Interview With Nora Dunn of The Professional Hobo
Please give my readers a background about yourself. What made you want to start theprofessionalhobo.com?
In 2006, I was busy running a financial planning practice in Canada, helping other people to engineer their finances toward their life's dreams and ambitions. I realized my own dreams and ambitions were being ignored in the process; dreams of long-term travel, and living around the world. So I sold everything I owned and started to travel the world!
TheProfessionalHobo.com came to pass when I realized that I could put my talent for writing to use as a way to make money with an internet connection and keep my travels going as long as I liked. So I started referring to myself jokingly as a Professional Hobo, and it stuck!
As such, I've been traveling full-time in a financially sustainable way since 2007.
In all of your travels, in your opinion what part of country has the best food? and the worst food?
I'm a foodie through and through, so it's difficult to choose! But I must say my recent time in Vietnam was a gastronomic delight, and I'm currently on the Caribbean island of Grenada and enjoying many of the same tropical fruits that I fell in love with in Hawaii.
As for worst food, I've had very few bad experiences. Although some people might have suggested Swedish Surstromming (fermented fish) would be the worst, I didn't mind it too much. I had a worse experience in Thailand eating some unidentifiable godforsaken meat at a grill-it-yourself place!
If you had to choose one favourite destination, which one would you chose?
As yes, that age-old question that I usually abhor! I answered it here in a round-a-bout way a while ago, but I can't deny that New Zealand is a place I want to return to over and over again, and I must also say Grenada is quickly becoming another favourite place of mine. I'd also love to return to France, explore more of Spain and southern Europe, and Ukraine was also a surprise.
Nah. Still can't choose!
What has been the least exciting destination you've traveled to?
I believe travel is very contextual. I can't choose a favourite place because it has much less to do with the place itself and much more to do with the company, mood, and circumstances.
The same goes for any destination I was non-plussed by. However if I had to choose, I'd say that Russia didn't grab me.
Did you always have a love of travel or did you develop your passion for traveling as you got older?
My dream of long-term travel hatched when I was nine years old, and watched a documentary in school about Europe. I was mesmerized with this world I saw where people dressed differently, the language was foreign, the foods unrecognizable, and the architecture unlike anything in Canada. I itched to know how these people lived their lives, and wanted to know what it was like.
As I got older, I tried to satisfy that itch with vacations, but more often than not returned home with more questions than answers about my destination of choice and what life was like there. That was when I realized I had to travel long-term; to LIVE around the world, not just travel through it.
What impact has theprofessionalhobo.com had on your life?
As a matter of personal branding, TheProfessionalHobo.com has been a tool for my ability to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way. I am also able to share my travel tips and resources and help other people seize their own dreams of redesigning their lives for travel. It's a great tool for communication, and a wonderful way to share my musings as I galavant around the world.
What has been the most surprising destination you've been to? Meaning, you had a specific mindset about a certain destination but it was totally a different experience than you had imagined.
I'd have to say Ukraine surprised me. I didn't have many expectations of Ukraine in general, but I arrived in a state of exhaustion in the midst of the Ultimate Train Challenge (which involved 30 days of train travel from Lisbon to Saigon).
So an initially rocky start picked up nicely when I encountered many kind people in Lviv, then went hiking in the beautiful Carpathian mountains with a great group. I would like to return to Ukraine again to explore daily life there a bit more. I talk about this roller-coaster experience in the article The Very-Fast Train is 1 Hour Late (and Other Ukrainian Paradoxical Experiences).
If you had to decide which destination has been the most influential in your life, which destination would you chose?
I spent almost a year and a half in total in Australia, including a very dark few months in the middle of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires – the country's worst-ever natural disaster.
Australia was also a turning point in my travels, as I broke up with my partner at the time after three years of traveling together, when I needed to move on and he decided to stay.
Shortly thereafter I went to New Zealand – which is a place I have returned to a couple of times already, and am planning to revisit yet again.
So both Australia and New Zealand seem to be quite influential for me.
What advice would you give to a newbie traveler?
Do it! It's been said so many times before, and I fear that it's becoming somewhat cliche; but in almost every cliche is a grain of truth.
You can spend a lifetime planning to travel and finding a million reasons why you can't go...yet. I had no idea what form my travels would take or how I'd make them last when I decided to take the plunge myself. But it all worked out, in ways I could never have initially envisioned.
As a former financial planner, I must also advise that you get your financial house in order before making any big moves towards long-term travel. Check out my weekly Financial Travel Tips for more helpful information on how to manage your finances with a travel-bent.
In 10 years, do you see yourself still traveling or slowing down?
Does it have to be one or the other? ;-)
Thanks Nora for the interview. Please visit her blog @ The Professional Hobo
Follow Nora on Twitter and Frind Her on FaceBook !