It's been sitting on my bookshelf for years, a novel by a favorite travel writer and a recommended read from everyone, including my high school English teacher. Bill Bryson set the stage for my Australian experience in 2009 with In a Sunburned Country and had me audibly exclaiming from his brutal descriptions of small-town life. In this book, Bill attempts to charge through the over 2,100 miles of mountainous footpath called the Appalachian Trail. This is probably as close as I'll come to tackling the trail myself, and through what vehicle would this vicarious journey be better than through the ...
My reading comprehension is atrocious, my tracking snail-like. The only thing I remember from high school reading is Holden Caulfield's half-gray hair and his famous line with middle fingers extended toward his despised boarding school. I love to read, and I always have; I'm just not very good at it. And just as I would rather visit a new country than repeat an old one, I try not to re-read books I've tackled in the past. Though plots and anecdotes don't stick in my memory, my impression of the book always does. That's why I remember how much I loved Alain ...
I've been vague for months about what I do now. This is the long-alluded-to explanation of my new employment and how I got it. In this evolving career of mine, I've taken many different tactics to attracting and pursuing jobs. I've 'dressed for the job I wanted' by creating the content I like to make, hoping those who need that work get wind of mine. Years of shooting resumes and cover letters into the online abyss that is an HR email account has never wielded the results most Baby Boomers seem to believe in adamantly. That act feels like tweeting to ...
Send in your questions, too! Hi Lindsay, I have just been accepted by SAS for the Spring 2011 voyage, and I randomly chanced upon your website. I am currently having a hard time trying to decide between a Semester at Sea program and a study abroad program in Berlin. I know they sound very different, but I think they appeal to different parts of me, which makes it even harder to decide. Hence, I have some questions about your experience if you don't mind answering: When you were traveling around the ports, did you feel they were too touristy? I don't want to ...
My first language post arose from a desire to document and transmit the full experience of being in a relatively unknown culture: tribal Fiji. I didn't expect many people to find such a write-up relevant, but it dawned on me after hundreds of hits that lesser-known languages need some limelight, too. One could travel to Haiti and speak French; there would be virtually no gap in communication. But, I didn't have the luxury of French and instead opted for downloading some free software to learn Haitian Creole. Because I've spent the last eleven years learning languages that pack very few superfluous ...
I've decided that, these days, if I can produce a blog post a month, I'm a lucky gal. Lucky to find breaths between beloved jobs to do similar work of my own volition. Lucky to be able to reflect on experiences and milk what value can be gathered. I doubt the cafe I edited in today for four hours felt lucky to have a table occupied by a one cappuccino gal, but I'm lucky I found that space this month to process my August road trip through New England. What was meant to be a longer trek through areas of Maine ...
I've been a big time fan of Big Tony B. since the No Reservations series began in 2005. His approach to travel television and subjective, experiential authenticity abroad felt so relevant amidst a sea of market-y documentation. His conceptual thread continues to be pretty darn obvious, which makes it easy to instantly jump on the Bourdain train. But for his fellow Travel Channel host (and our Creative Council member), Andrew Zimmern, I had a harder time identifying what truly made him tick and drove him to produce what he does. Thankfully, I had a recent opportunity to hear Zimmern clarify ...
A break from being on-location isn't a vacation; it's when post-production begins. The gray days of Indiana don't make me feel guilty for holing up in my room, rubbing elbows with the likes of Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. Though I got to experience some incredible sights in my three months in Ecuador, the majority of my time was spent staring at a similar vista: a high-powered spread of Steve Jobs' many contributions to society. With two terabytes of content to weed through, the process is slow and deliberate. As media specialist, I have to provide the window into life and ...
I call myself a writer, but I haven't written - really written - in two months. Since my last real musing, I traveled to three regions of Haiti, frequented my second Carnival celebration, had a random reunion with a travel friend in the middle of a street parade, hosted my best friend and travel gal for a week in New York City, and traveled across the world to Thailand for production. I should have many a post on my site by now regarding all the previously mentioned events and experiences. Instead, I am a chicken sans head with too many ...
I know many of you amongst the Nomadderwhere readership jumped on board after seeing the World Traveler Internship. A year after my WTI, I still receive messages from people in search of such great opportunities in the travel world or wondering how to snag such jobs that require some online savvy and marketing know-how. Therefore, when I hear about new marketing schemes that send people on the road for free or for pay, I'm inspired to pass the info along to you, the reader. A friend forwarded this opportunity my way, and I think many of you will find this an ...
I took a vacation for myself, and it was evidence enough that the casual weekend away should be more of a priority. It was close by, surprisingly economical, and equivalent to a routine enema - a metaphorical flushing of habitual activity, not your bi-weekly bowl of Colon Blow. Here's a vignette of my weekend with friends in Boston, Massachusetts. I'm overly focused on the long-term trip, when really there are far more people (especially in America) poised and prepared to go somewhere for a couple days than there are people raring for an RTW. Are there any weekend trips you've always wanted ...
My mind finally smells summer. I've been away from Indiana for the past two summers and away from Wabash during the summertime since I moved away ten years ago. Having spent the majority of my childhood outside, I've been unknowingly pining for the familiar olfactory triggers, which I still can't define well: aromatic greens of unknown classification, warming as though being slowly cooked, lawn mower engine fuel, chlorine and very cold water, heat radiating from the cement below my bicycle tires, sometimes fresh asphalt but most often cracked sidewalks and gravel-sprinkled roads. Though some of these seem like multi-sensory experiences - not ...
Dear Internet, I’ve been horrible, saying I’m going to write and then rarely following through. And it’s not for lack of noteworthy developments; this was an unbelievably unpredictable and diverse 2011, with certain promise of continuation in 2012. Upon returning to Indiana this holiday season, to a world so different from my working one, I managed to find only one word that adequately describes my baffled reflection on the year’s events: weird. How did I experience the myriad twists, obstacles, and accomplishments that plopped me into the role I'm in now? Did that all really just happen? And I didn't even really ...
It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years, a novel by a favorite travel writer and a recommended read from everyone, including my high school English teacher. Bill Bryson set the stage for my Australian experience in 2009 with In a Sunburned Country and had me audibly exclaiming from his brutal descriptions of small-town life. [...]
Dear Internet, I’ve been horrible, saying I’m going to write and then rarely following through. And it’s not for lack of noteworthy developments; this was an unbelievably unpredictable and diverse 2011, with certain promise of continuation in 2012. Upon returning to Indiana this holiday season, to a world so different from my working one, I [...]
Living in one place for a couple months – regardless of one’s experience – inevitably causes nostalgia upon leaving and for a succeeding period of time. If it was a bad time, the pleasant memories override the bad, and if it was a good time, as was Ecuador, everything habitual and endearing continues to perpetuate [...]
I’ve decided that, these days, if I can produce a blog post a month, I’m a lucky gal. Lucky to find breaths between beloved jobs to do similar work of my own volition. Lucky to be able to reflect on experiences and milk what value can be gathered. I doubt the cafe I edited in [...]
My entire summer was a jig-saw puzzle to assemble. Trips, subleases, weddings, births, and work were spaced out just so, as to make every two-week chunk a mystery until it was present. All flights were booked dangerously close to the week of departure, some including feline carry-ons and 12 hour durations. On top of air [...]
I took a vacation for myself, and it was evidence enough that the casual weekend away should be more of a priority. It was close by, surprisingly economical, and equivalent to a routine enema – a metaphorical flushing of habitual activity, not your bi-weekly bowl of Colon Blow. Here’s a vignette of my weekend with [...]
A self-starting, world traveling, commercial fishing, supremely athletic, go-getter. That’s a whole lot of epithets. For those of you who haven’t yet read up on Sierra, be sure to check out Part 1 of this series before reading on to learn more about her new project in Alaska! Sierra Anderson and I have only met [...]
My mind finally smells summer. I’ve been away from Indiana for the past two summers and away from Wabash during the summertime since I moved away ten years ago. Having spent the majority of my childhood outside, I’ve been unknowingly pining for the familiar olfactory triggers, which I still can’t define well: aromatic greens of [...]
Today’s documentation of the travel and blogging world is a little slim but can plunge you into a lotta deep thought. The Four Burners and Success Who really has a balanced life? I’d like to think that overall the way I conduct myself on a year-long basis levels out between travel and home, physicality and [...]
Traveling creates a lifestyle of constant challenges, which then facilitate self-discovery and, in turn, happiness. This week, I report from my post alone in northern Indiana to ask you: how would you challenge yourself with a home experiment that would simulate the effects of travel? Notes from this week’s Video of the Week: I continue [...]
After one successful week of relative seclusion in northern Indiana, I’ve got some thoughts to share – musings, if you will. Your feedback is strongly encouraged.
Haven’t seen one of these in a while, huh? A video of the week or a webcam special. I finally got my act together! Enjoy. Notes from this week’s video: ProjectExplorer.org is in post-production stateside after a fantastic filming session in Mexico. I’m moving out of my parent’s house for a month for some seclusion [...]
Visiting Chicago for me is like visiting the secret garden in the back yard I never realized was so damn cool. Here are some shots from a great trip in November that going along nicely with my Ten Great Ideas for Chicago. Subscribe to Nomadderwhere’s posts via RSS feed or e-mail
Hope this makes for excellent coffee shop reading material this Sunday morning. Gooooo travel! We’re #1! No, really! Even though our tourism numbers are going down the pooper because of the economic downward “flush,” we still managed to beat out countries like New Zealand and Japan in the Country Brand Index, which is “an online [...]
Spiders with glowing orange backs crawling inches from my nose, building forts across the rock ledge where I sprawled to overlook a 30-foot waterfall. A canopy of greens I’d never see at home shading from a sun that could surely turn me crispy. One rock thrown over the edge to crash dramatically on the mammoth [...]
Just had to share this. Taken at the Indianapolis Airport before leaving on the trip.
A torrential downpour washed Dallas clean on the day of our departure. It wasn’t the most comforting story to see on a big flight day when the television discussed the Air France flight lost in the abyss of the Atlantic Ocean. But we took comfort in the odds that a similar accident of lightning striking [...]
Dallas is quite a sprawling metropolis, and at her outskirts is a little place some call Heaven…others call Lewisville. When Carly brought us into view of this nook of Texas, I was enthralled by the George Jetson highways soaring above us, the rhythm of strip malls and restaurants lining all roads, and the amount of [...]
From my spot in seat 12D on that much-awaited flight out, I took a bird’s-eye-view of Indianapolis and said “sayonara”; I was heading off to be part of the COOLEST INTERNSHIP ON THE PLANET! Pumped. I was so pumped to be traveling again, especially towards an opportunity that could open up mounds of possibilities down [...]
