So here it is, your round-the-world itinerary for this Summer: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil and the US. Brilliant.
How much is all of this going to cost you? Nothing.
What’s the catch?
You have to win the STA Travel’s 2010 World Traveller Internship – so less of a catch, more of a competition. Somebody’s got to see those sights, however, so it might as well be you.
I’ve pleased to be lending a hand in judging the third round of the contest, so I thought I’d tell you a little about it.
Not only is this internship about experiencing the world, it’s about sharing those experiences – perhaps through blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or my favourite platform of the moment, audioBoo. So during the judging round we’ll take an interest in you if you’re ravenous to travel, but also if you’re capable of engaging an audience, narrating a story, allowing others to walk by your side, to see the world through your eyes, to travel vicariously through you.
Interested? Of course you are. See the 2010 World Traveller Internship website here, and read more about the entry process here. There’s also a video of the Internship launch worth watching on YouTube.
A word of advice – if you want this opportunity, get in there now. To reach the second round, you to among the 50 most popular entries, so you’ll stand a better chance if you enter soon and drum up votes from friends and colleagues. Good luck!
Not so long ago, I was quite rude about Barcelona. It had been a favourite haunt of mine, just a few pounds and a couple of hours away via budget airline, but a series of events seriously soured my love for the city.
Last month I returned after a year’s absence – the first time for a week to knuckle down and write, the second time to celebrate my first wedding anniversary. Had anything changed? I think so. Barcelona certainly felt more accommodating. There was a higher police presence in the city centre and along La Rambla, and despite inclement weather there were plenty of people enjoying the streets.
El Ravel, the slums of the old city that have been gentrified in the last decade, is finally enjoying a trickle of curious tourists – the redevelopment of La Rambla Del Raval is drawing people through and into the neighbourhood. That’s not to say there weren’t some characters still hanging about outside Bar Marcella. While writing I’d stopped in Sant Antoni, the neighbourhood to the west of El Ravel, very working class with few attractions for the tourists. Again, the streets were quiet and safe after dusk.
Whether the authorities have dealt with the issue of gang crime and prostitution or simply moved it along, is another story. It’s a problem that Barcelona has never seemed to solve satisfactorily, but at least now it’s not so blatantly obvious as it was when it made front page news in Spain last year. I didn’t like that Barcelona very much.
That said, you still need to stick to the rules. Leave everything you can in the hotel – if you don’t need a handbag or backpack, don’t take it. If an opportunist doesn’t try and mug you, they may slash the bottom of the bag to steal. Wallets, phones, purses – inside a jacket that’s zipped up, or front trouser pockets only. You get the idea.
I didn’t stray too far from the city centre on the second occasion, but discovered loads of new treats such as Carrer de Josep Anselm Clave in the Old Town, a narrow street away from the base of La Rambla and running parallel to the sea front. It’s chock full of restaurants and bars, including the delectable Margarita Blue, which promises live trapeze acts through the week. Nearby Carrer Ample and Carrer de la Merce have an abundance of stops, too. In fact there’s a whole night out waiting for you in just these three streets.
And this, by the way, was what happened when I asked for a reccommendation from the locals in an El Born restaurant. Ladies and gentlemen, horse pizza. I’ll try anything once. But not necessarily twice.
Filed under: twitchhiker project | Tags: finals, shorty awards, travel, twitchhiker, voting
Today marks exactly one year since the concept for the Twitchhiker project was conceived. I can’t quite believe how time has scurried by so quickly – or how it has changed my life.
I never expected it to, and I vehemently resisted it in the beginning. I just wanted everything to settle down, to get back to work, spend time with my family. I didn’t act on the calls to write a book – I accepted the offer of an agent but I barely lifted a finger. Nor did I bother exploiting what had become a brand, despite some very adamant individuals with money wanting me to.
But slowly, everything changed. I changed. I found myself wanting to travel more – I’m desperate to travel to Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore when I have the money. I’ve been back to New Zealand, albeit briefly – I hovered in Auckland airport for an hour or two on my way to Australia to blog about Crave Sydney. I am writing a book, although that offer didn’t appear until November – eight months after I’d finished my trip. And aside from this blog, I’ve given up on travel writing – I haven’t the time for commissioning editors who either ignore every pitch or blatantly steal them, passing them onto staff writers as a cheaper option.
And now, on the first anniversary of Twitchhiker, we’re able to celebrate it all over again.
Twitchhiker is in the finalists for the Shorty Awards, a celebration of people who have done something different and unique with Twitter – it’s among a handful of brilliant finalists in the travel section.
Plenty of you have voted for Twitchhiker in the past month and for that I’m blatheringly grateful. To win, however, I need one last favour: the voting for the winner in each category begins at midday EST tomorrow (5pm for the UK) and continues for just five days. While the winner isn’t simply determined by the quantity of votes – other factors are taken into account – it certainly can’t hinder our chances.
So. If you thought Twitchhiker was a fun, interesting, unique or standout use of Twitter – please vote tomorrow.
When I talk about this, or Twitchhiker in general, I tend to about we, not I – I might have been the point man, but it never would have worked without the 40 or so people who directly helped me, the hundreds of offers, the thousands of followers or those that donated of thousands of pounds to charity: water. As far as unique, community-driven, travel-related uses of Twitter go, I don’t think it has been topped, and a Shorty Award would be the perfect way to celebrate what we did together.
It’d be fun to win. Not just for me, but for you too. Let’s see how the week goes.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently bashing out letters and words in chaotic fashion, in the hope that they’ll be vaguely entertaining and cohesive enough to form a book to be published later this year. I have to deliver 90,000 words to my editor by Friday 26th February. Have many have I wrote so far? Well… let’s not talk about that. I appear to be writing backwards.
I had an idea about involving Twitter users once more in the tale of Twitchhiker – since the publishers Summersdale found the book through Twitter and the story owes everything to the Twitter community, it’d be fitting to find a cover artist through Twitter also.
The publishers like the idea too, so if you’re an artist or designer (especially with book cover experience) interested in proposing a book cover design, then you can send ideas or roughs to jennifer@summersdale.com. The publisher adds that “a fee (in keeping with our standard fees) will be paid for any design that Summersdale decides to proceed with, although Summersdale reserves the right not to proceed with any submitted ideas if they feel none is suitable”.
You’ve got until Friday (8th) to get in touch with Jennifer if you’re interested – she’s a very nice lady so don’t be shy. I’m not allowed to do it – I last designed a book cover when I was 18, chopping up my mum’s medical encyclopedia for the cover of my bestseller The Stranger Things. Of course the publishing world and I had differing views on that point, and I don’t think I told my mum about her encyclopedia. And Jennifer doesn’t want a cover with exploded brain matter on it, so I’m out. Over to you!
Obviously it’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow, but New Year’s Day begins in less than 24 hours if you happen to live in New Zealand and the like.
It’d be fun to record New Year messages to other Twitter users as 2010 begins, from wherever we happen to be in the world. We now have the tools to join together and spread a little goodwill and connect with one another, and that alone seems like a good reason to try it. Plus, we’d hear accents from all corners of the globe, the parties, music, fireworks – or maybe perfect calm as somebody sees in the new year alone – and we’d capture and share a moment that unites everyone.
If you want to join in, it’s really easy. Assuming you’re already on Twitter, here’s what you need to do:
First, take a look at AudioBoo.fm – it’s an outrageously simple way of recording short clips of audio (“boos”) and posting them direct to Twitter. I’ve used AudioBoo loads – it’s brilliant for recording sounds and interviews on the move. Get registered (that’s easy too) and you’re almost set.
Then decide how you want to record your new year message to the world. There a free app for iPhone users (search for AudioBoo) but anybody with a mobile can record a boo, too – see the instructions for PhoneBoo here. Alternatively, if you’re at home and there’s a computer nearby you can upload audio straight to the AudioBoo site (assuming your PC or laptop has a mic).
When you give your boo a title, say where it was recorded and add the hashtag #newyearboo so people can search for and find your message.
And that’s it! No doubt the mobile networks will fall over at midnight, so if you do record a boo on your iPhone, it might be worth hanging onto it for half an hour before attempting to send – you can close the AudioBoo application down and it’ll keep the last recording you made.
Hope you take part – even if you’re a little squiffy and miss midnight, send a message later and wish the world a happy new year.
Heavy fluffs of snow have been descending from the sky all morning – I daren’t do much more than whisper it, but for the first time since I was a kid, it looks like it’ll be a white Christmas at home in Gateshead.
I’ve just started preparing lunch for tomorrow, beginning with the bread sauce. There’ll only be me eating it, which is a shame because it’s fantastic with chicken and turkey, a fragrant and tasty sauce scented with cloves and bay leaves. It’s medieval in origin – I don’t know many people who still bother with it, but it’s one of the few family traditions we had, passed down from my mother’s side of the family.
I’ve done a rude amount of travelling over the past twelve months and I’ve plenty of friends and strangers to thank for that. 2010 will see more globetrotting – I dare say it’ll be far more restrained, but who knows? After a year I’m returning to Barcelona twice in January after 12 month’s absence and hoping that other plans will allow me to spend far more time in New York on a regular basis (although I managed to return to NYC four times this year, so I can hardly complain). I’d certainly like to see more of Sweden too after my brief encounter there in August. And then there’s SXSW in Austin – I’d love to go back and experience the event after more than three hours sleep.
It’s been quite a year. 365 days ago, I never saw it coming. Any of it. If you take anything away from that, it means 2010 is already full of possibility and opportunity. It’ll be what you make it.
Over the next hour my Twitter stream will no doubt fill with messages from new acquaintances in New Zealand as Christmas Day begins. So wherever you are, have a grand ol’ Christmas – I trust you will eat and drink far too much – and here’s to a fine time in 2010.
I’m happy. Very, very happy. It’s that particular brand of happiness where if I wasn’t overweight or desperately unfit, I’d consider performing a backflip to express my mercurial state.
When I undertook the Twitchhiker project in March, it was to satisfy my curiosity – to see if social media in general and Twitter in particular was capable creating a physical network that would allow me to travel around the world. On the way we raised thousands for charity: water and plenty of awareness of Twitter.
It was a tremendous adventure, enjoyed not only by myself but those who assisted me (and I dare say some who followed me, if only to see if I ended up mauled by a bear), and while I struggled with the relentless schedule at the time, I look back at it with nothing but fondness and pride. Since then I’ve done a smattering of public speaking, recounting my travels in a montage of photos and tall tales – and while I considered writing a more in-depth account of my travels immediately afterwards, it was ultimately more important to settle back into the slog of everyday life and earn what I laughingly call a wage.
After all this time has passed, I thought that was the end of it. So I’m thrilled to teeny tiny bits to announce I’ll be writing a book about Twitchhiker. It’s all a bit of a blur right now – the offer came barely a week ago and the deadlines are very tight – but I’m so excited about revisiting my journey with the benefit of perspective and a good night’s sleep.
I’ll tell you more about it as I find out, but for now it’s time to dig out the notes and the A3 envelope stuffed with all my flight details, trinkets and room cards (the plastic, easily replaced type of course) and turn the clock back eight months.
I thought I’d already posted a peek into my final evening in Sydney last month, but checking back I only captured the night noodle market on TwitPic. It’s now a little late in the day, or indeed the following month, but the market is certainly still worth a mention.
Sydney is a foodie’s paradise. You don’t have to spend long there before it becomes apparent the city has a truly world class selection of cuisine on offer (except for oysters, perhaps – I don’t like to talk about them anymore). And because of Australia’s proximity to what is our Far East, there’s a strong Asian flavour running throughout the city’s kitchens.
The night noodle market is an annual event taking place in October – the city’s Hyde Park is boxed in by stalls that tease the tummy with all manner of whiffs and sniffs and smells. I was alone so I quietly plumped for some chicken dumplings and milled amongst the crowds – there was probably a thousand people enjoying the weekday evening in Sydney, splashing a drop of vino and slurping noodles from cartons.
I’m not sure the UK could pull something similar off; two dozen burger vans selling pork sandwiches in gravy while you crack open a warm can of Stella – it isn’t quite as seductive, is it?
