The Migratory Nerd Takes Off

As the wheels on Duane Storey‘s plane pull up off the YVR tarmac tomorrow he’ll be on his way to an adventure some of us may only dream of living. For the last year or so, Duane has been planning a working holiday that will take him below the equator, over the Atlantic, and across dozens of time zones.

Back in January of 2009 Duane quit his job downtown and moved from his False Creek apartment to a condo in his hometown of Chilliwack, BC. He had previously founded Brave New Code with Dale Mugford of Hamilton, Ontario and they had already begun to change the way we all use WordPress by creating popular plugins such as WPtouch and WordTwit.

With his new-found employment freedom, an idea began to sprout and it will come to fruition tomorrow when he leaves for Argentina from where he will be working (and blogging) for the next few months before moving on to another location.

“As much as I’d like to kick my feet up and relax every day, I’ll be working and helping run our company on most days during normal business hours,” Duane told me.

“Instead of having a small farm town as the backdrop though there will be various cities in the world, such as Buenos Aires, where I’m starting. Hopefully as the year progresses I’ll be able to do more four day weekends and week long trips. But at first, most of my exploring will be in the evenings and on weekends as I go.”

Having the freedom to work from anywhere is one thing but when your business relies heavily on internet usage and web applications, connectivity is something Duane needed to research diligently.

“Most countries have fairly reliable internet these days, and some even have better internet than in North America (such as Japan). I’ll mostly be renting furnished apartments as I travel, and most of those have high-speed internet included.” If he doesn’t have luck with WIFI, Duane said that getting a cellular data plan is the next best option as they are fairly easy to acquire abroad.

While he only planned to be away for about six months, Duane’s wandering appetite has grown and he will most likely be gone through the fall of 2011.

“My rough plan is to do South America for three months (where it will be summer), then hit Europe for three or four months (where it will be spring going on summer),” said Duane who plans to chase the season. “I’ll then move on to Asia for three months (where it will be summer going on fall), and then end the trip in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and then home again for Christmas.”

You can follow Duane’s travel tips, tours, and adventures by following Migratory Nerd on his blog, Twitter, and Flickr. We’ll be checking in with him over Skype and FaceTime as he makes his way around the globe.