Hello and Welcome!

Hello and a very big welcome to the blog!

I hope you find things here that are interesting, informative and entertaining (although that sounds a bit like the remit of the BBC). If the things here are not, then, well, I can only apologise in advance :-)

The purpose of the blog, at least initially anyway, is two-fold.

Firstly, I plan to use it to communicate with family, friends and colleagues about my amazing, forthcoming trip around the world. The itinerary is: India, Thailand (overland to Singapore), Cambodia, Australia (Perth, overland to Brisbane), New Zealand (Christchurch, overland to Auckland), Tahiti, Los Angeles, overland to Miami and back to the UK. The plan is for it to take around 6 months or so, although, of course, that's subject to potential change, as are the destinations! I intend to post photos, videos and thoughts (if I'm fortunate enough to have some) as they occur along the way. Hopefully the whole thing will be interactive, so feel free to comment as you wish, on anything and everything!

Secondly, I hope to comment occasionally on the journey as a meditation on the notion of psychogeography, although I am a little unsure of this at the moment.

There are a lot of unknowns and caveats at this stage, which I guess is only natural. Of course, I have no idea if I will travel to the places I've outlined (although I will definitely start off in Delhi), or even maintain communication on here particularly well. Time will tell. One of the interesting things, I think, is to see how things develop. The world of work is good for creating a framework or structure which allows us to locate ourselves in terms of a place and a purpose and (very broadly speaking) with a particular set of people. The absence of that particular structure and the associated elements is quite frightening in a way and also incredibly exciting and liberating. Instead of having a location, literally and psychologically, I will be willingly dislocated. Dislocated in terms of place and social structures, dislocated from the familiar, the known and the comfortable. However, I'm hoping that there will be a new, natural rhythm and structure that will develop as my journey develops and as I develop into the journey, so that dislocation might become a form of relocation for a time.

At the very least, I hope there will be some good photos! :-)