Have Internet Will Travel Traveling the world, wherever there's WiFi. The adventures of two freelance digital nomads.

It’s pretty hard to describe the feeling that comes over you when you’re face to face with a 4m Tiger Shark. No cage… no chainmail… no spear gun…. “Awesome” is really the only word I can think of!

This was our second time doing a shark dive. The first was a year and a half earlier in Roatan, Honduras, however it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges. The main difference? The sharks! In Roatan, the sharks are all Caribbean Reef Sharks, averaging about 2m in length — in Fiji, there are up to 8 different species of sharks, including Bulls and Tigers, which can get up to 3-4m long. Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

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We had a rough idea of what we wanted to do in Fiji before we arrived, but apart from our first night’s accommodation we hadn’t actually booked anything when we landed. There are two main modes of transportation between Fiji’s 332 islands – flights & ferries. Mike hates small planes with a passion, and as a general rule, won’t fly in anything less than 16 rows, so that left us with the latter as our only real option for getting around. Unfortunately reliable information about Fiji’s ferry schedules is pretty hard to come by online, so we decided to wait until we arrived before making any solid plans.

We spent our first couple of nights just outside of Suva while we organized and booked our transport up to Taveuni. The hotel staff were quite perplexed when we told them we’d prefer to take the 14 hour overnight ferry, instead of the short 1 hour flight. They had to call around a bit to find out the actual schedule, as they didn’t have that information either. Much to our luck there is a new ferry service between Suva and Taveuni that leaves twice a week, and it was scheduled to leave the next day which meant we only had to spend one extra night in Suva. Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

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After a month in Queenstown it was time to set out on our road trip. We spent a month driving across New Zealand, and while we didn’t have time to blog, I tweeted as we went. Here’s our month in tweets as we road trip NZ.

Day 1 of the Great Kiwi Road Trip – Queenstown to Franz Josef Glacier in 6 hours. A stop at the blue pools, and lunch by the ocean… now catching up on work from the comfort of our tent…. yes tent! Gonna be an interesting month.

Day 2 of the Great Kiwi Road Trip – Half day of work (it’s Saturday here) followed by a hike to the Glacier, and a quick trip to the beach. Now enjoying a glass of wine in my plastic cup. Oh the joys of camping!

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We flew from Melbourne to Queenstown, NZ, where we met up with my friend Bex. Bex and I met back in 2003, when we were both doing our Divemaster’s in Koh Tao, Thailand. We haven’t see each other since, but through the wonders of Facebook, have managed to stay in touch over the years. Bex and her fiancé Rupert, were nice enough to put us up for a few days in Queenstown while we sorted out a place to live for a month.

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As most of you know Mike and I are both experienced Divers. To preface this post and to be fair to Poseidon, I just wanted to remind everyone that we have traveled a lot and been to some pretty amazing dive destinations, so we have pretty high expectations. That being said our Great Barrier Reef experience as a whole, was a bit of a let down.

We did two trips with Poseidon and had two very different experiences. The first experience was not very good. Most of the staff were nice and friendly, however, I’m not sure if our dive guide was just having a bad day or what, but lets just say he didn’t really seem to be enjoying his job.

The visibility on the dives was pretty poor over all (nothing that Poseidon can do about that) but what made the experience pretty lackluster was that our dive guide didn’t really do anything. He just kind of hovered around watching over us, not pointing out fish or critters, or showing us anything in particular that was unique or special about the reef. He was more like a babysitter than a guide. Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

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Arriving in Sydney, we were lucky enough to be met at the airport by a familiar face. We’re used to landing in strange airports and having to haggle with taxis or fumble with shuttle buses to get us where we want to go, so it was nice being met by a friend. Rachelle played tour guide on the way to her and Randal’s apartment in Manly, pointing out different neighbourhoods and taking us across Harbour Bridge. After dropping our bags off at their place we went for a much needed lunch, then spent the afternoon wandering around Manly, checking out R&R’s hood.

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Posted by: Kelly

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Merry Fishmas Scuba Fans! Check out my underwater themed Christmas cards and send them to all your ocean loving friends!

– Get them here at Divesnaps.com

Posted by: Kelly

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The first time we visited Malaysia, we flew into Kuala Lumpur and fell in love with some elephants at the elephant sanctuary, arranged our 3 month Thai visas, ate a ton of hawker food, and shopped till we dropped.

The second time we found out the hawker food was even better in Penang, dove the Perhentian Islands, dove with turtles and sharks in Sipadan, and had an amazing experience riding motorcycles in Malaysian Borneo.

This third time, we laid on the beach!

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Posted by: Shim

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We initially came to Europe to celebrate Kelly’s 10 year return for Queen’s Day in Amsterdam thinking that we had 6 months to hang around and slowly check everything out. We booked 3 months in a flat in Amsterdam and told ourselves we would spend the first few months making weekend trips to nearby cities and after 3 months, we’d move somewhere further South to check out the rest. Possibly Spain or Portugal.

Shortly, after realizing we were mistaken about the visa requirements and only had 3 months because of the EU Schengen Agreement, I took on a large amount of freelance contract work and costly train tickets kept us from roaming too far.

So we checked out a windmill:

Tried some local beers:

And went to the Heineken ‘Museum’:

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Posted by: Shim

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One of the main reasons we left life in the tropics for a brief stint in Europe, was for Queen’s Day. April 30th, the day the the Dutch celebrate the Queen’s Birthday en masse, with celebrations across the country. Outdoor parties, markets, and people fill the streets in honor of the Queen and The Royal House of Oranje. (While technically the Queen’s birthday is in January, the current queen, Queen Beatrix decided to keep Queen’s Day on April 30th in honor of her mother’s birthday, and because the weather is typically better for outdoor celebrations.)

2011 was my fourth Queen’s Day and somewhat of a reunion between me and 3 friends who all celebrated our first Queen’s Day ever, together, 10 years ago. Sarah, Liz and Annette have been celebrating together ever since, but unfortunately for me, getting back every year has been a little harder. While I lived in Amsterdam I was able to partake in Queen’s Day twice and in 2006 went back for my third. During that trip I made a promise to come back for our 10th anniversary, so when 2011 rolled around I knew I had to be there. Read More…

Posted by: Kelly

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