A true member of Generation Y, I'm as international and wanderlust-prone as anyone I know.
Which is why I fit so well in the travel industry, I suppose. I get to blend my vocation for travelling, my love for new places, languages and people, and the fun of sharing it all with other people.
How awesome is that?
I'm not really "from" anywhere -- or, more accurately, I'm from everywhere. It's a long story...buy me a nice glass of something sometime and I'll regale you with it.
I live a pretty minimalist lifestyle, and it's rare that I travel with more than one suitcase of 20kg.
Everything I need is a late 2011 11" MacBook Air and an iPhone 5.
Also in my bag are my beloved Canon PowerShot, a UK multi-plug power strip with a single international adapter on the end and a Victorinox Swiss Champ army knife.
In my wallet, I keep two MasterCards, two separate bank account cards and three miles-earning American Express cards including my Amex Platinum, which I reckon is the best card I know for travellers.
I'm equally at home living it up in top-flight hotels (Sydney's Four Seasons can't be beat for the view) or relaxing by the river at my favourite backpacker's hostel in the world. (Bellingen in New South Wales, if you're interested.)
I have a real thing for places that are at the end of the world: Land's End, Finisterre, Murmansk, the Chatham Islands, Rovaniemi...
My bucket list is full of places like Svalbard, the Azores, Ushuaia, Novaya Zemlya, Reykjavik, Cape Town, Kamchatka, Madeira, Fairbanks, the Seychelles, Churchill, Darwin, Vladivostok, Ruuk, Madagascar, Micronesia, Réunion -- it's a fairly extensive bucket list, full of long train journeys and three-connection flights involving tiny planes and beach runways.
But while I've enormous world-encompassing dreams, I also love microtravel: just nosing around wherever I happen to be, whether that's Cornwall or Cromwell or Cornhill or cornfields.
Few things make me happier than singing. Every year, like a migrating bird, I return to my musical centre of gravity at St Endellion in Cornwall for the Easter and Summer music festivals, where I sing tenor and help out with the organising. (I'm also one of the voices of @StEndellionFest.)
I've sung with the Choir of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, the London Gay Men's Chorus, BBC Choir of the Year Chantage and, of course, the St Endellion Festival Chorus.
Wine is another one of my passions. My favourite fizz is Domaine Sylvain Gaudron's Vouvray Pétillant. I rate it as better than any champagne under €50. I'm more of a white drinker than a red drinker.
Favourite dry white? Probably Cloudy Bay's bottle-aged Te Koko Sauvignon Blanc, although for the price I'd rather have two bottles of Wither Hills' Rarangi single-vineyard Sauvignon Blanc.
As for aromatics: it's a real fight between Te Whare Ra's Toru blend from Marlborough, Greystone Wines' Gewürztraminer from the Waipara Valley and Moana Park's Viognier from Hawke's Bay.
Reds: this is where it gets really hard, and I get really vague. I like Bordeaux Merlot-Cab-Franc blends, but I find actual Bordeaux AOC wine is overpriced and underdelivers. (My dad and I spent a week in Bordeaux and had one (one!) decent bottle of wine, despite dropping some significant money. Give me a NZ or Chilean blend any day.
I'm also a huge fan of jammy Californian Zinfandel. Lodi is my favourite Zin area, but there's also some really interesting stuff coming out of Livermore. And I love a good South African Pinotage. I find the tiny Northland NZ wine region near Kerikeri absolutely fascinating.
After dinner or as an apéritif, a good tawny port can't be beaten, although I've recently been enjoying new world tawnys more than officially designated Port. Graham's The Tawny or Warre's Otima are my favourite widely-available easy-drinking ports, but when in NZ I'll always take Moana Park's ten-year-old Tawny.
My music collection of over 100GB won't fit on my iPhone, and spans Byrd to Buxtehude to Bach to Brahms to Britten to Buddy Holly to Billie Holliday to the Beach Boys to Boney M to Beyoncé and beyond.
Upmarket, gourmet and business travel are a particular passion. Having been a road warrior, writing for Australian Business Traveller came naturally to me -- and I spent two of the happiest years of my life doing it.
Tips, tricks and travel hacking are some of my favourite things. I love sharing the insider knowledge that comes from having spent a large part of my life travelling, and reading about others' nifty travel knowledge too.
Want to know more? Say hello on Twitter. I'm @thatjohn.
