January: We did our annual winter skitter up to Vancouver. It seems the husband and I do this every winter and we always enjoy it. Also, I got my first totally vitriolic hater comments for this post in which I asked some questions about digital rights.  Some people really hate it when you ask questions.

February: Antarctica! ’nuff said.

March: I stopped over in Santiago, Chile with Eileen Smith. We spent hours and hours talking about writing, rode bikes, and I ate a lot of avocados.

April: Portlandia. We spent a nice weekend there. We often just pass through on the way to/from Eugene, but this time we stayed in town. What a great city. We hate you for that, Portland. Shut up.

May: I stayed home. I worked. I wrote, a lot. You know what else happened in May? The US military assassinated Osama bin Laden. It seems like that was a long time ago, doesn’t it? Not so much so. It still feels like so little has changed. In less maudlin news, I joined the crew at Gadling, a AOL travel website. I review gear and write the occasional essay; it’s fun and I share the masthead with a lot of talented, smart, funny people like Mike Barish and David Farley and… oh, the list is too long.

June: I spoke at TBEX, the Travelblog Exchange. Okay, it was more than that, I shared the front of the room with stars, absolute stars, Don George and Andrew Evans. The guy who wrote the freaking book on travel writing and the guy who’s National Geographic’s Digital Nomad. Why are you reading me when you should be reading them? Getting to have breakfast with Andrew and Don that morning before we started our workshop? Talk about your dream date.

July: We were in Austria where I developed an irrational affection for… cows. But also, we had guests. I got to hang out with my friend Ciaran Buckley from Ireland for a few days — it had been years. I also got to meet one of my favorite bloggers in person, Mike Sowden. He jetted down to Austria from England with a bag of lemons. As one does.

August: So I mentioned Don George already, right? Well, he invited me to co-teach a course with the most exacting and, as a result, excellent, editor I’ve ever had the masochistic pleasure of writing for, Jim Benning. I headed to California where I was utterly overwhelmed with the joy of spending four days with people who love good travel writing. I met so many fine people, students, writers, editors, photographers, and I felt like I’d come home. Also, there was some ukulele on the patio at night. That was a sweet, sweet thing. I sure hope they invite me back.

September: Zanzibar! That’s right, I went from A (Antarctica) to Z (Zanzibar) in the same year. Un-freaking-believable. Super cool unexpected bonus? I genuinely enjoyed the people I traveled with. Sometimes, I’m driving around in my car and I think, “I wonder how Simon and Kelly are doing? And Tanja and Aude and… ” They were aces. Just aces. Oh, yeah, I was on safari in Tanzania, too.

October: My friends Rick and Lori got married. You know when that favorite person from college gets married and you’re all, “I’m happy for him but I just kinda wish he’d found somebody who’s more… I dunno…” Well, that did not happen. I adore Rick’s bride, she’s awesome. I was jetlagged and a little sick and still, I would not have missed this wedding for the world.

November: I went to music camp. Not just any music camp, I went to Keoki Kahumoku’s Hawaiian Lifestyle and Music Camp. I’m still sifting through the experience I had there, it was fun and educational and also, punctuated with some intensely heartbreaking moments. I got to share a cottage with the Bordessa crew, Kris and Brad and Evan, and I feel like I totally expanded my island ohana. Yes, I said “ohana.” Oh, yeah, no big deal, I also picked up a gig with Conde Nast Traveler.

December: Oh, December has been kind of hard. I went to Houston to see my old Dad and learned that he was fading, and I lost my uncle to leukemia. In happier news, I helped run the fourth successful year of Passports with Purpose — we raised nearly $90k for Room to Read, an international literacy program. I landed a story in Afar, the finest new magazine about travel since who knows when, that’s a byline I’m proud of.

And here’s the kicker… this isn’t even all of it. In spite of the sadness at the end of the year, and a personal economic slump that’s grad school-esque in its meagerness, I have been awash in good fortune. I could not peel a page off the calendar without fairy dust falling all over the place, sticking in my eyelashes and ending up in my pockets. I have been a truly honored guest around the globe this year. It has been epic. That’s a lot of hyperbole, I know, and as a person who calls themselves a writer, I should know better than to throw exaggerations around. The thing is, I think that in this case, it’s totally appropriate.

HomeAway has sponsored Passports with Purpose several years in  a row and they’ve sponsored my travels personally. I’m a HomeAway fan, not just because of their support, but because I’ve used the service, spending my own money to book vacation rental properties. It works, there are great deals to be had, and while I like a nice hotel as much as the next person, getting a place with a kitchen, a place in a neighborhood where you can feel at home is a great way to travel.  I’ve stayed in opulent city apartments and cute little neighborhood houses — a full range of accommodation, all booked through HomeAway.

There are a bunch of restrictions on the voucher, of course, as is typical with these things — the voucher is good for one stay only, meaning you can’t split it between properties.  but splash out and get something nice, why don’t you? I’ve been poking around to see what you can get for $1000 — just short of a full month in a studio on the island of Kauai. Two weeks in a one bedroom in Manhattan. A long weekend in a ski condo in Jackson Hole. And yeah, there are lots of listings outside the US, how about this studio in Vienna, Austria? You’ll need to use it before the end of 2012, but that’s not going to be a problem for you, right? Hey, you could the use voucher to house your visiting relatives when they stay in your town, too. And lookit! You could stay here if you come to visit me! (Seriously, it’s in my neighborhood.)

If you want a shot at the voucher, all you need to do is make a donation to Room to Read through the Passports with Purpose site. I promise it will make sense once you click through. You’ll put your donation on the voucher line in the catalog of stuff we’ve got as incentives.Your tenner goes directly to Room to Read and helps fund those libraries we want to build. Then, at the end of our fundraising efforts, we’ll pull a name at random and someone gets a voucher. Maybe you. And a community gets a library. No small thing. You know this if you’re a lover of reading. And I’ve said it before, if you couldn’t read, you wouldn’t be here right now.

Give ten dollars. Get a shot at a HomeAway voucher. Support some kids in the gift that is reading. You can do that right now by going here.

I have two or three opinions about what one ought or ought not to do with a blog, you might have noticed. And the reason I’ve got to be so opinionated about this kind of stuff is that really, without this blog, well, I’d have a different life. This year, blogging sent me to crunch through the ice with penguins in Antarctica and to breathe the dust kicked up by zebras in the Serengeti and to a bunch of other places, too.  That’s freaking amazing, and sometimes, when I’m at home, I get dizzy with all of it.

That makes it sound like I’m going on about me, and how awesome my blog is, and that’s not my intent at all. See, I’m continually aware that without you, reader, none of this would ever happen. That’s how I got to be so opinionated about blogging. I happen to believe that it’s about what you give your reader. Truly, I get amazing stuff through this process, and lord, I LOVE to write, I just love it. It would be totally disingenuous of me to deny the benefits I get, plus, I’d be lying. But I do spend a good deal of time thinking about you. Without you, I’d stay home a lot more.

During the course of my travels, people ask me what I do, what I’m doing there. The conversation goes much the same way every time. I tell them I’m a travel writer. They swoon a bit and say it must be nice, picturing what we all picture when we think of that classic image of the travel writer. (Just recently, someone asked me if I fly first class all the time and I burst out laughing.) They ask me who I write for, I tell them I’m freelance and I rattle off the places I’ve contributed to regularly. Some of them have heard of Gadling, almost all of them have heard of CN Traveler, not enough of them have heard of World Hum. I tell them I work in tech, too, that’s how I make my living, that yes, right now, my job is awesome and later, I’ll work really hard on things that are way less glam because I don’t earn enough as a travel writer to get by, not by a long shot.

If they’re wired, they ask about blogging. I say this: “I have an inexplicably popular blog about travel.” I find myself thinking of you when people ask about my blog. I’d like to be able to turn around and point at you and say, “Oh, I’m here because of these people. They’re awesome, you should talk to them instead of me.” I wouldn’t be there if you weren’t here.

It’s Thanksgiving here in the US. Rather than the annual list of things I’m grateful for, I’d just like to say thank you to you, reader. Thank you for the kindest and most thoughtful comments and emails, for being the smartest people on the web, for sticking around and watching my writing change over the absurdly long life of this blog. I am continually overwhelmed by your loyalty and support. Thanks for what you make it possible for me to do; it wouldn’t happen without you. You’re the best.

Thank you for reading Nerd’s Eye View.

My favorite book has always, always, been Alice in Wonderland, though I love The Phantom Tollbooth, too. I’ve read 100 Years of Solitude maybe a dozen times, and I’m also very fond of Timothy Egan’s The Good Rain, a beauty of a book about the Pacific Northwest. I was a Lord of the Rings tween (a habit a college friend says leads to pot smoking, whereas Watership Down led to more wholesome playing outside). Now, because it’s what I love to write, I read travel narrative. I love to hate Paul Theroux for what I suspect is misogyny,  though his writing, oh, it’s brilliant. I swoon for Pico Iyer, his keen observations and ability to catch that aggravating, wonderful sense of disconnect (I recommend The Global Citizen), and I’ve been reading bits of Susan Orlean’s essays, My Kind of Place. Susan Orlean also wrote The Orchid Thief, a book I really enjoyed, though the movie irked me something fierce. Books, oh, I love them, and I am so excited when I have the time to really read. I can not imagine a life without books.

This year, Passports with Purpose, our travelblogger’s fundraiser, is supporting Room to Read. Lifted directly from the Room to Read site:

Our Vision: Room to Read believes that World Change Starts with Educated Children. We envision a world in which all children can pursue a quality education that enables them to reach their full potential and contribute to their community and the world.
Our Mission: Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Working in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments, we develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children, and support girls to complete secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond.

For Passports with Purpose, this translates into specific, concrete efforts — we plan to raise enough money to fund the establishment of two libraries, their exact locations TBD, in under-served communities in Zambia. At the most basic level, the program will put books in the hands of kids that don’t have them. There are corresponding goals — bring in good teachers and librarians, engage the libraries in supporting regional education programs, increase literacy and, by doing so, change lives for the better. There’s lots of information on the Room to Read site about their programs, please go read up if you want more detail.

I have tried to imagine what my life would be like had I not been given access to the expansive world of books. My childhood was full of books.  When I tired of the books at home, I used the school library, and when I tired of that, I used the public library. Books are piled up around the house now, and magazines, and a ridiculous amount of the electronica we have around the house is used for reading when it’s not used for writing. I get to live in my own Dictionopolis (there’s a Phantom Tollbooth reference for you, look it up), an empire of words. I make my living from my facility with words. Without them, I would be… I can not imagine.

This is a very long way of asking for your help with the 2011 Passports with Purpose fundraiser for Room to Read. I won’t tell you what to do here, I’ll just hand you off to our website — and hey, if you have questions on how to help after checking this out, please ask. But before you click away, think about what books mean to you, about what reading means to you. It’s why you’re here right now, because you can read.

• Passports with Purpose 2011: How to Participate
• Room to Read
• Are you in Seattle? Come to the PwP kickoff event.

• I’m a regular contributor to Gadling; most recently I wrote a piece about the joys of the Hawaiian plate lunch.
• I published a piece on Lonely Planet. It was really fun to write — it’s a weird little story where not much happens. I loved working with the editor there and I’m penciled in to do a bit more work later this year. It’s all on spec for now, but I feel good about how it went and optimistic about future work.
• I’m in edits with a fancy print magazine. I pretty much can’t wait to tell you about this piece, and yet, I’m going to have to. It’s just one story, but what a thrill to get to write it.
• I’ve signed a contract with a new website, another one I can’t wait to tell you about. I get to do something super excellent for them and while yes, there’s editorial oversight, there’s also a lot of me getting to do my thing, whatever that is. Stand by.
• I’m still writing gear reviews weekly at Practical Travel Gear. I field test everything, I wear it, wash it, get it dirty, drag it around the planet, you know the drill. I have opinions on gear now, that’s for sure.
• I’m wrapping up the details on a trip to the islands. I’ll be attending Keoki Kahumoku’s Hawaiian music camp in Pahala on the Big Island. All uke, all the time, for one week. Then, if it all comes together, J will join me for a few days of R&R on Maui.
• I’m hard at work on Passports with Purpose for 2011. This year we’re funding the literacy program Room to Read with a goal of building a couple of libraries. You want to be a part of this, it’s an amazing thing. We’re in our fourth year and we’re currently wading through the application process to make PwP a non-profit organization.
• I’m writing pitch letters to travel publications. Having that one fancy print piece fall into my lap was nice (thanks, Andrew, you’re the best) but it’s not always going to happen that way. My writing doesn’t suck, I should try to get more of it out there.
• I’m not posting for TravelWild anymore, but actually, this delights me. The reason I’m not posting there is that they’ve taken it over themselves. This was my hope for this project, that I would revive the blog and then, they’d give it the love it deserves in house. My goal was to make myself pretty much obsolete, and that’s what’s happened. It’s good news, really good news.
• I’m looking for tech projects. I have plenty of writing work, as you can see, but it’s not bringing in the kind of bank I need to pay the bills. I’m on the hunt for a part time tech gig, 20 hours a week would suit me just fine. My favorite client is in a contractor hiring freeze, so I’m casting my net a bit wider. Send leads.
• I went to Tahoe, California for one of my best friends’ wedding. I’m not a big fan of weddings, read into that what you will. But I loved being there, even though I was still kind of jet-lagged and just plain worn out from my trip. Congrats, you two, I adore you both.
• The Eugene parental unit paid us a visit and we toured Seattle’s International District. It’s been a while since I’ve spent time poking around that part of the city; I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. We took the tour at the Wing Luke Museum; that was great, I recommend it.
• On deck? Trying to coordinate with the brothers on a visit to see my dad in Tucson. An off season trip to British Columbia, perhaps. An overnight at Skamania Lodge down near Hood River, Oregon. And an audition with a ukulele based 80s cover band. Yeah, you read that right.

Life is good. And that picture?  I’m holding a chameleon in Lushoto, Tanzania. Because that’s how I roll. Chameleons? SO CUTE! And so CRABBY! I love that!