Good day,

How art thou? Hopefully you’re doing well and about to enjoy a superb Saturday in an interesting part of the world. Please remember that wherever you’re from and no matter how boring it may be at times, there are people on the other side of the world who are fascinated with your country and would one day like to put all the coins they’ve slaved for into a coiffure of sorts and take a big tin box filled with people personifying sardines in the sky…

I’ve finally figured out the Little Corn Island internet equation an I’m leaving in 9 days, let’s not go over the fact I’ve been here for about 5 months so far in 2012… I’m writing this because I’ve gotten emails and comments from readers who are like “wtf are you doing on Little Corn when there are so many great working areas around!?” Maybe I’m insane but I’ve always found that if you want to do good things, you have to be inspired. Most random developing world big cities aren’t particularly inspiring for me. Sure they are affordable and most certainly beyond interesting with crazy stuff happening but I feel you’re stuck looking at a tree when you could perch yourself somewhere pleasurable and give yourself a view of the whole forest.

If you wish to do any sort of work involving the internet on Little Corn Island, you MUST get up early with your claro stick and move yourself to somewhere along the beach. I’m writing this on the best signal I’ve had in as long as I’ve been here from the “Sunset Shack” aka one of my favorite bars on the beach. Its open early, closes late and is painted with a seriously Jamaican flag theme ala Bob Marley. The red overly sugared yet refreshing powerade quenches my thirst on a day as clear as glass while the waves of the Caribbean sea continue their eternal ebb and flow just feet from mine, can feel the soul of the sea through my soles…

To my right I see skiff’s and local people going about their business, to my left the oldest almond tree on the island, its quite a sight. It’s 8:05 right now and I’ve already gone for a sunrise run around the perimeter of half the island and swam in the sea as a cool down of sorts. From 5am-9am you see few tourists whatsoever except the haphazard soul looking haggard on their way to the morning panga to end their Little Corn Island adventure. The place comes alive at 6am though and I’ve already witnessed a 65 year old gentleman 65 feet high in a tree throwing down mangoes to a friend who was catching them like fly balls in Fenway Stadium.

You’re as young as you feel, I know a 70 year old guy here who has more plans for life than your average 20 year old.  When I looked up and saw “Grandpa” that high in the tree barefoot, I nearly had an aneurysm,  I had never been more certain there would be some little kid up there. It’s funny how people get older in the “developed” world and they are shoved into rail cars to retirement homes where someone who may or may not hate their job takes care of them in their old age. They are discarded like past due milk from the fridge, instead of being honored for the contributions they’ve made.

Around here and in most of the developing world, old people are considered sacred. They are the old trees in the mature forest which shelter the young and let them grow to what they will one day have the potential to be. They aren’t removed from the families they’ve raised but instead are catered to by them and made sure they are comfortable and happy. Not sure how I got on this tangent but it something I’ve been thinking about for a while, what will you do when your parents get really old?

Anyways it’s a stellar Saturday morning here and I’ve got little over a week left in paradise and plan on making the most of it. Met a lady who gives massages and have brokered a deal for them involving the help of my little friend “Lloyd the Lobster”. The point of this story before we went all over the map and back is that if you’re working / living in conditions that aren’t great, keep tweaking and sometimes get drastic, the results may be astounding.

In other words, you don’t want to “finally figure it all out” when it’s too late, figure it out now.

Tips hat,

P.S: My iphone is broken, no photos until I get to the USA.

Let us discuss the important matter of the ebb & flow of friends while traveling, it’s unlike anything else. Every friend you’ve ever had started with a common greeting and extended past through similarities of character, circumstance or even an odd curiosity. In the only life most of us have ever known, friends come and go at a slow pace like a run off stream from a large reservoir winding through a friendly forest or a stagnant swamp with those capable of stabbing a back. When you’re on the road and traveling through foreign lands it’s a violent gushing gorge of emotional white water from a never ending spring.

You’ll meet someone somewhere and go to do something or see a sight you’ll remember forever and a bond is formed, days later one will pick up for a plane, bus or boat to the next stop and the bond is broken. It’s a peculiar thing watching someone you’ve recently become well acquainted with walking away with everything you know them to own, never to return again. Having traveled now for over 2.5 years I’ve literally tipped my hat to tens of thousands of people and become friends / shared adventures with thousands or more?

I’ve always seen friends as characters that contain a fraction of my personality, it’s that what draws you to each other and makes the whole thing work. You learn from friends because besides that often small fraction, the rest is different and you grow from the common ground starting point and it goes wherever fate will have it. All friendships are different and some last the length of a flight while others the length of a life.

The process of finding friends as a child was as simple as “who is in this room because their parents live near mine that I get along with”. When you’re on the road your main commonality above all else is that you decided to spend your time and money to go on an adventure and learn about a different culture, that’s a substantial commonality before you even say hello. Besides several friends scattered throughout my past, have met more like-minded individuals in the last 2.5 years than I had previously in my entire life, crazy?

Friendships form and grow like a pleasant plant that passes through its life-cycle. The seed is sown, it grows, blossoms and finally fades. Instead of friendships lasting a decade they last 10 days or even minutes but pass through all the phases. What makes a friendship last is mutual respect, mutual interest, understanding and an appreciation of the others time. Travel let’s you meet so many new faces containing a fraction of yourself and that is the main reason why people come back changed. What changes the traveler is not the sights you can see from the internet, it’s the friendly faces and personalities that they’ve met.

Set your ship’s sail and enjoy the ride through life, friends are but strangers in the wind…

Tips hat,

P.S: Met this crew at Cape Point outside Cape Town, South Africa. All we needed in common was a love of travel, being in a genuinely great mood and look what happened with my brief friends from Beijing and World Wide Nate. Props to @Darodi for pausing the moment.

Good day friends,

I’ve been on a tear lately, yes? The amount of travel I’ve done in the last 6 weeks is more than I ever imagined and I’m beyond grateful for it. Never would have believed we lived in a world where you could sell your possessions buy a one way ticket, start a blog and end up here? I came back to Canada because I had a very grandiose plan involving Little Corn Island, naturally Canada is not on the way to Central America from Florida.

I’ve been stressing and running around like a madman trying to work out legalities and arrange funds. If you’re leaving your home country for extended periods of time I HIGHLY recommend you give power of attorney to your parents(unless they are deadbeats), if not you may be on expensive flights home to do paper work when you’re inspired by thinking big.

Last night I found out some devastating information regarding my egregious plan which has made me decide to walk away. This entire day has been totally shot and I’ve sat here questioning where to go and kicking myself for booking tickets in advance. This is the first time I booked tickets in advance that I can remember and now have other plans.

In parting, everything does happen for a reason. The deal fell through but I’m here with my parents eating my favorite meals and reconnecting with friends. I’m also going to visit my grand parents tomorrow. Had this grandiose plan not been hatched I wouldn’t be spending time with the people who matter most to me on this planet. It’s also made me realize I don’t see them enough and long-term, will be adjusting my travel style.

Time is more precious than money and time well spent is the secret to happiness… (I think!?)

Tomorrow I’m flying to Boston at 7am.

Oh yeah, same same but different situations are happening in your life, right now…

Tips hat,

P.S: Photo above is from a magazine cover in Ottawa a few years ago. Everyone thought I was nuts to leave but turned out to be a blessing. Everything happens for a reason, the issue is not getting caught up in what you’ve lost but what you’ve gained…

steadmans little corn island
Good day,

The old saying “all good things must come to an end” is very true and no exception regarding my stay on Little Corn Island. Yesterday I booked a flight from Corn Island to Managua one way for $120US all taxes in. The return ticket is $165 or so. If you go by boat, panga, bus and cargo ship it will cost roughly $30. Unless you want an adventure just buy the return ticket but I digress…

In the past I’ve traveled faster than my stint here in Nicaragua. I’ve been in the country for almost 3 months and have been mainly based out of Little Corn Island, Las Penitas and Leon. There is no better way to travel than the one you choose but they are very different. I didn’t see as much but I really saw everything(as much as you ever can) if that makes sense. On a beach it’s easy to see a postcard but harder to be able to identify the subtler elements which make the whole. My time on Little Corn has changed my perspective even more than say that recent trip to Montreal. Could seriously live here forever and that is no joke.

Something interesting about everything and which also gives every moment value is the idea of change. No scene ever stays the same and the fact that everything ends makes things more special while you’re there if you take the time to realize it.  Feel very lucky to have stumbled upon a group of people in Las Penitas that were coming here and encouraged me to join, was apartment shopping in Leon. Leon is great but on the inspiration-o-meter it’s count is low in comparison to Little Corn.

If you’re in Central America, highly recommend you visit the Corn Islands. This has piqued my interest for the The Bay Islands of Honduras and Bocas Del Toro in Panama. Rumor has it that Bocas has the best beaches, The Bay Islands have the best diving and the Corn Islands are in the middle for both. There is nothing wrong with that, I assure you.

It’s another beautiful day and someone is making a delicious morning beverage. The power on my laptop is dwindling at the same pace as my stay here. Being a long term traveler is very different than taking a trip. Whenever you have an end date, it creeps into the now and clouds it even on the sunniest of days. The feeling of never having to leave somewhere you like is priceless and if you’re into this whole  “try something new with your life” mentality, suggest you make the necessary arrangements.

Another few days and it’s off to Miami…

Tips hat,

P.S: Photo is from Steadman’s which is also cheapest on the beach side and has arguably best view.

P.P.S: Got a massage from the lady who has the sign in the photo, it was ok.

These are some random thoughts I’ve had in hammocks over the last 5 weeks on this Tropical Island in the Caribbean Sea.

• You can live off the land on lots of tropical islands around the world. They have everything you need and countless people on this planet already do and have done for eons.
• Always bring a pair of sports shorts that never get dirty. Your heavy duty cargo ships cross oceans and sit in seedy ports, nice to have a clean ship for relaxing at harbor.
• Needless consumption of any kind is most often a response to boredom or unease.
• Consumer debt of any kind is the highway to unhappiness.
• Frustration is a necessary ingredient in progress pie.
• Where you spend your life is less important than how you spend your life.
• You won’t eat a different sandwich unless you change the ingredients.
• A trip lasting a week or a lifetime all become the same in the end, a memory.
• A life on the beach is beyond nobodies reach.
• Difference between what you need and what you want in life is infinite.
• Life becomes a fun game once you realize you don’t need more than what you’ve always had.
• If one is doing what they feel they should with their life, is it possible to miss out on anything?

That is all,

Good day,

Let us discuss the important matter of having a remote office and the criteria that *really* matter for getting work done abroad, shall we? Many people will dive right into the features a place has, what benefits do they have the “digital nomad” or “location independent” or my fav “perpetual traveler”. Although the mechanical features are important, many miss the most important factor which is it has to be somewhere you LIKE.  If you didn’t like golf, you probably wouldn’t find living on a golf course particularly inspiring, would you?

Connectivity is important

I went to Chiang Mai as everyone praises it because it’s cheap with decent connectivity and countless dining options. It all sounds great on paper, when I got there the connections I found were most certainly “less than decent” to the point that in my apartment, I couldn’t even connect via file transfer protocol (FTP) to upload. If you want to derail your productivity, simply have to leave your office to some cyber café that is also slow to finish part of a project. When it comes to connectivity, take stock of your jobs. Currently on Little Corn the connectivity isn’t so hot but besides writing this blog, I delegate 98% of all tasks.

More to life than keeping costs low

Suffice to say, I didn’t care for Chiang Mai much at all. It was one of those weird places on the planet where I just felt like I was wasting my life. It seemed like it didn’t matter what I did there, there was nothing for me. Was I born on this planet to find the cheapest city in Thailand and live in some apartment building filled with old bitter expats to save a few $ on my monthly rent? Sure they had incredibly cheap golf breaks but that is neither here nor there…  If golf was on my mind and money was of no issue, Las Vegas golf seems like the place but I digress…

Whatever happened to having fun?

Your remote office has to be somewhere you genuinely like being, if not you’ll probably get despondent. How much time will you actually be working? The whole “I’m going to buckle down and work for a month” doesn’t mean that you’ll physically be sitting at your computer for a month while a pizza delivery man slides thin crust pizza under your door. You need to be somewhere that once you’re done work, you can “go out and play” as crazy as that sounds.

What’s most important to productivity?

Let’s say you were going to hire a crew to do some building for you. When it comes to state of tools or state of mind, what is most important to getting quality work done in an efficient manner? First let us examine the state of the tools, shall we? Around the world I constantly see people doing great work with old tools, often old tools that have been repaired so many times only a small fraction of its original self remain. It’s important to have good tools but you definitely don’t need state of the art.

What about your state of mind? The more I discover on this planet, the more I realize that your state of mind is all that really matters. It can make a heaven out of h3ll or vice versa. You can have the best tools in the world along with everything you need and more but if you aren’t in the right mindset, you’ll get nothing accomplished.

Writing this because someone wrote on my Facebook wall that he can’t believe I chose Little Corn Island over some of the other working hubs around the area. I work 1-4 hours a day, every day and the rest of the time is all mine. Sure I’d have a better connection and 24 hour a day power in some major city but this is my life, I only have one. Why spend your winter in some large C. American city when you can walk around a beautiful Caribbean island surrounded by interesting people?

Today before work I went on this long walk with a Danish lady I met a few days ago. We strolled along white sand beaches, went for a swim and explored a tropical wilderness while enjoying each others company. There is more to life than just work, you need to play hard and work hard or it simply isn’t worth it. At the end of the day, we all leave this planet with little more than we came in with. Remember to always look at the big picture.

There is a lot more to choosing an office than just the connection speeds…

Tips hat,

It’s crazy the crazy things people do for money. Was down to my last $20us yesterday and had no choice but to go to an ATM machine as the rains could continue for days. At 6AM the sea was incredibly rough and we all piled into a 30 foot 400hp panga to make our way to Big Corn. The price was double and it took roughly 45 minutes of rough sea to get there. Imagine yourself in the front and side of the boat, at points drop off of what appeared 10-15 feet as you’re riding the side of a large wave, surreal and a Go Pro camera would have been clutch.

Arrive in the rain and make your way to an ATM machine in great haste, take out the wrong amount, then another and your card is locked. Try your other card and it’s just not reading, hooray. Run back to realize the refueling will take hours. End up hanging out with the captain and crew of the panga then head to the gas station and breakfast with them. Few hours later the sea is still rough and head back. Normally a trip to the ATM is no big deal, this involved $20 for two 45-1 hour commutes on rough water and egregious overseas bank fees, wonderful.

Believe the trek from Big Corn to Little Corn is rougher than the reverse. The way back had half the number of people and cargo so a really light bow. This ship got airborn a few times and incredibly rough slaps into the unrelenting oncoming waves. About 30 minutes to the port side was a large storm and looked ugly. Besides us there was no one on this stretch besides a small tug boat with an insane captain.You want power out there so you can maneuver around the waves, not be at their mercy as there is none to be had.

Today the weather is beautiful, but when you need money you do crazy things. The need for money sets the foundation for a monstrous motivation station. Yesterday was the roughest marine experiences I’ve partook in, had I been sitting on cash would not have imagined going.  Odd how it’s always at the least opportune time, yes? Being proactive is the name of the game in traveling and probably life, being reactive is playing on constant defense and at the mercy of external conditions.

The ferry from Koh Phangan to Koh Tao after a full moon is quite intense but you’re on a massive catamaran, quite a different scenario. While walking this morning ran into a crew member and the captain, turns out they went back once more mid day, madness. Supposedly they go everyday regardless of the weather and “accidents” are quite uncommon. That said was talking with the crew so one must make some room for bias.

When you arrive back on Little Corn you really get a great sense of just how remote it is. Big Corn is tiny and it’s like a happening cosmopolitan compared to Little Corn and they even have motorized vehicles! Right near the port I recommend you get some vigron from the blue house inside the port. Also recommend you bang a left and go to the lobster fishermen. My brief encounter on Big Corn has piqued my interest in the place…

Wonder what type of  “crazy things” people are doing for money as you read this!?

Tips hat,

Greetings,

A generation ago people smoked like it was going out of style, in fact it was so in style that everyone did it. People knew it probably wasn’t good for you and in fact detrimental to your health but it persisted. Years later those who abused cigarettes in a most egregious fashion began paying for this habit with their lives. Today people still smoke and we have a generally good idea of the health risks involved. That said, smoking is highly addictive and cigarette companies only make them more addictive because let’s get serious: smokers are a dying breed.

We’re a new generation and cancer is still prevalent in society, most people don’t smoke as well it’s stupid. Today the new problem is sun tanning. We know it’s not good for you and some older people are getting skin cancer but they were exposed to a sun years ago. Currently the ozone layer is deteriorating at alarming rates and the ultra violet rays are becoming increasingly intense and dangerous.

Just like people used to know smoking was bad for you but kept doing it. People know too much sun is bad for you but are still doing it. Just like cigarette companies upped the nicotine and added all these lethal ingredients into their insidious cocktail to keep us hooked, the sun is ramping  up it’s damage. To compare years of suntanning in the 60′s to years of doing it in the 90′s and beyond is asinine.

Why do I mention this? I travel all year for a living now and I’m constantly one of the few gents hiding out in the shade with a shirt and hat on. People come on their vacation and all to often a huge priority is getting as dark as possible to look as “cool” as possible when they get back home. People are even going to tanning salons because being “tanned is cool”. What’s so funny about this is that only white people want to be tanned. In any other ethnicity group around the world, the lighter you are the better.

Suntanning is the new smoking. It’s cool but does nothing for you and in fact will harm you. People know it’s bad but still have no clue what the long term damage will be under the new depleting ozone. Take a look at some of those older ladies who have been going brown / black for years – they look like an old leather bag. Also remember this was from a sun 20-30 years ago. What will the sun kids of today look like in 2030?

Skin cancer is no joke, think about it.

It’s Saturday aka the slowest day of the week for internet traffic. For those of you who find yourself here, I salute you. Please make yourself comfortable and grab a chair in the house of SHABL while I politely request my virtual butler bring you the beverage of your choice. We literally have every beverage known to mankind and whatever else your mind can conjure so don’t hold back, the more obscure the order the happier the staff.

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Greetings,

Being in transit is an interesting place, very similar to Frosh week in the first week of university for those with a personality. Ever notice how back home when you go about your daily grind, people seldom talk to each other? It’s as though “I live in city X, I have X friends and I’m on my way to work”. When you’re traveling and especially in transit, meeting people is incredibly easy and often rewarding…

Don’t expect to meet your wife / husband in transit but you may. Do expect to have countless candid conversations with people you’d never normally associate with for whatever reason. Also you never know when that person next to you may be right up your alley. Remember a time I got on a flight and they lady next to me was this beautiful British flight attendant from Dubai and she had amazing teeth, awesome. The worst was on my first overnight. I remember walking in and seeing this whale of a woman taking up almost 3 seats and began sweating. Luckily I was one seat behind her, unfortunately she had the wrong seat and before we took off she sat next to me. It was a red eye and sad to say that I slept on one of her rolls. A similar “good time” was my red eye from Ethiopia to Thailand, she was also large and very much “in charge” if that makes sense.

I think of this as I’ve just had random conversations with a few random people and it’s been nice. It’s like you are friends with nobody but distant acquaintances with everybody. More importantly, saw this intriguing lady getting on in Montreal and she was sitting right in front of me, this random dude got on and they hit it off. When I left I saw them walking and talking about getting a coffee together and who knows where it may end?

So you know, in the past 3 months I’ve been home, have met very few people. By meet people I mean exchange pleasantries, a laugh or shoot the shizzle for a few min while waiting in line or whatever. Whenever you’re on the road it’s just night and day. Maybe it’s Ottawa or maybe it’s that when people are at home and in work mode, they aren’t as open as when they travel? I’d say the latter.

Tips hat,