When planning for our 2 month trip to Southeast Asia in winter 2005, my girlfriend and I decided we would only take a single bag.

And no, this wouldn’t be a large, cumbersome backpack like the ones perpetually seen by eager backpackers around the world. We each pledged to stick with a regular size backpack, like one you would fill with schoolbooks and a lunchbox.

Others thought we were crazy. “How can you travel for two months with that little thing?” Truthfully, we didn’t really know how we’d manage it. But we arrived at the airport, boarded the plane, and journeyed into strange new lands with literally little more than the clothes on our back.

And it was the best decision we could have ever made.

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What the eyes are for the outer world, fasts are for the inner. -M.K. Gandhi

It’s Saturday. I’ve been fasting for over twenty-four hours. My last meal was back on Wednesday evening. However, my statement is truthfully a lie.

Last night, for a final supper in Paris before heading back home for the holidays, I forced a small bowl of vegetable soup down my throat. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew I would have disappointed Madame Joffres by skipping out on my final Parisian dinner of the year.

So, broke my fast-going all day Thursday into Friday, until an evening’s bowl of soup. Now today: Saturday afternoon. I come to my present condition.

Above a rain slick Paris and flying northward over an expanse of whiteness, the sun is welcomed, but noticeably, it increases the irregular internal heat of my body. My cheeks feel burnt, my flesh cooking from within, my nose feels as though it’s being squeezed by a wrench. My head is heavy. My eyes are sunken and somber.

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Chances are, you’ve seen Matt and his “Dancing” video already. Along with just about everyone else on the internet, I’ve previously mentioned him here under a post about inspirational travel sites that will make you pity your day job.

So what’s Matt been doing since then? Dispensing his sage wisdom.

Earlier this month, he was named one of the 40 Greatest Internet Superstars in a Vh1 television special. And Payscale.com has posted a pretty thorough interview with Matt about his fame, lessons learned, and most memorable moments from the road.

Here’s a choice exerpt:

What did Matt learn from his travels?

Sometimes other people limit our options for us, sometimes we limit our options and we create the boundaries for our existence and say, “I can only do this, this is the job I’m cut out for, this is what I can do.”

I think it’s really important when you realize that you’re the one creating those boundaries and you have control over them, there’s no lock on the cage, and you can open up the door, go outside and do whatever you want.

Watch the film above and read the full transcript.

Technorati Tags: travel, dancing, where the hell is matt

This article is adapted from Mark Moxon’s website. Republished here with permission.

Becoming a travel writer is pretty easy – you just need to travel and write – but becoming a paid travel writer is another matter altogether. As a travel writer who currently doesn’t make any money from writing about travelling, I’m in no position to give out advice on the latter… but when did that ever stop anyone?

I reckon the best way to become a travel writer is to become one. As with all jobs, people are only going to pay you to write if you are already writing and being published, so it’s the good old chicken and egg story again. It all boils down to contacts, hard work, and a healthy dose of luck.

The first thing to do is to write.

Writing is the best way to improve your craft, and is pretty much the only way to go unless you’ve been born with irritatingly precocious skills.

You don’t have to go travelling to write, but you do have to be disciplined; there are millions of writers out there who never get beyond the stage of keeping a travel diary, and pretty much everyone thinks their own writing is brilliant… but there aren’t many successful travel writers, and the reason is that we all improve, bit my bit, and slowly, by actually writing.

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When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, the impact on the Cuban economy was devastating. The country lost approximately 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped 34%. Along with food and medicines that were imported, half of their oil came from the USSR and all oil imports trickled to a mere 10% of previous levels.

When this happened, Cuba’s transportation, industrial and agricultural systems were paralyzed. This time in the country’s history was known as the Special Period, when waiting for a bus could take three hours, power outages could last up to 16 hours, food consumption was cut up to 1/5th and the average Cuban lost about 20 pounds.

Before the crisis, Cuba used more pesticides than the United States. Much of their land was de-mineralized. Many crumbling buildings that could not be repaired were torn down. The empty lots lay idle for years until the food shortages forced Cuban citizens to make use of every piece of land.

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Stuck in an internet cafe with an entirely different language set on the keyboard? You could frustratingly navigate your fingers along the foreign keys, tapping cautiously, and lashing out when you realize you just spelled an indecipherable word.

Or you could use this handy Virtual Keyboard from Gate2Home.com

This site enables you to write in your language wherever you are in the world, with an online onscreen keyboard emulator. All you do is select your own language, and a familiar keyboard pops up onscreen for you to start typing your message.

After your done, you just highlight the text box and paste it in an email, blog entry, message home, or whatever. Fantastic.

A film montage I shot during my visit to the Cambodian Killing Fields in early 2006. The song is called “Dusk” by Canadian artist Matthew Good.

Just one hour’s flight from Bangkok, Phnom Penh is the capital city of Cambodia, and shares much in commom with other major urban centres of Southeast Asia.

It’s loud, swarming with motorbikes, tuk-tuk drivers, and piles of plastic wrappers piled behind rusted tin dwellings, all nestled amongst countless hotels, neon signs, and a melee of citizens.

My fiance Karen and I ask our taxi driver to drop us in “The Lake District” — which sounds much more prestigious than the name implies. Picture a crowded alley of guesthouses, moneychangers, and monkeys screeching from the rooftops of the single story buildings.

Most of the guesthouses look out onto Boeung Kak Lake, an emerald green body of water thick with snails and garbage. After the first night’s sunset over the city, I forgave everything.

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What’s a trip these days without a few tech toys to share it with the world?

That’s what BigTripBlog.com is all about. I recently came across this great beginner’s guide to “flashpacking” via Travelistic, put together by current nomads Kevin Allgood and Valerie Marshall.

They offer a brief look at the tools of the trade to film, record, and share their journey on the road. Have a watch and enjoy!

Technorati Tags: flashpacking, travel blogs

Have you found any other great flashpacking guides or articles? Please share in the comments!