Travel
- Photos on my phone: 10,017
- Days away from home: 354
- Flight hours: 87
- Airbnbs and hotel rooms: 52
- Flights: 50
- Airports: 23
- Cars (rented/borrowed/owned): 17
- Countries: 10
- Boats: 3
- Children: 2
- Eurostars: 1
- MacBooks that survived a glass of whisky being spilt on them: 0
- Brown hairs left on my head: -6
- Flighty Friends - Connect with family and friends once, then you can see each other trips and get alerts — automatically and ongoing. You’ll see them on your map, can choose alerts levels, and can stop sharing anytime.
- Group Trip Ready - Your flights and friend’s flights appear together in the new Today view. Everyone’s live ETA and status make group trips easy.
- Friends Names in Flight Alerts - Now with name, photo, and custom controls per person to avoid notification fatigue.
- Trip Sharing - Send multiple flights at once. Receivers can add them to Flighty, or simply view them in their browser.
- Whose Flight is That? - See who’s on each flight in your flight list, on the map, and including their seat number if you’re sharing a plane.
- Panic Playdate
- photocopies of passports and actual passports
- parfum
- new and identical backup sunglasses because the last place you want to be is in a strange new land without your favourite sunglasses
- octopus straps, you never know when you’ll need to strap something to something (same goes for the tape)
- USB-C dock with an ethernet port, because sometimes you just need to plug the damn thing in to get internet
- my eldest daughter’s camera (Nikon Coolpix childproof potato camera)
- my wife’s camera (Fuji X-S10 with a 27mm)
- my splurge camera purchase in Paris (Leica Z2X which means 2x zoom, film camera)
- my flying camera (DJI Mavic 3)
- my camera (Canon EOS R5)
- Native Union universal cable
- supporters gift from the Wedding Photo Hangover podcast
- DJI Mic kit
- MacBook Pro M2, a new addition to the kit after my former M1 MacBook Pro got drunk on a glass of whisky
- Philips OneBlade shaver, the best travel shaver I could find and the only one that has USB charging
- ThruNite torch that takes AA batteries because you can’t leave emergency eyesight to a lithium USB-charged battery
- 35mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.8, 70-200mm f/2.8
- Anker charger and Britt has one too
- my friend Scotty’s latest book on my Kobo Libra 2 (I’m a recent convert away from Kindle, and love this Kobo!)
- Liechtenstein is one of the smallest countries in the world, both in terms of land area and population. It covers just 160 square kilometres, about the physical size of Geelong, with a population of just over 39,000, about the same population as the town of Orange in New South Wales.
- It is one of only two countries in the world that are “double landlocked”, which means they are landlocked by countries that are also landlocked. The other is Uzbekistan.
- Despite its small size, Liechtenstein is one of the wealthiest countries in the world per capita. The Prince of Lichtenstein, the head bloke, makes $40 mil a month off his own investments and businesses, he doesn’t take a wage or anything like that.
- Liechtenstein is the world’s largest exporter of false teeth, specifically for dentures. This is due to the presence of Ivoclar Vivadent, a company that leads the world in false teeth manufacturing. The country is also home to Hilti the construction tools company.
- Liechtenstein doesn’t have its own airport or railway system. The nearest airport is in Zurich, Switzerland. For rail, it is served by the Swiss railways.
- Liechtenstein is a principality, governed by a constitutional monarch who holds expansive powers, including the ability to veto legislation. It is the last remaining monarchy in the Holy Roman Empire.
- Liechtenstein had the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per person in the world, when adjusted by purchasing power parity.
- The entire country is invited to the castle of the Prince of Liechtenstein for beer and pretzels on National Day (August 15).
- Despite being an independent country, Liechtenstein uses the Swiss Franc as its official currency.
- Liechtenstein has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. It has even been reported that the country’s citizens often don’t lock their doors.
- Liechtenstein disbanded its army in 1868 because it was too costly. In fact, Switzerland has been responsible for its defence since 1923. The CIA World Factbook for many years incorrectly stated it had a defence budget of $12. It’s actually closer to zero.
- The country’s capital, Vaduz, and the region of the Alps, has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its stunning alpine beauty.
- Liechtenstein is known for its excellent wines. The Prince of Liechtenstein Winery, owned by the princely family, is one of the most famous wineries. I drank one of his beers today and it’s equally delicious.
- Despite its location in Central Europe, Liechtenstein managed to remain neutral and was untouched during both World War I and World War II.
- There are more businesses registered in Lichtenstein than residents, so most of the residents work in support of these businesses, or in tourism, dentistry, or working for Hilti making tools.
- going to “the media” aka social media or the news never works, until it does
- I really like the July suitcases and kind of enjoy having a matching set of five despite one limping
- we’re in Baja California Sur for another month until we go to Nashville and Hawaii then Europe before coming home in August, what am I going to do about this three-wheeled bag.
- I’d really just like another big July bag but do I want to continue to do business with a company that can’t simply keep its word?
- I wish they’d just said no back in November and I would have bought a new bag and they would have never experienced the pain of letting me down.
- Can I even get a July bag in, or to, Mexico before April 8?
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Every email address you have for me is wrong unless it is my name then an @ symbol then my last name, finishing with a .co … delete all other addresses from your address book or contacts app. Email remains my personal favourite place to communicate, please email whenever and whatever you like.
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If you must instant message with, or call, me I would prefer for it to happen on iMessage or FaceTime, contacting me with the same email address. If you refuse the beauty and glory of the apple ecosystem I am unsure how we can stay in contact. WhatsApp is ugly, Telegram is full of Russian spam, none of you use the Signal app, plus it’s linked to my phone number which I’ll get to in point three.
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My phone number will be trashed, and in the future, I’ll have other phone numbers that I’d prefer to not have to keep any longer than internet access is required. I wish to de-link myself from phone numbers in general but the world seems to think they are important.
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Although I am often tempted to post and share on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and whatever is hot online, my heart longs for a time when we take control of the stories we read, when we personally decide what we get angry or happy about. So my contribution to this effort is to write, photograph, publish, and share on my own personal blog joshwithers.blog … there’s also a weekly digest of what’s been published there and you can get it by visiting at joshwithers.blog/subscribe to subscribe.
- When do you go? October 10, 2022, then I come back for a month’s work around Australia Nov-Dec and then I’m back in Mexico before Christmas.
- Where will you go? I’ll let you know when we get there. We’re going to float around and do some housesitting gigs and try to find our place in the country. Honestly, it might not even be Mexico in the end. The goal isn’t to go to Mexico, the goal is to leave our normal routines and life, and Mexico seemed like as good as any place to get a residency visa. But of course, we are going to Mexico and I always think of the people that move to Australia and go to Sydney, I reckon those internationals miss out. I don’t want to end up in the Sydney of Mexico, or the Surfers Paradise. I’d love to end up in the Tugun of Mexico, somewhere small and beautiful and unique.
- When will you come back? We’ll let you know when we’re back.
- How will you afford it? Please book our house, The Tugun Pause, on Airbnb … plus I’d love for my photography to mean something financially - you can buy prints at art.josh.withers.co. Also, we’re still running the Elopement Collective and also mentoring celebrants at The Celebrant Institute.
- What about the cartels? What about the snakes, spiders, crocodiles, and dropbears in Australia? Mexico is a really big nation, the whole place isn’t Narcos. I would encourage you to develop a wider view and taste of the world if you think that Mexico is all drug cartels and people smuggling.
- Why Mexico? Why not?
- What will happen to our existing businesses? We’ll still lead and operate The Elopement Collective remotely and I’m still in partnership with Sarah at The Celebrant Institute so my celebrant training and mentoring efforts will continue. Being a celebrant, that’s on ice for a season. Consider it a sabbatical.
- Why? The last two years have destroyed us. This is an effort to take back who we are, who we want to be, and what kind of childhood we want our kids to have. We’ve lost more than our accountant could count through this pandemic, and we’re still on the same hamster wheel. I tried changing the hamster wheel to real estate, but the truth is I needed to actually get off all hamster wheels.
- Will you do weddings in Mexico? I’m currently without a work visa in Mexico, so no, but I’m exploring options. Nothing will really matter until I reach my goal anyhow.
- What’s your goal, seeing as though you just mentioned it? My goal is to not know what to do tomorrow. When I don’t know what to do tomorrow, I’ll allow myself to start planning for the next season with Britt and the girls as a team.
- it has the word ‘shack’ in its name
- there are lobster pots hanging for styling
- it’s near the ocean
- it’s located at a wharf
- Chico Rolls aren’t on the menu
- there’s a grumpy fisherman on premises
Pretty cool to see my work at Balandra Beach in Mexico on Conde Nast’s Traveler today.
One day I ought to figure out how to be a professional profitable photographer instead of being an Unsplash dude.
Still have found what I'm looking for 🌵 Joshua Tree
When we were living in Baja California Sur a real hippy-looking bloke told me that the reason we felt so calm and at home in Baja was because it was a blue zone.
Wikipedia says of the evidence-poor but good-vibes terminology:
A blue zone is a region in the world where people are claimed to have exceptionally long lives beyond the age of 80 due to a lifestyle combining physical activity, low stress, rich social interactions, a local whole-foods diet, and low disease incidence.
I feel the same way in Joshua Tree which is why we came back this weekend after taking Luna to Disneyland and before flying home to Australia.
You might even take away from the name of this blog that I don’t mind the album either.
Disneyland for Luna’s 6th birthday. What an amazing sensory overload. A work of art!
Well, that was Swell
I made the 4am alarm to catch the 2024 Swell Sculpture Festival before sunrise this morning and as always it was a treat. Something that stood out to me, and I don’t know if it was new this year, but much of the art was priced. Some of the sculptures were on the way to $100,000! If you can create art and put a price on it, and earn that price, then you’re doing a thousand times better than I who simply places his art on Unsplash and Pexels in lieu of doing the hard work of making art that people want, putting a price on it that represents value and effort, and putting it to market. More power to the artists who can exchange their art for good money, society will be better off for it. These are the pieces that captured me, one in particular was interesting, the “Personal Space Elevator”.
A transport nerd's Italian journies
I’m a transport nerd, so here’s my transport journey to and across Italy over the last few weeks.
Missing in my photos is my phat electric bike from Procida.
We scooted in Rome
Moped in Amalfi
Avis gave me what was pretty much a sports car in Sicily
Then a baby little Fiat 500X in Tuscany
I flew my airline crush in Ryanair
Qatar A380s from Australia and through Doha to Rome
And the best €60 I spent was on a business class seat on the high speed rail from Naples
Why are the Vatican guards dressed like clowns?
Orrrr why are clowns dressed like Vatican guards?
Some frames I have a captured on the Amalfi coast this week
Pictures of steak I ate in Florence
A little life update: we handed the keys for our Gold Coast home back to the landlord yesterday. Today we’re home-less. I’ve just boarded a flight to Melbourne for a wedding there this weekend, then we’re off to New Zealand for a week, the. Hobart and Sydney.
What I’m trying to say is don’t post me anything.
Drove the 90 minutes from Exmouth to photograph the sunset in Coral Bay this afternoon and also see the couple I’m marrying this weekend, and after the sun had set I found that all the local restaurants all had 90 minute waits, so I thought, I could just drive back to Exmouth for dinner.
Alas, everything in Exmouth was closed, not even a vending machine for a chocolate.
So I present to you my art from today, art quite literally made by a starving artist.
Also, regional Australia, let’s have at least one kitchen open past 8pm hey?
Luckily today is the first day back from holidays for The Short Order, so I was blessed to receive a 5:30am breaky burger for dinner.
Frames from Singapore
We’re packing and getting ready for our homeward journey tonight in Paris. We’ve got three flights left, and the longest ones just earned us a text message from Qantas letting us know that the four of us had been upgraded to business class (RIP my points balance). We’ve got a few nights in Singapore left and it’s back to the Southern Gold Coast after almost a year away.
So because I’m a big nerd, these are our family travel stats since we left home last September and listed our home on Airbnb:
I walked out of the house this morning and a man was urinating onto the street, facing in my direction, two metres away. I called out that he was disgusting and he stared at me in the eyes.
After riding a scooter across town to a store I walked upon a lady on the street bent over and attending to her monthly needs.
Just now walking to the grocery store I witnessed a man with both hands amputated smoking a cigarette, his two arms acting as two fingers.
The Parisians have really left their mark on me today.
After two months in London, across regional Austria, Liechtenstein, regional Italy, Puglia, and Tuscany, it is so refreshing for my soul to be walking the streets of Paris again tonight.
I could walk the streets of Paris and New York City for the rest of my days and never get bored or lose inspiration.
Driving from Siena, Italy, to Graz, Austria, today Goldie and I were looking for somewhere to stop for lunch and we decided on this place named after a beach in Los Angeles.
I took Britt’s Fuji X-S10 with the 27mm f/2.8 for a play while we were there.
✈️ Flighty 3 is a private frequent flyers social network!
One of my most-used and favourite apps is Flighty, and they’ve just announced a new version that’s basically a frequent flyer’s private social network. I love it!
Flighty 3.0 is the new way to share your flying with family and friends. Keep track of your loved ones, not flight numbers. Another industry-first from Flighty.
Add me as a friend on Flighty, yo!
P.S.: Flighty is one of the very few iPhone apps I use on the regular which was quick to allow it’s app to be used on Apple silicon Macs, something more developers should consider enabling.
📷🇮🇹 Our last Monday in Puglia
A birds eye view of Martina Franca, in southern Puglia, where we’ve been hanging out this month.
In these photos, happening at the same time, is a funeral procession, a dance contest, and an opera, amongst whatever else the 49,000 residents are getting up to.
There’s also two 360 photos of Martina Franca in this embed, a higher and lower shot, look for the hotspots when you’re scrolling around.
📷🇮🇹🚁 Fifteen of Monopoli’s best from my Mavic in Puglia yesterday
⛪️ I did it, I finally did it. I crucified the sun.
… and other photos from the sunset over Monopoli, Puglia, this afternoon 📷🌇🇮🇹
📷🇮🇹🏖️ Family day at the beach at Cala Maka. The beach is apparently/allegedly called Torre Canne Nord Prima della Casa Grigia, which translated from Italian means, North Canne Tower Before the Gray House, which is the most romantic beach name I’ve ever read.
Good luck ever naming a beach better than that.
🗺️ Where’s Josh’o? An update
Just going on the record for everyone who asks where we are, where we’re living now, and if we’re ever coming home to Australia: we’re in Italy then Paris and Singapore between now and getting home to the Gold Coast late August.
I’m back to work and at your service making weddings and elopements from August 22, 2023.
I’ve got travel around Australia and New Zealand for weddings and elopements through the end of this year and early next year before we head back to Europe in 2024.
I’ve also had some requests for the USA if you’re interested in having me there too.
June, July, and August 2024 for weddings and also elopements with The Elopement Collective and some of our team including Jason Corroto, House of Love Weddings, George Bowden, House Of Lucie, and Pearce Brennan.
Finally, I wanted to address something a few people have lovingly brought to my attention “I thought you only did elopements”.
I might be married to the @elopementcollective’s boss, but I create ceremony for all and sundry. Big weddings, small weddings, elopements, and corporate events as a master of ceremonies. As the band was named, I do weddings, parties, anything.
So very formerly: I do weddings as well. If you know someone getting married somewhere in the world and you reckon we’d be a fit, let them know I exist!
📷🇮🇹 40 degrees celsius today in Martina Franca, but the second you step into the shade the temperature drops about fifteen of those bad boy degrees.
📷🇮🇹 Alberobello, Puglia
📷🇮🇹 Polignano a Mare, Puglia
📷🇮🇹 Sunday frames from Martina Franca, Puglia, Italy
🏖️ Tuesday at Spiaggia Lido Silvana, Puglia, Italy
Temple of Valadier: Refuge for sinners
Over 1000 years old, this sanctuary in Genga’s Frasassi Caves was intended to be a refuge from sinners, but when you see it from a sky, it looks like the church itself is seeking refuge from the world.
The temple you now see was complete in 1827 under the suggestion of Pope Leo XII. For all this time it was called the Temple of Valadier but recent study has revealed that Giuseppe Valadier, its namesake architect, didn’t design it at all.
Either which way, it’s nice to know that Catholic sinners get a cool place to pilgrimage to.
I caught a few moments after the sun set, in between rain clouds, to get the drone up. I’d been driving for 45 minutes and gotten stuck down two dead ends. I was making these photos tonight!
A few other accounts of the sanctuary:
Rate my desk (June 2023 edition)
For the past ten months, my and my family’s non-clothing and non-toiletries life has completely lived inside a Think Tank camera bag and it will do so for another 50 days. I took the opportunity this afternoon to do a quick audit, headcount, and make sure everything I was carrying was necessary, and inspired by the Hemispheric Views podcast segment ‘Rate my desk’ I thought I would submit my ‘desk away from home’ to the internets.
All of our life’s possessions that aren’t our actual home and the furniture in that home required for it to be on Airbnb, lives in our two July ‘Checked Plus’ bags, and two Dagne Dover bags, plus a Phil & Teds travel cot and a Baby Jogger travel pram, and this Think Tank Streetwalker camera bag pictured below.
The reason for the Think Tank Streetwalker bag is that it’s unique in being a carry bag, a backpack, and a roller bag. It’s the Optimus Prime of camera bags.
I’ll guess a few of the questions “What is that?!":
Our whole charging strategy is based on IEC C7 (Figure 8) leads and getting local leads wherever we go and they plug into the Anker chargers and the 96W Apple charger. There’s a blog post on my reasoning for this. I’m now a cable dad.
So, rate my desk.
It’s normally pretty hard to try and fit an entire nation in one photo. It’s a little bit easier if you’re making a 360 panoramic photo. But still, most nations don’t fit.
So I can proudly say I think I got almost all of Liechtenstein in this photo.
I have a confession to make.
I didn’t know “The Alps” were a thing. I thought people referred to “the alps” when they referred to alpine areas.
This probably explains why I nerded out pretty hard when I got to the Alps and kept on typing the alps and all my computing devices would autocorrect to The Alps.
Anyway, here’s a 360 photo of a part of the Alps from Kufstein in Austria.
And another from Lake Wolfgang
Lichtenstein 3D
One of my childhood happy memories was receiving gifts from my Aunty Tracey who lived in Lichtenstein. She was always sending Liechtenstein paraphernalia and propaganda and I was here for it.
For over 30 years I’ve kept this magical vision in my mind of what the richest country per capita on earth would look like.
How safe could a country with no defence force feel? How do you even get to a country that has no airport? How small can the smallest country to win an Olympic medal be? How beautiful could the only country on earth to be completely in the alps be?
Today I got some answers.
P.S. Scroll to the bottom of the post for an awesome 360 photo!
We’re really lucky to be staying near the summits of the mountains, in Malbun, with friends of my aunt (thank you Martina and Markus!), it feels like we’re on the set of a fantastical movie. It’s unbelievably beautiful here.
The two furthest-away boundaries of the entire nation are 25km apart!
Some of the most interesting Lichtenstein facts I know:
Watched the sun set into Germany across the German/Austrian border tonight.
Withers on film in Hawaii
Withers in Mexico.
I found an undeveloped roll of film from our time in Baja California Sur. Missing Cerritos Beach!
Withers in Paris on 35mm film
My favourite thing to do in the big cities of the world is to ignore the must-do lists, the must-see places, the hotspots and the icons, and to just walk around and exist in a different big city. Walking down random streets, getting bad coffee at little-known cafes, and finding the unseen parts of a city. The towers, cathedrals, arches and museums are cool and we inevitably end up there. But there’s something really interesting to me about experiencing another people’s normal.
My review and photos of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport
Let me spin you a yarn about my favourite airport hotel, the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport in New York. This hotel is a real beauty, with a great story behind it.
Once upon a time, in the golden era of air travel, TWA - Trans World Airlines - was a big shot in the aviation world. Their Flight Center at JFK Airport, designed by the legendary architect Eero Saarinen, was the bee’s knees when it opened in 1962. It was a true symbol of the Jet Age, with its swooping lines, massive windows, and ultra-modern interiors. But, like so much technology - particularly aviation technology - it was practically obsolete by the time it opened with the Lockheed Constellation it was planned to accommodate being swiftly replaced by jetliners. TWA sadly went belly up in January 2001 and was acquired by American Airlines, who then made most of the staff redundant later that year as September 11 left a dent in the air travel market.
For years the iconic TWA Flight Center sat empty, gathering dust and waiting for someone to give it a new lease on life. Enter MCR Development, who had the idea to turn the old bird into a swanky hotel. So, in 2018 they restored the Flight Center to its former glory and added two hotel wings with 512 guest rooms.
The building
Eero Saarinen is one of the great architects of the twentieth century and although the TWA Hotel is a little different to the TWA Flight Center Saarinen designed, it’s still got the Eero blood running through its entire fuselage.
Inside
Connie
There’s a fully restored 1958 Lockheed Constellation aeroplane called “Connie” that’s been repurposed as a cocktail lounge, where you can sip on a cold one and dream about the good ol' days. The original Flight Centre was designed to serve Constellations but as quickly as TWA put them into service and the terminal started putting passengers aboard jet planes started replacing them.
The Connie was a plane at the right place but at the wrong time.
Connie was even hosting a wedding the day I was there.
The pool
The rooftop pool at the hotel is a major attraction, firstly because it’s a pool at JFK, secondly because of the view, thirdly because on cold days it’s heated like a jacuzzi, and finally because you can sip a cocktail in a jacuzzi warm pool with your kids watching Emirates Airbus A380s land and taxi so close that you could throw a stone at the captain.
The actual hotel stay
Our inbound flight to JFK from San Diego arrived at 7am, and we had a midnight flight out to Paris, so we booked an 8am to 8pm day rate that cost $249 USD which at the time was cheaper than overnight, and cheaper than two overnights which is what we’d need to book at a regular hotel to allow for an 8am to 8pm stay.
The food was actually really good. We generally don’t dine at airport hotel restaurants because their quality is usually poor and the price high, because they know they have you cornered. The Paris Cafe food however was really really good.
The front-of-house service however was poor. The housekeeping staff were beyond friendly and lovely, but the people at reception and front of the house in food and beverage service really made us feel like we’d ruined their day.
So, there you have it, the story and photos of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. It’s a testament to the spirit of innovation and the importance of preserving the USA’s architectural gems. If you’re ever in the Big Apple, it’s worth checking out this iconic piece of American aviation history.
📷🇲🇽 Analog (#mbmar Micro Blog March photo challenge prompt suggested by @skarjune)
I made these photos on Playa Cerritos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, on a broken film camera a week ago, then a few days later they were developed in a photo lab at Currumbin Beach, Australia, and I’m posting them today from Las Tunas, Mexico. The wonders of living in a connected world. (Britt has flown back to Australia this week).
July: great at selling luggage, not great at supporting it
Update: July have made good on this error and sent me a replacement bag to where I was in the USA. Thanks for going the extra-mile guys.
I feel so heartbroken when I didn’t keep my word. I struggle as a parent when I make a promise - or a threat - to my girls because I want to make sure I can follow through on my word. When I fail to keep my word in friendships, family, or business, it pains me. It’s why I pore over our website copy and contracts to make sure we can and will do what we promise to do.
So I guess that’s why I’m feeling really disappointed in one of my favourite brands: July.
Flying from San Jose del Cabo to Brisbane through Los Angeles in November last year a wheel came off my Checked Plus July luggage somewhere between Alaska Airlines' check-in at Cabo and the luggage carousel in LAX. I’m no fool, I’m sure one of the gentle giants working in luggage handling delicately placed the bag where it needed to be and the faulty wheel just fell off.
I had travel insurance on the trip, and no doubt Alaska Airlines might have covered it - but I know from experience that airlines are painful about damaged luggage.
So I had one week to make the claim with Alaska Airlines, but I thought travel insurance was the sure bet, but I know they’d ask me if I’d contacted the airline for coverage or the manufacturer for warranty, so I contacted July as I arrived on Australian soil on November 21 - intent to get a quick no from them so I can make an insurance claim, buy a new bag, and be ready to go by the time I leave Australia on December 21. We have one month to solve a hopefully easy problem.
July’s ‘Happiness Team’ replies - and by the way, unless you’re actually going to make people happy, just be a customer service or customer disservice team:
“We would be happy to have replacement wheels sent out for you.”
This I was not expecting!
So I give all the details as required and requested, put to bed any thoughts of wrestling with Alsaka’s premiere airline, and even worse, my travel insurance, and await the wheel.
It shipped from July one month later, as I was boarding my flight to Nashville via Sydney and Dallas. I explicitly communicated that I was in the country for a month and it took a month to send the wheel.
Another wheel was then allegedly shipped to my Mexican address but it’s been three months and all I am left with now is a series of thoughts and no wheels.
Rancho Gaspareño
Bryan Jáuregui quotes Greg Schredder regarding Rancho Gaspareño, Baja California Sur, just south of Todos Santos, emphasis and photos mine:
Rancho Gaspareño was named after a Spanish galleon that went aground on the point, the Gaspareño. It was one of the so-called Manila galleons, Spanish ships that sailed between the Philippines and Acapulco for 250 years, bringing spices, silks and other luxuries from the far east to New Spain. All these galleons sailed the Pacific coast of Baja on their way to Acapulco, so naturally enough the area became riddled with pirates, many of them English and Dutch.
There are many tales of buried pirate treasure in the area, and local school groups still come to explore the cave at Rancho Gaspareño each year to tap into the lore. Treasure hunters have reason for optimism; in 1974 when the road from La Paz to the ferry terminal at Pichilingue was being built, a pirate chest of plundered loot was discovered by road workers.
I think of this part of the Baja coastline as the forgotten area. People drive past Rancho Gaspareño going a hundred miles an hour on the new 4-lane highway and have no idea of the history of the area.
The Guaycura and Pericue Indians were the original inhabitants before the Jesuit’s arrival in 1697, and they were essentially wiped out by the time the Jesuits left in 1768. The Jesuits built their theocracy based on a promise to the King of Spain to get rid of the pirates who were plundering his ships, and the pirates faded away with the demise of the Manila galleons in 1815. Dominican Padre Gabriel González had a ranch near Gaspareño from 1825 to 1850, and the tobacco, rum, sugar, corn, and livestock he produced there made him the richest man in Baja California. From his ranch the padre engaged in espionage and guerilla warfare during the Mexican-American war of 1846-1848, and – thanks in part to the Padre – Mexico won a major victory near Gaspareño (but lost the war). By 1855 the Padre had lost his political backing and left Baja for good. For the next one hundred years entrepreneurs made fortunes in the sugar cane industry with fields in areas like Gaspareño, but in the 1950s a severe drought and price drop lead to the demise of the industry; the last sugar processing plant closed in 1974. In that same year the trans peninsular highway made its way to Todos Santos, bringing new life to the town, and in 1985 renowned artist Charles Stewart arrived from Taos, planting the seed for Todos Santos’ current incarnation as an artists’ colony. It remains an agricultural center and surfing hotspot, only now it is firmly on the radar of major developers.
Now we all just speed past at 120km/hr on the four-lane highway and wonder how much the owner wants for it (shhh, $12M).
📷🚁🇲🇽 Four aerial frames from Playa Los Cerritos, Baja California Sur
Sunday // Playa Cerritos, BCS
To celebrate Britt’s birthday we took a walking food tour of Coyoacán in Mexico City with Sabores Mexico Food Tours. 10 points to our guide, Enya, for an excellent tour and secretly arranging a little birthday treat for Britt.
My friend Jay has made a really beautiful documentary about being a digital nomad, remote working around the Arctic Circle.
Old mate out on the back fence of our Airbnb in Nashville this morning is a bit cold.
A week in Tasmania
The first point of order was to check out the land we’ve just bought!
From there it was straight into work.
First in New Norfolk …
Then in Freycinet …
I really do love this state.
Back to work again on kunanyi, formerly known as Mount Wellington.
From Mount Wellington we move to Bruny Island for Katrina and Oscar’s elopement and it’s also my 41st birthday.
The Arch, at Bruny Island
And on arrival to our Airbnb, a 200 year old church, we found a very rare white Bennett’s Wallaby. On the mainland they’d be snapped up by predators, but on Bruny Island a small population of the genetically unique macropod survives and as a result, Bruny Island is the only place on earth you’ll spot one.
This is Noah Sushi in Pescadero. The best sushi I have ever tasted, and I’ve had good sushi, even in Japan. It’s on a dirt road, with no signage, and no fancy tables inside. People come from hundreds of kilometres around to enjoy it.
Baja is wild.
Street names in Baja are wild, in that they barely exist. To prove my residence/address I need to show an electrical bill. So this street a few blocks from our house is hilariously named.
It’s named after a gardener who still lives in that street, and drinks multiple litres of alcohol a day. His nick name is “Litre” or in Spanish “Litro”. So a gringo who loves him had a street sign made, attached to the pole at the start of the street, now everyone calls it Litro Street.
Just a boy and his favourite seventy to two-hundred millimetres of glass photographed by another boy and his medium format film camera, Jack Fitz at Playa Los Cerritos at sunset.
Teaching the Withers girls how to share margaritas
We're off to Mexico and how we can stay in contact, a manifesto
My anxiety is of the opinion that none of you really care about me, contacting me or enjoying our family travels, if that’s so, please cease reading and thank you for confirming my deepest fears and anxieties. But, if you do wish to stay in contact with me and enjoy our photos and stories of lands far away, I have four notes for you:
If you wish to engage in the same kind of blogging I am, I can highly recommend micro.blog.
I publish, photograph, write, broadcast and share online to satisfy something inside of me that wants to contribute to the fabric of our society, to the story of our generation, and this is me doing that. If you think that’s a bit weird, you’ll love my blog.
Why so dramatic, Rockhampton sunrise?
Qantas T80 seat selection reminder shortcut for Apple Shortcuts
Reading a recent Point Hacks email about the ol' ‘T-80’ Qantas rule reminded me of an Apple Shortcuts shortcut I’d been meaning to make for a while. I’m no programmer, or Shortcut-writer, but I whipped the shortcut up today and I think it works really well.
Stealing this next image from Point Hacks, extra seats open up 80 hours out from the flight:
If you’d like a reminder about that opportunity, download the shortcut on your Apple device now. It works on Mac, iOS, and iPadOS, basically anywhere Shortcuts works.
This Shortcut looks for a calendar entry in the next year that has the letters QF in it, assumes that’s a calendar entry about a Qantas flight, and can create a reminder 80 hours before that flight to remind you that most seats that are blocked due to status are now unlocked and you’re able to select that seat if it’s not already taken.
It’s set up to look in all calendars and create a reminder in my Travel Reminders list, but you can edit it to your liking. My Qantas flights appear as part of a Tripit calendar subscription and this works fine.
Here’s how the Shortcut works:
It looks through my calendar and shows me all the calendar entries coming up that contain the letters QF, luckily for us the English language doesn’t afford us many words that use the letters q and f together, so it’s an easy selection.
The Shortcut displays the flights, you choose one, and a reminder is created along with a link to the Qantas manage your booking page.
If you use a different calendar system or a to-do/reminders system, it should retrofit if your system talks to Shortcuts like most do these days.
If I was going to make a travel vlog this week my episode would be about how you should just stay at home again, airports are terrible, it’s quicker to walk. All hail HRH Lord Joyce, the decider of all airborne transport matters.
Formally: Todays flight issues involved a B717 being ill, and then Rockhampton’s Air Traffic Control being unstaffed until 9:30am so we have to wait in Brisbane until there’s air traffic control.
Time to get off the hamster wheel: interview with Spencer Howson
Spencer Howson on 4BC Weekends invited me into the studio to explain why we’re moving to Mexico.
My mate Jay has made a documentary about remote knowledge workers, digital nomads, working around the Arctic Circle and I’m pretty damn jealous of those landscapes, the visuals, and the lifestyle! Check out the trailer!
Answers to the 10 most common questions people ask about us moving to Mexico
Answering the most common questions I’ve been asked about Britt and I moving to Mexico with our two kids:
Finally, if you’ve gotten this far you probably care about us as a family and are interested in our story. I’m fairly whelmed with the state of social media’s business models, algorithms, data abuse, and advertising these days so I’m publishing and sharing everything here on the blog first. If you’d like a weekly digest of everything shared here, throw your email into the subscribe form here. One day if enough of my community is subscribed here I might even just delete all the social media accounts.
Watching Melbourne wake up this morning from the Maribyrnong River
Show me a more Australian meal than a Chicken Schnitzel shaped like mainland Australia, served with veges, chips, and gravy.
I’ll wait.
We brought a Peugeot to a V8 fight …
Little bit morbid there, Apple Photos
Day one of Baby Drone making photos and we’re back into lockdown because of fear of getting wet.
Watching this wombat sleep today reminded me that the wombat is my spirit animal
We can dance if we want to. We can leave your friends behind. Cause your friends don’t dance, and if they don’t dance, well, they’re no friends of mine.
With many of us grounded, has anyone had a play of PC Globe to try and scratch that travel itch? You might need to upgrade to a 486 to run it well.
Money shot
Turns out the TARDIS gets it’s time travelling power from books. Important lesson for us all to learn, ya know?
Calling all true crime podcasters, I’m desperate to know the story of Henk and Lane and how the small Tasmanian town of Penguin got two IGA supermarkets next to each other.
How to spot a good fish and chip shop.
Bonus points for the shack being a seafood type of shack, for example this one is called ‘The Lobster Shack’
All I want for all of you is to enjoy life as much as Luna enjoys ice cream
So it sounds like MONA is celebrating being open again, this is the view from Dodges Ferry.
Nothing to see here, just an Independence Day-alien-ship-style laser beam going into Hobart …
Dodges Ferry.
With a fake sunset.
This is the first photo I’ve ever published with a synthetic element like a sky. But I’ve been colour-grading and removing things in the edit for years, and somehow this feels worse.
Who knows?
Proud to be racing in the Salamanca Place to Hobart pram race today. Photographed is my First Mate taking us over the starting line.
Spending Christmas in the Switzerland of Australia’s south
Shop inside a regional Tasmanian town’s local shopping centre. The professional life coach on staff on Christmas Eve is wearing knock-off AirPods.
I could watch this YouTube channel all night long
Aircraft doing hard time
Feels good to be back, standing outside the Gold Coast Qantas Club with a bunch of other members moments before it opens, as each new person who would imagine the lounge to be open by now, stridently - almost aggressively - walks past the congregation, gets to the automatic sliding door and their face sinks as it doesn’t open.
It’s been nine months, I miss you Qantas frequent flyers, you bring me joy.
Parking lot
Today’s office: Byron Bay Airport.
🌉
Sunset over what we call Summer Bay, despite the map saying Palm Beach.
One of my oddest hobbies is cloud watching. I can spend whole flights just staring out the window. These are some odd clouds over Scott’s Head this afternoon. I probably should read a book on clouds so I can give a better descriptor other than “clouds”.
Happy 100 year birthday, Qantas
Which country do you think this photo was made in?
9 hours in Tokyo, November 2019
One year ago today, Harley and I spent nine hours in Tokyo. Shortest Contiki tour ever. Favourite photos are the bloke squatting and the other bloke selling electronics.
Six years ago, on this day in 2014, I saw the most and best American thing outside the White House, with my own eyes. Nothing that happens in America today will trump this performance.
This is why we will never want to stop travelling
“The human condition is designed for travel. Our brains evolved to geotag memories, initially to find or avoid predators, food and mates. When we recall memories of people, songs, dates or events, they are returned with their associated locations. While we normalise our oft-visited locations, it’s the novel locations that remain highlighted along with the travel experiences we had there which re-invigorate our interest in business and recreational travel. This is why we will never want to stop travelling.”
— Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny, aka the Qantas A380 pilot from that Singapore incident, in Traveller
Mask fashion > mask wearing?
I think I’m the only person on the Canberra Airport free wifi network right now - I haven’t seen anyone else in the airport - because I just uploaded a 12gb 4K video to Dropbox so quickly that I’m not even sure how long it took. Maybe 3-5 minutes?!