out there and if I do encounter a hungry bear it will at least get a good feed as there will be a few of us!

So I am going now as a I don’t wanna keep the big General (or 60,000 black bears) waiting!

I am waiting for my taxi now to take me to the airport and spending my last few hours at Ardmore Road in quiet reflection.

I have had a lot of fun here and have met some quality people. Sadly a lot of those people have moved on as I am about to do but I do find NZ to be quite a transient place, particularly Auckland.

Perhaps it is because 99% of my friends here are expats too. I regret a little that I did not have more Kiwi friends here but when you work on your own you do restrict opportunities to meet locals.

So after a weekend in Sydney I am off to California for three weeks before deciding whether to head back to the UK or perhaps travel down through Mexico.

The NZ working holiday visa I was on represented the best opportunity of staying long term in NZ but my heart was never in it in the end. NZ is just too distant and too quiet for me.

But it is still a wonderful place to visit and I have no regrets about having spent a fair chunk of my recent history in this little corner of the South Pacific.

Farewell and thanks for having me.

I finally got around to booking my flight out of NZ. I actually booked a really cheap flight to Sydney last week with Emirates, which happened to be much cheaper than Qantas or Air NZ (frequent Tasman crossers take note!).

So from Sydney I was undecided which way to go but finally decided on going the pacific way and I will be flying onto Los Angeles after a short TEFL course (teaching English). From LA I plan to hire a car for a few weeks and explore California.

I am hoping to see Vegas, Death Valley, Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon before heading North to one of the national parks and check out the Sierra Nevada range. Any other suggestions?

When I get back to LA I am either going to fly straight home (around mid to late May) or head down south of the border for a while.

As usual with me my plans are still not set in stone but I think a few weeks travel around California will be enough.

Having been in one place for nearly eight months now has actually not made me yearn for travel for the sake of travel like before.

Greetings from Fiordland National Park, South Island NZ in the town of Te Anau. I took a flight down from Auckland at some god awful hour to get here for tonight. In two days I embark on world famous Milford Track. The best multi day walk in the world according to the well oiled NZ tourism marketing machine.

I will be the judge of that and if it matches or gets anywhere near the Kepler Track (also in the area) then I will be impressed. The weather forecast looks wet and cool but after a summer in the heat and humidity of Auckland I am actually looking forward to freezing my nuts off in my summer sleeping bag surrounded by 40 or so other snoring and farting walkers.

Te Anau is the gateway to the region. You know when a place proclaims itself a gateway, it actually means there is nothing much in the town itself and its a bit shite but it is ‘the gateway to…….’. Cairns, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, need I say more!

I did spot one thriving tourist attraction here this afternoon as I strolled back from the beer shop. The crazy golf looked pretty busy, in fact they were even having to queue up at the 2nd tee!

The real crazy thing is why have people come from all corners of the planet to play a round of mini golf in the rain! Yes it was bloody chucking down yet people still persisted in trying to putt a ball through the backside of an over-sized plastic penguin.

Still I do some crazy things. Like walking four days in the rain and working online for three years from various parts around the world.

To some, no doubt, this will still appear more crazy than taking aim at an aquatic, flightless bird’s orifice in the rain.

Part of the working nomad and indeed the traveler experience is to indulge in some local nightlife. I appreciate some people would rather not go out and drinks huge amounts of beer and generally have fun.

I also appreciate that my experience of a place may differ vastly from someone else and I can only comment on what I witnessed for myself.

So here are a few places and districts from my travels where the nightlife was pretty shite, in my humble opinion!

Kuala Lumpur Chinatown, Malaysia

My old friend the Reggae Bar. Some of you might remember my comments before about this dire excuse for a bar.

So I am going to let rip again spurred on by some abuse I received via email from a defensive regular or possibly the owner?!

The Reggae Bar is as Jamaican as I am. Its locations is sublime. In a bar starved district of the Malaysian capital it acts like an oasis to the weary backpacker or expat.

However the dark, dim and rather depressing interior is equally matched by the unfriendly staff who are yet to discover the smile. Happy hours, in their literal sense, do not exist.

If you stay in Chinatown then take advantage of the restaurants who will happily sell you a cheaper Tiger beer from your table. Sit back and enjoy one of the best people watching spots in Asia.

Please note I have not been to the above bar since last year and it may have changed for the better. If this is the case I still don’t apologise ;o)

Kuta, Bali, Indonesia - Tubes ‘Surfing Theme’ Bar

This outdoor monolith is on the popular Poppies one and was being refurbished the last time I was there. However the time before that I ended up ill for a week after eating there.

It was overpriced and the staff did everything they could to hassle you and relieve you of your beer even before you finished it.

Of course things may have changed down at tubes and it may have turned the corner in terms of the food it puts out.

Kings Cross, Sydney, Australia

Unless you enjoy the smell of sick with you beer then avoid the district of Kings Cross.

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I can’t really think of any more places at the moment and I am not even sure why I bothered with this mini rant.

However my next post will take a more positive view of some of the world’s best nightspots for nomads!

Happy easter folks!

I am sitting in my kitchen today with a housemate and it has just dawned on me that I am more inclined to work harder when another human being is around.

It is quite a eureka moment actually.

The truth is I have not worked so hard over the last few weeks but the days when people are around seem to be much more productive for me.

I worked for the mobile phone company O2 in the UK a few years ago and managed to work from home for two days a week. I remember at the time that I found it much harder to motivate myself at home, compared to the office environment.

My friend worked with me last November for a month and I did heaps of work. The evidence is there.

Maybe it is just me? Lots of people now work from home and telecommute and I am sure they don’t feel less motivated to work when they are alone.

I still think it would be cool to hire some offices somewhere for working nomads to work in together. There would be so many benefits in my opinion, just being able to swap ideas and compare notes would be neat.

I would be interested to hear what others think of this and whether working on the road (and presumably by yourself) is actually viable for people who are motivated more by the company of others.

It is a familiar scene across the globe. A backpacker or traveler arrives in a new city clutching the latest Lonely Planet or Frommers guide book.

I have used Lonely planets and rough guides extensively on my journey as a working nomad and despite what the purists might say I have always found them useful.

However, as someone who likes to travel light, I have always found guidebooks to be too heavy for what they are!

So I was browsing the Lonely Planet Shop the other day and found out a feature where you can purchase certain chapters under their pix and mix!

You basically download the chapters you want (I never use the whole books anyway) and store them as PDF format on your laptop (or online storage / email) and print them off when you need to. This could be cheaper too!

Having the ability to print out maps and locations is important so you can find places when you arrive. You don’t want to be getting your laptop out on a street corner in some big city in Latin America or India!

As PDAs, mobiles and smaller laptops become cheaper I think this will accelerate the death of the guide book as we know it and will mean the savvy nomad can carry more interesting books to read.

I have not reported much on earnings recently as I kind of went off the idea but I still think it provides some degree of motivation for others aspiring to this independent life.

So December was a pretty poor month relative to 2007 coming in a little over US$ 4000 but January is up over US$ 6000 so things are picking up again as they often do in January.

Shifting exchange rates and a weakening pound is starting to bite. It is definetly something you have to keep an eye on when you are a working nomad.

For instance my rent has pretty much gone up £10 GBP a week since I moved in, and that has nothing to do with the landlord! Thats just from exchange rates.

So I stress again if you are spending an extended time in a country try and transfer money when the going is favourable. It could end up making you money!

I have been working away on the forum recently and have given it a make over although I have not actually finished the top banner yet!

Most importantly the search function is now working so visitors can tap into the wealth of information that has been posted.

We have almost 10,000 posts to search through now with some great advice for budding working nomads!

Check out the forum here and if you are a new user then don’t forget to email me after you have signed up so I can activate your account.

http://www.workingnomad.com/forum