As much as I love travelling to new places, you’ll often hear me complaining about how much I dislike the process of travelling – the airports, customs line-ups, security line-ups, crappy airport food, turbulence, jet-lag and many more. For new travellers, these things are somewhat exciting in their own right, but after a while they grow old and tiring. With that in mind, I was recently reading Anthony Bourdain’s travel tips via a link on Facebook (most of which are great) and thought I would follow up with a point-by-point comparison of some of my tips. The first thing I do is I dress ...

The last time I was in Brazil, I was there from June until August in 2013, which was basically the tail-end of their winter. The weather was actually quite nice (compared to a Canadian winter), with most days hovering around 20C. But I haven’t experienced summer in South America since my first trip to Argentina in 2011. Given that it’s been snowing and below zero here in Hamilton for the last two weeks, seeing the sun again and 30C days is going to be a great change. I’m flying out of Pearson in the early afternoon on Wednesday, with a brief 4-hour stop over in New York City. I found a flight ...

One of the first things I did when I committed myself to travelling around the world was to set up a blog. Indeed, I recently just assisted two other people in getting theirs up, one for a trip around the world, and one for a yearly RV trip down to Arizona. This post will give you easy instructions for how to set up a blog using WordPress. Part of the motivation I find with most people is the desire to share some of their experiences, both positive and negative, with others. Since so much of travel research is done these days via the Internet, the desire for most people to contribute to that wealth ...

When you do a ton of traveling, you are invariably faced with finding accommodation wherever you end up. While it’s possible to find private apartment rentals for a week at a time, most people that aren’t traveling as part of a vacation package generally opt for a hotel for shorter trips. I’m no stranger to booking hotels online. In fact, I started using Hotwire for most of my bookings not long after the service first came out. While I sometimes wait until I get to a destination prior to booking a hotel, for the most part I book online beforehand to minimize stress when I arrive. Through ...

As I pointed out previously, I’m in the process of moving to Hamilton to spend a year working out of BraveNewCode’s new offices. I flew out and spent some time out there in April and May, mainly just to find a place to live. But now that I have an apartment lined up, I’m back in British Columbia getting ready to do a road trip across North America with my girlfriend. My Car, a Mazda 3 Sport Most people really have no appreciation for how large of a country both Canada and the United States are. I once had a friend fly into Toronto and email me to see if I could drive out to see him from ...

I started my long-term travel adventures in January of 2011, almost 2.5 years ago. Looking back, I really had no idea how the airline systems worked: I wasn’t really collecting any sort of air-miles, didn’t know how to fly for free, nor was I trying to get to any type of elite status (I didn’t even really know how to be honest). Iguazu Falls, on my first trip to Argentina in 2011 After 2.5 years though, I’ve finally hit my travel groove. So lately I’ve been dedicating efforts towards taking advantage of some of the cracks in the system to make the most of my travel adventures and to ...

It’s hard to be in New Zealand and not eventually stumble upon some of the filming locations from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. While most of the scenic areas from the films are on the South Island, there are plenty of opportunities on the North Island to take a visit to Middle Earth, most notable is of course Hobbiton near Matamata. Me on a camping chair Edoras During our two week campervan adventure on New Zealand’s south island, we had an impromptu idea to visit Edoras, which was the primary filming location for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It’s situated on private property, ...

I posted around Christmas about a project I was starting to build an electric brewery. I realized recently that I hadn’t given an update with it basically since then, and thought it was time to share the progress. Most of the parts were waiting for me back in Canada when I arrived back from Australia, so I laid them all out on my temporary butcher block work station for assembly. That butcher block is actually a 7′ countertop from Home Depot that I got on sale – eventually it will form the base for the brewery itself. The parts for the electric brewery Before working on the brew kettles, ...

In just a few weeks, I’ll be boarding a plane and making the roughly four hour trip to Ontario (seven if you count a quick nacho stopover in Calgary). As I’ve indicated on Facebook, my plan is to move to Hamilton, Ontario for probably a year or so, mostly to work with Dale on some projects at BraveNewCode. Without a doubt I’m looking forward to a new change, as I originally moved out here to Chilliwack to help get BraveNewCode off the ground, something that happened nearly five years ago. In terms of logistics, Ontario is actually quite a bit better for me. It’s closer to Europe, which ...

One of my main strategies for earning free airline travel that I discuss in my eBook is leveraging a travel rewards card. For most people simply using a travel reward card for day-to-day purchases is enough to earn a free vacation each and every year. I’ve been using a few different cards for three years now, and I’ve earned a full return trip to Machu Picchu in Peru, a free return trip to Auckland, New Zealand, and enough for another trans-continental trip already accumulated. And all I had to do was sign-up and use it monthly. Almost all travel reward cards include health-insurance for short-term ...

I friend of mine recently asked if I was putting all my beer recipes online, and I unfortunately was forced to answer no. When I started brewing I tried to put them all online, but the write-ups just took too long. So I’ve decided to start posting them again, but in a very limited format. That way it doesn’t take me long to post them, and hopefully I can solicit input from others. Beer Information My goal for this beer was to make something easily drinkable for some of my family that generally prefers lagers, and tend not to like really bitter ales. I find most blonde ales a bit boring, so ...

A recently brewed an American India Pale Ale over the Christmas break. Beer Information Roughly 8G of wort on the stove I’m a big fan of American IPAs, and it’s usually what I drink when I’m lounging around home and I feel the need for a beer. Here are the target stats for this brew: BJCP Style: India Pale Ale – American IPA OG: 1.064 FG: 1.010 IBU: 65 ABV: 6.5% Color: 8 Batch Size: 5G Boil Duration: 60 mins Mash Temperature: 151F Brew Date: December 24th, 2013 Grain Bill 13lb 10oz – Canadian Pale Ale Malt 10oz – Caramel 40L 6oz – Caramel 15L 6oz – Wheat Malt Hop Bill/Schedule 1oz ...

I started brewing beers at home a little over a year ago. Having no real experience before starting, I did what most people do in this day and age and tried to read as much as I could on the internet as I could before starting. While many people start with extract brewing, I decided at the time to just dive right in with all-grain brewing. Like most beginners, I made many mistakes when I started. But over time I have slowly improved the areas where I felt most deficient and have generally been making better and better beers (at least in my mind). Like most home brewers, the part of the process ...

Over the past few years I’ve flown to many exotic destinations New Zealand, Brazil, and even Peru. Normally those trips would costs thousands of dollars, but I managed to do all three trips for free thanks to several of my travel reward credit cards. Most seasoned travellers already know this, but many credit card companies offer travel products that help their customers earn free travel. For every purchase you charge to your credit card, the credit card company will give you a credit for future travel in the form of ‘mileage’. That mileage is usually tracked on your credit card statement ...

There are a few privileged travelers that you encounter from time to time who don’t really seem to have any sort of budget. Often they have saved for several years and intend to continue traveling until it simply runs out. But for the rest of us, traveling for more than a week or two often means that we have to stick to a pre-defined budget for a particular trip. I know personally that spending money is the one main aspect of traveling that causes me stress, more so than worrying about theft or how to get to and from places. That’s why I try to set aside a certain amount of money beforehand ...

Unless you are coming from Australia, you’ll likely arrive in New Zealand and be instantly surprised with how hard it is to find usable Internet, or how much money you have to pay to get online. Sure, some coffee shops give you 30 minutes of free time with the purchase of a coffee, but that’s hardly enough time to send a few emails or check in with friends and family on Facebook. If you want to do anything useful, such as upload photos or do a few online chats with people back home, you’re going to find it very difficult all over New Zealand unless you’re willing to shell out $3-$5 an ...

Whenever a person goes to a new destination, one of the first things they need to decide is what they are going to bring. And for most people, that depends on the duration of the trip and likely how far they will be traveling. If I go anywhere for a month or more, I often take one of my larger suitcases to minimize laundry. I figure since I am allowed to check a bag on the plane, I may as well take advantage of it. And since I usually rent a full apartment in a new location, I have room to store the suitcase. But when you have a suitcase it’s often hard to be spontaneous. If you go sightseeing, ...

A little over 24 hours ago we boarded Air New Zealand flight 83 in Vancouver for a 14-hour trip back to Auckland, New Zealand. I spent four weeks in Auckland about two years ago and really enjoyed myself. My original plan at the time was to slowly make my way south to the South Island and spend some time in a CamperVan, but eventually decided against it because I couldn’t find anyone to share the adventure with me. Luciana in Auckland Thankfully now I have a girlfriend, and she was excited to spend a few weeks in a CamperVan in New Zealand. So we booked a three week trip back to New Zealand, ...

A few years ago I visited my physician here in Chilliwack with a complaint of nasal congestion that simply wouldn’t go away. It’s something that I’ve mostly always dealt with, but only started to complain about it when I realized that other people didn’t seem to have the same problem. My doctor noticed that the inside of the nose was inflamed, so he prescribed nasal corticosteroids to help me breathe better. Since that time I’ve visited many different countries around the world. In some of them my nose was just as congested as it was back home. But in many of them my nose completely ...

About a year ago I picked up a new hobby – home brewing. I had quite a few friends who were into the hobby before me, and it just so happened that there was pretty great home-brew supply shop in town. So I thought at the time it would be fun to try my hand at brewing my own beer at home. I quite enjoy the entire brewing process to be honest. For me a picture-perfect Sunday usually involves a few movies on Netflix, a roast chicken in the oven for a late dinner, and brewing an occasional beer over the course of the day. That said my two least favourite aspects of the beer making process involve ...