We just launched a new version of BraveNewCode, and I'm officially on holidays now. So, starting tomorrow I'll be relaxing, Christmas shopping, and finishing getting my things in order prior to the move.
Today marks the two week mark until I leave Chilliwack. On Sunday the 2nd, I'll finish saying my goodbyes around town and head into the city. I'll be staying at a hotel for a few days out there so that I can visit with a few friends and do a bit of last minute shopping prior to flying out.
It hasn't completely hit me yet that I'll be leaving and most likely not coming back for a full year. I've ...
I'm one of those people that always purchases travel health insurance whenever I go out of country. Normally you just go down to the insurance broker, fill out a bit of paperwork, and leave with an insurance policy that will cover you in the event of any emergency.
I figured (incorrectly) that it would be just as easy to obtain insurance for my upcoming trip, which is why I left it until the last minute. I've slowly been chipping away at the problem for the last month or so, and finally managed to acquire some insurance.
British Columbia's MSP
Most of the problem with extended travel insurance ...
Today is December 4th, which means at around 9am exactly 30 days from now I'll be aboard a plane slowly climbing out of Vancouver airport and heading towards Houston. I have a six hour layover in Houston airport, after which I'll be boarding an evening 10.5 hour flight for Buenos Aires, Argentina, arriving around 9am in the morning there. So, a full 24 hours of traveling from airport to airport.
This last month has been quite stressful. It's one thing to move from one apartment to another, but a different experience entirely moving from one apartment to no-where. Instead of transferring items ...
One of the obvious problems with going away for a whole year is figuring out what to do with your mail. While many services and companies these days offer paperless options, many still do not. I know first hand that if your VISA bill gets returned to sender, the very first thing the VISA company will do is put a hold on your card until you get a proper address again. So it's important to have your mail end up somewhere.
I briefly debated asking someone in my family to look after all my mail for me. The idea there would be to simply use one of their house addresses as my address, and have them ...
My recent trip to Mexico gave me my first real opportunity to use my iPad on a travel adventure. I haven't really had a lot of time to try watching movies or TV shows on it, and thought it would be fun to try watching a movie on the plane instead of paying for an inflight movie on WestJet.
I loaded my iPad up with Mission Impossible III, Dances with Wolves (I had a copy floating around) and a few new episodes of House. I also made sure I charged the device up to 100% before leaving for the airport.
The first great thing about having the iPad loaded with movies is that you can watch them whenever ...
I did a post a while ago detailing my plans to finally give up my no-fee bank account at PC Financial and move to a full service bank in preparation for my trip. How come, you ask?
First, the idea of having a no-frills bank while in another country just seems far too risky. If I hit a snag, I definitely want to be able to pick up the phone and call someone for help. While PC Financial does offer phone service, in my experience very basic things like obtaining certified cheques or doing wire transfers are often a pain. While PC Financial is a subsidiary of CIBC, it's still a small arm of it, so ...
I did a post a while ago detailing my plans to finally give up my no-fee bank account at PC Financial and move to a full service bank in preparation for my trip. How come, you ask?
First, the idea of having a no-frills bank while in another country just seems far too risky. If I hit a snag, I definitely want to be able to pick up the phone and call someone for help. While PC Financial does offer phone service, in my experience very basic things like obtaining certified cheques or doing wire transfers are often a pain. While PC Financial is a subsidiary of CIBC, it's still a small arm of it, so ...
I had an idea roughly ten years ago out in Ottawa for a website or service that would let you pick your starting destination and get a list of possible ending destinations. That idea came out of a trip my friend Rob and I tried (unsuccessfully) to go on. We were both sick of our day jobs in Ottawa, had lots of money (compared to other 24 year olds), and had a long weekend coming up. So we started calling travel agents, telling them we didn't really care where we went, as long as we got the hell out of town. Despite our efforts, we came up empty handed since none of the travel agents or their ...
I went looking tonight to find out what the new 7 Wonders of the World were. I remember as a kid hearing that phrase a few times, and I thought there would be some straightforward list somewhere that simply listed them off in order. Unfortunately I've now come to the realization that there are many different variants of the list, all of which were undoubtedly influenced by different countries trying to be on the list such that their tourism industries would benefit. In fact, if you browse through the Wikipedia entries for Wonders Of The World, you'll find around six or seven different variants, ...
It would be pretty hard to call myself a Migratory Nerd if I wasn't in fact a pretty big technology nerd. Thankfully, I have enough photography and technological gear around here that it's pretty easy to describe myself as a nerd.
In a perfect world, I'd be able to bring everything along with me. But given that I want to travel with a 40L backpack, I'm not really going to have a ton of room in there.
The following is a list of the technology I'll be bringing along on my little adventure.
13" Macbook Pro
![](images/macbook13-300x174.jpg "13" Macbook Pro")
The idea that people ...
I'm originally from a small little town about 150 kilometres east of Vancouver called Chilliwack. It's a picturesque farming town nestled between a few mountain ranges, and far enough away from Vancouver to have a little peace and quiet.
And while Chilliwack is my birthplace and where my most of my family lives, I've spent nearly a third of my life living in Vancouver, either out at UBC where I did nine years of post secondary education, or in the downtown core, where I've worked the majority of my career.
When I set out on my upcoming travel adventure, it'll be from a familiar place: Vancouver ...
For the most part, I'll be spending the majority of my time in Argentina around the city of Buenos Aires. While there, I plan to sample as much culture as possible, and hopefully spend some of my down time getting private Spanish lessons.
Near the end of my time in Argentina though, I'm hoping to take a week or two off and actually do a bit of exploring around the country. One of the attractions I've been told to not miss is Iguazu Falls, which is located right on border between Brazil and Argentina.
It's quite the trek from Buenos Aires to the border of Brazil, and I'll probably have to take ...
There was a time when I had over $6,000 worth of camera gear sitting in my computer room. I love photography, and having a whole kit full of professional lens is great to have, but it's not really very practical to lug that much gear around, especially if you're trying to travel light.
I've spent a lot of time over these last few months thinking about what type of camera gear to bring. My first plan was to simply take along a high-end point and shoot camera and make due with that. Given that my old Canon Digital Elph was dying, I went out and bought one of the nicest compact cameras I could find: ...
About a year ago I reverted this site to a simple theme, mainly because I haven't been entirely sure what to do with it. I set out about six weeks ago to do a refresh of this site that would cater to some of my upcoming travel adventures. As I got about half way on it, I realized it probably would make more sense to do a dedicated travel site catering to people who want to explore world travel and also for traveling techies like my self to get more information about some of the places I've visited.
So, that's what I ended up doing. My new site is called The Migratory Nerd, and is at themigratorynerd.com. ...
I decided about six weeks ago that I wanted to have a completely different online presence for my travel adventures. While my personal site has served me well by allowing me to write about personal subjects and technology over the last few years, it's become somewhat disjointed. So, with conscious effort I have finally managed to put something together with a specific focus: travel.
Unlike most versions of my website, which normally take all of about two or three days for me to get online, I've slowly been tinkering with this one for the past few weeks. I haven't had a lot of time, so mostly ...
Yesterday morning I woke up to a call from Passport Canada that basically let me know that they didn't really have a solution to my problem. From their perspective all I had to do was to drive down to Vancouver, show some ID, and pick up my passport. The main obstacle was that Canada Post was saying that they would refuse to release it to me within a government issued ID that has my old address on it.
Despite all that, I figured it was worth a shot anyways, so I packed up some documents that had my old address on them (including a copy of my 2009 tax return, and some T4 slips), and headed into ...
Well, according to my little Excel spreadsheet, my trip begins in 96 days now. Depending on whether or not you’re a glass is half full or half empty kind of person, that will seem like a lot of time or not very much. It doesn’t seem like very much time to me, considering how much I need to still do before taking off.
First, I gave notice on my apartment the other day. My landlord confirmed it today, which basically means the clock is ticking on this place. I’ve been waiting for October to officially arrive before starting the mad craigslist dash to sell pretty much everything that isn’t ...
A few days ago I pulled the trigger on a trip to the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. I'll actually be heading down there with Dale, mostly so we can drink a few beers and also strategize a bit about the next year before I head off on my little adventure.
While we sometimes meet in Hamilton or Chilliwack, it's obviously much nicer to be able to have those kind of meetings around a pool in Mexico with some nachos and beers. And truthfully, it's really not much more money to meet down there: a typical trip to Hamilton during high season probably runs $700-$800 for the flight, plus all the expenses we incur ...
I won't lie: I hate banks.
Other than PC Financial (which has been my main bank since I was about 20 years old), the major banks absolutely gouge their customers. I remember once going into TD when I was in university and asking to open a savings account. Once they showed me their fee structure, I realized there was absolutely no way I'd actually be able to save money using that account, since the costs each month were greater than the interest they paid. Consequently I have been a member of PC Financial since that time, and haven't paid a single fee.
That said, I've been strongly considering ...
In about ten days, I'll be giving my notice on my apartment out here in Chilliwack. Without a doubt, it's probably the the nicest place I've ever lived in. High ceilings. Crown mouldings. Gas fireplace. Air conditioning. Patio. Hardwood floors. Definitely pretty posh, despite being in the middle of farmland here.
I've been asked a few times if it's hard to give this apartment up. Truthfully, not really. Having gone to university for eight years and stayed in university dorms for five of them, you get pretty used to living light and moving in and out of random places. In fact, I remember literally ...