Where is Matt right now?
DECEMBER 23, 2011 - Today I'm learning to dive at Fun and Sun Dive and Travel on Malapascua, Philippines (http://bit.ly/vAoQjP). In three days, we be swimming with thresher sharks. Merry Christmas to me :)
Tony Eitnier and Thomas Arnold, authors of the Contemporary Nomad travel blog, live quintessentially postmodern lives. Arnold, a German chemist, and Eitnier, an American language and communications trainer, started their travels as couple without a home. Because of the exclusionary marriage laws in their respective countries, neither was able to obtain a visa to live in the other’s home country. This pushed them into a nomadic lifestyle, and online entrepreneurship, both of which they have come to love.
Because of their tradition-challenging relationship, they spend their days studying the traditions of the world’s oldest cultures. Because borders sought to keep them apart, they live borderless lives. Because their lives could not remain stationary in the physical world, they found work in the one place where they could keep a fixed address—the Internet. Now, while visiting remote and ancient cultures, they have become icons in one of the fastest-growing and newest technological cultures—the blogosphere.
This email interview found the postmodern couple in the southern Philippines where I asked them about their travels, some of their favorite reads, and their work in the most postmodern of literary forms.
MG: Can you recall a time that you were surprised by a large unexpected increase in traffic to your blog? What happened?
CN: We’ve had occasional surges in traffic related to specific events. The earthquake in Sichuan, the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, and, of course, the terrorist attack on Mumbai, which we experienced first-hand at much too close a distance. (We were right across the street from the Taj Mahal Hotel and Tony actually saw the attackers running by.) The people came to us during these events for two different reasons. Firstly, friends, family and followers wanted to see if we were OK. Secondly, our descriptions of the local culture occasionally showed up first in Google searches by people seeking to learn more about these regions. We’ve also had quirky things send us traffic. We photographed a strange ice formation created by a high-altitude plant in Zanskar, India which sent a stream of scientists to our website. And our video on the border closing ceremony near Amritsar, India somehow became a reference for a Wikipedia article on Indian nationalism. It’s amazing what actually brings in our visitors, it’s almost impossible to predict.
MG: What is your most popular blog post? Why do you think that is?
CN: We have several posts which seem to stick out. The Omelette Man of Jodhpur seems to be one of our most visited posts. And, of course, there is the piece on the ice formation in Zanskar, which I mentioned before. Interest in Danba Family, The Baisha Miao, and The Paduang seems to suggest pieces on the struggles of tribes and ethnic minorities are popular. Our most viewed piece is actually a YouTube video we did called The Lions of Sasan Gir. It’s actually only a short clip, but people like the view of the rare Indian lions. We also have a notorious YouTube video called The Rajdhani Express which is a tongue-in-cheek review of the famous Indian train. Indians HATE the video and have thereby made the piece one of our most successful videos. Check it out for their rabid comments – we love reading them and have referred our visitors back to the comment section several times. Actually, the video isn’t that bad, they just seem to have worked each other up in the comment section.
MG: What’s your favorite blog post on ContemporaryNomad.com? Why?
CN: We have several blog posts which bring back amazing memories. Tony’s Rajasthan Camel Safari is a crack-up because of all the things that happened on the trip. And Thomas’ Trans-Island Odyssey was a wild ride across the Andaman Island chain which included a run-in with wild elephants and an encounter with the Jarawa tribal people. Great memories. I also love our two videos on our 20-day trek across Zanskar.
MG: Is there competition between bloggers out there, given that new blogs keep springing up with often similar themes (and occasional downright rip-offs)? Or do you think that many are driven more by the need to express their own passions.
CN: More and more blogs are springing up because everyone wants to have a voice. We get that. Some people are driven by the lure of dreamt-up riches, which is unrealistic. But others simply thirst for adventure with a dash of writing. Actually, it often surprises us how few really good travel blogs are out there. There is definitely space for more. Unfortunately, it does seem that some travel bloggers have an overly competitive edge. We noticed last year that one of our fellow bloggers seemed to have hired people in India to vote for his site over and over again in the Blogger’s Choice Awards resulting in a last minute jump in rankings. That’s not cool. While some view travel blogging as a competitive race, we are far more interested in the sense of community. It’s through this community that we discover the best destinations for future adventures.
MG: Do you find yourself using search engines in order to research your topics more when you blog, or are you more concerned with capturing the moment? Or does one complement the other?
CN: We don’t base our postings on what we perceive to be popular keywords or commonly googled topics because we realize that all of our most popular posting are off-the-wall things that we put up just because we thought they were funny or fascinating.
We love Walking the Amazon, which others might not label a “travel blog,” but we definitely would. We also love Life on the Tibetan Plateau with its encyclopedic knowledge of the Tibetan world. And we just discovered a new blog on Africa called Border Jumpers, which we are following now. And of course, Beverly at Nomadic Narrative is a good friend of ours, so we regularly follow her site. She recently spent 6 weeks traveling with us through Cambodia and Laos and we co-blogged our experiences together, which was a lot of fun.
MG: Who, in your opinion, is the most successful travel blogger (from a business perspective)? Why do you think that is?
CN: That’s a great question. Who knows? Sites have such different purposes and ways of monetizing their content. I would venture a guess that it is one of the smaller sites which is doing something really crazy, such as the one I mentioned before “Walking the Amazon.” While the site is not necessarily making much money now, if he succeeds, he’ll probably end up with book deals and well-paid magazine articles or TV interviews. Even if he doesn’t get rich, such an incredible journey would definitely meet our definition of success.
MG: What equipment do you carry for working on the road?
CN: We carry WAY too much: two laptops (Toshiba Satellite, Sony Vaio), two cameras (Canon 400D, Canon G7), five lenses for the 400D, an underwater casing for the G7, a ridiculously large but very useful power strip with exchangeable fuses, a tent, a camping cooker, a pump operated water purifier, two mosquito nets, a huge medical bag, diving masks and snorkels… We hate the bulk, but we use it all. We change equipment as we travel. We had high-altitude clothing and warm sleeping bags for the Himalayas, but when we left the mountains we gave all the mountain gear to a Ladakhi man who wanted to become a trekking guide.
MG: We all have certain expectations when we visit places. It’s easy for a place not to live up to what we imagine it to be. What was your most disappointing trip?
CN: We have both been traveling for over twenty years, so our expectations have grown much more realistic with experience. However, there are occasional disappointments. Our recent trip to Laos was a little disappointing because of the horrible field burn-off which takes place in March and April. We knew in advance that burn-off would occur, but we had no idea how bad it would actually be. I highly advise staying out of northern Southeast Asia in March and April. Beyond that, I would say the biggest disappointment we experience is the general feeling that adventurous, exploratory travel as a whole is slowly ending. The world is changing very quickly. Exotic tribes are vanishing, extraordinary wildlife is disappearing, pristine environments are being destroyed or bought up and turned into high-priced resorts. If you want to travel, get out there and do it now before everything is gone or too expensive.
MG: What trip was the nicest surprise
CN: Nepal was probably the nicest surprise. Travelers have been going to Nepal for decades and we both expected the country to be so over-developed and over-visited that it would certainly fail to impress. Quite to the contrary, the country blew us away and we have become devoted Nepal fans. (We just wish we had been going every year for the last twenty years.)
MG: What’s the strangest thing that has happened to you on the road?
CN: We could fill a 32-volume set of books with strange stories and adventures. One story we tell a lot is about turning on an air cooler in India and having a snake blow out of the machine at us. That seems to strike a chord with critter-phobic travelers. We have both been arrested, we’ve been bitten by poisonous things, and we’ve been charged by wild animals. Once, an elephant stepped over our tent in Zimbabwe during the full moon. We held our breath as we could see the back-lit shadow of the enormous beast stepping over us. We’ve been in car accidents, we’ve been attacked, and we’ve been caught up in violent conflicts. A million stories.
MG: The growth of backpacking has resulted in an increase in rave-type parties in travel hubs and destinations worldwide. Along with this has come an increase in drug use among travelers. How do you feel about drugs and backpacker culture?
CN: We both hate this scene and avoid it like the plague. Unfortunately, it really is like a plague that seems to be sweeping across the world wiping out the earth’s more beautiful spots. We now refer to it as Vang Vieng syndrome.
MG: Travel can make or break relationships. How do you deal with the pressures put on you and your partner by life on the road?
CN: Actually, we are a couple. We don’t talk about it much on our blog because our blog is about adventure, not our relationship. But interestingly, it is our relationship that really got us into long-term travel. When we first met 17 years ago, there was no way for a German and American gay couple to stay together legally as no country acknowledged the relationship for the purpose of immigration. We had to bounce around the world to stay together. In fact, Lisa Nunn, a professor of sociology at the University of San Diego, has been documenting us for over eight years. Later this year, she will release a 45-minute film on our lives called Excluded (the last segment was recently filmed in Cambodia) and will be speaking at this year’s national sociology conference on how our struggles as a binational couple caused us to “go nomadic.”
MG: Is there a particularly good book, article, or author that you read recently youíd like to recommend?
CN: “Papillon”. It’s required reading for the adventurous at heart. Also read the follow-up “Banco.” “Keep the River on your Right” is amazing as is “Shantaram.”
Dear Matt,
I’m thinking of moving to Taiwan, but I’ve heard there are not as many teaching jobs as there used to be. Are there still many jobs? How can I improve my chances of finding one?
Thanks!
Cliff
Dear Cliff,
When I first arrived in Tainan six years ago I would be approached on the street and in restaurants by people who needed teachers. When I went to an interview, I would be interviewing the school, rather than the school interviewing me. Teachers were in very high demand. Schools would accept anybody.
Now, due to changes in the English teaching industry and an increase of the number of Westerners looking for teaching jobs (many driven here by the recent global recession), the job market is more competitive. You may have to interview with several schools before finding a job. If you come at the wrong time of year, you may have a lot of trouble finding one at all.
That being said, any person who plans properly and is willing to pound the pavement for a few weeks should be able to land a good job. To ensure that you find a job, it is important to plan your move to Taiwan properly. There are several things you can do to improve your chances of finding a job.
1) Find a Friend
Do you know anyone in Taiwan. If so, ask them if they know about any jobs. Most teaching jobs tend to be found by word of mouth.
2) Come at the Right Time
Teachers tend to sign contracts at the beginning of the semester, as this is when schools prefer that they start. Most contracts are one year long, and end the same time they started. This is when most teachers leave their jobs to travel or move home. So, the best time to look for a job is the end of the semester so that you can replace a teacher who will be leaving. The overall best time to look for work is the end of August, before the fall semester. Just before Chinese New Year (usually around the end of January) and the end of June are also good times.
3) Go Where the Jobs Are
The other thing you can do to improve your chances is move to the South. Taipei and Taichung have traditionally had larger foreign communities, and attract more teachers, making the teaching market more competitive there. Kaohsiung still seems to have a lot of teaching positions, and is a large and comfortable city. The market in Tainan is also fairly good. Personally, I prefer to live in the South anyways. There are usually fewer earthquakes and typhoons, and the weather is much better.
Schools in smaller towns are also usually good places to look for jobs. Few teachers are eager to move to them, as most prefer to live in a larger center with a larger expat community.
4) Know Where to Look
Many schools look for teachers on these websites:
5) Know What Not to Do
If you respond to teaching job ads online, chances are you will be contacted by an agent or recruiter. Although some agent/recruiters are good, they have a reputation for being overwhelmingly greedy and dishonest. They are referred to locally as ‘snakeheads’. Unless somebody has personally recommended an agent to you, then I would strongly suggest that you avoid dealing with them. Many people have lost their VISAs, lost pay, and been screwed over in every manner imaginable by agents.
If you would like to read the tale of one infamous agent, go to the Kaohsiung Living bulletin board listed above, and search for the name ‘Selwyn’. You will find numerous posts warning people about this agent who operates in Kaohsiung. There are some unbelievable stories about him!
Debbie with two of her children in Gaudi Park, Barcelona
This is the second part of a two-part interview with Debbie Dubrow, author of Delicious Baby. Part 1 can be read here.
MG: Were you nervous the first time you traveled with your children? What did you expect it to be like?
DD: I was nervous the first time I took my son to the grocery store! Everything changes when you have kids, but somehow we keep doing most of it. There is a lot of negativity about traveling with young kids, but if travel is important to you, you keep doing it anyway.
I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the trip, see what we wanted and eat good food. I also worried about what would happen if the baby got sick or injured when we were far away from our trusted pediatrician. I still worry about those things (to a more limited extent) with every trip we take, but I find that advance planning helps a lot.
What I didn’t expect is the way that having a child brings you into local life more. We eat in more casual restaurants, and I try to find the kinds of places that local families would eat. We spend a lot of time at playgrounds, and we end up talking with the other kids and parents. We shop in the markets because we need snack foods and picnic lunches. Plus, in most countries, when people see you traveling with a child, they want to talk to you and spoil your kids a little. All of those things have made our travels richer.
MG: You maintain a professional blog, which is a lot of work. You also travel, which is enormously time consuming. You’re a parent, which (I’ve been told) also eats up a bit of time. On top of all that, you teach at Rick Steves’s Travel Center, you’re a member of the Travel Insights 100 travel expert panel, and you’re a co-founder of Passports with Purpose. How do you manage to handle so many responsibilities?
DD: I’m very careful about prioritizing what I do so that I focus on what is important to me. I don’t watch TV, I have my groceries delivered, I don’t sleep as much as I should, and my house is a mess.
MG: What equipment do you carry for working on the road?
DD: We carry too much equipment. My husband and I are both techies, so we have two laptops, iphones, my Kindle, plus one SLR camera and a point and shoot. Recently we added an iPad to the mix so that we can perfect TripDoc for the iPad as well as the iPhone.
MG: You have achieved near-celebrity status with your blog. To what do you attribute this success?
DD: I’ve tried to develop good relationships with other bloggers, and when I can, I help people out and share information. I think karma really works in your favor in the online world. Travel blogging is very new, and there is still so much room for all of us to grow – it makes a lot more sense to be collaborative than competitive.
MG:: What qualities do you look for in a parenting or travel blog?
DD: I look for someone who has interesting stories and who feels like a “real” person. I love to peek inside a life that is very different from my own and see what it feels like to be that person.
MG:: What are your favorite blogs?
DD: NerdsEyeView, Capitol Hill Seattle – a Seattle Neighborhood Blog, David Lebovitz and Oh Happy Day.
MG: Is there a particularly good book, article, or author that you read recently you’d like to recommend?
DD: I just finished reading Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi. It was so sad that reading it made my body hurt. I wish I could write like that.
I also liked this essay by Pico Iyer.
MG: If you had to choose one moment traveling with your children as the most rewarding, what would come to mind?
DD: It’s just experiencing things through their eyes. It’s cliche, but everything is new to them, and that is such a refreshing way to travel. Now that my kids are getting older, I realize that they are coming to enjoy exploring new places as much as I do (albeit at their own pace, and with their interests as a guide), and that is very rewarding.
This is the second part of a two-part interview with Debbie Dubrow, author of Delicious Baby. Part 1 can be read here.
Debbie with two of her children in Gaudi Park, Barcelona
Sure, Tim Cahill will go drunken diving for poisonous sea snakes, and Rolf Potts will try to sneak onto the set of The Beach in a Thai fishing boat, but that’s nothing. If you want brave, talk to Debbie Dubrow. She travels with her husband and their three children aged 5, 3, and 1. That’s three children to take care of on airplanes and in hotel rooms, restaurants, and taxicabs all over the globe.
That’s balls.
A former Project Manager at Microsoft, Dubrow also writes Delicious Baby, ranked the best travel blog in 2009 by Technocrati, and probably the most popular parenting travel blog in the world.
In the first part of this two-part interview, Debbie talks about her experiences traveling with her children.
Matt Gibson: I’m sure that you traveled before you had children. When did you know you wanted to make travel a lifestyle?
Debbie Dubrow: Travel has always been an important part of our lives, the desire to go experience the world didn’t change when we had kids.
MG: Have you ever made any mistakes traveling with your children that you now look back on and wonder, ‘why on earth did I do that’?
DD: Constantly. I probably have a short term memory disease, because I keep going places with them anyway.
MG: What was the disaster you had traveling with children?
DD: The trickiest situation was landing in Heathrow airport, which was supposed to be a 4 hour layover for us, and finding out upon landing the airport was closed because of an ash cloud. It was incredibly crowded, there were long waits for everything, and very little information. Luckily the kids were so happy to be off of the plane that they spread out their toys on the baggage claim floor and played pretty happily while we figured out how to get our baggage, get into town, and a place to stay.
Other bad things:
● I’ve been thrown up on in flight. No, I did not have a spare shirt in my carryon
● We’ve had delayed baggage on almost every transatlantic flight we’ve flown with kids.
● I flew from Paris to Seattle a few days after the liquid bomb scare in Heathrow. I was 8 months pregnant, and it was my first solo flight with my son. I wasn’t allowed to bring any toys along, they limited the number of diapers I could bring, even my pen was confiscated because it had liquid in it!
I think that when you get into a tricky situation, it can actually be empowering. I get so focused on not letting the situation impact the kids, that things usually go ok. Afterwords I feel more confident about handling the small problems that crop up.
MG: How old was your first child when you started traveling as a parent?
DD: The first trip was when our son was 2 months old. Like most new babies, each child’s first flight was a trip to visit family.
Before my oldest son was born, we had planned to spend my husband’s paternity leave (one month) in Paris, and we did that when he was 6 months old. I was surprised at how concerned everyone was about our plan (after all Paris is hardly an unknown or developing country). I am so glad that we took that opportunity to travel. It’s rare for a career-focused parent to be able to take a whole month off at once, and if we had been home in Seattle we would have been sucked into our everyday lives and chores. In Paris we were much more focused on enjoying our time together, and bonding as a new family. It also set the ball rolling for continuing to travel as he got older and as we added more kids to our family.
MG: What countries have you found to be the most child friendly? Why?
DD: Spain, Italy and Turkey were all very child friendly, mostly because local children are part of everyday life. People expect to see them in restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions. In restaurants, the kids get really spoiled with the waiters bringing them special foods – and in Italy we sometimes had a server offer to hold our baby for us to keep him happy while we ate!
Italy is known for not having very many playgrounds, especially in Rome, but in any country where the cities are built around a central plaza it helps to bring along an inflatable ball. Once you start kicking it around, it doesn’t take long for more kids to show up and join in the fun.
MG: Have you traveled in many developing countries with your children? How does it differ from traveling in developed ones?
DD: We really haven’t yet. There are so many places to travel, and I am willing to wait until the kids are little older to visit developing countries. Diseases that don’t have much impact here can kill a child in the developing world if the proper medical care isn’t available, so extra caution is warranted. Still many parents do visit developing countries, and are willing to do the extra work to make sure that their kids water and food are safe when they travel.
Like the title says, I was chosen one of the best travel blogs in Taiwan by GoOverseas.com, a large and well-respected portal for working, volunteering, and studying abroad. They even gave me this nifty badge to show off.
DECEMBER 23, 2011 - Today I'm learning to dive at Fun and Sun Dive and Travel on Malapascua, Philippines (http://bit.ly/vAoQjP). In three days, we be swimming with thresher sharks. Merry Christmas to me :)
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