Photo: The Wandering Woodwards with a cheetah at the Spier Estate, South Africa
If you take a quick look over on the right there, you’ll see that Thursday’s posts are “pot luck”…sometimes there will be one, sometimes there won’t and the topic will be pot luck!
So I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you all a bit of a personal update on how things are going in our LIP lives right now…
It’s also to make up for the missing LIP Links post this week which never happened as both Jonathan and I have been suffering from minor colds and feeling a bit rotten since we got back from our weekend jolly to the winelands here in South Africa (I blame the wine consumption which clearly compromised our immune systems) – and I’m a bit behind on future scheduling some of the posts.
Here’s a brief round-up of what we’ve been up to recently:
Love, love, loving South Africa…
…despite the power crisis, frustratingly structured internet services here (3GB a month…you must be joking – we get through that in 2 days!!) and apparent crime problems (we heard a girl talking about how she was robbed at gun point last week), we are absolutely loving our time here in South Africa.
Here’s why:
- Cost of living is great value and we basically know we can go into pretty much any restaurant and afford it – even the *nice* ones.
- The weather right now is gorgeous – sunny almost every day and as we’re by the coast, we get a stiff breeze (wind!) to keep things cool.
- We are within a 10m drive of central Cape Town, a 45 minute drive of world class winelands, a 15m drive of the Cape of Good Hope for fantastic countryside walks (complete with wild baboons) and within spitting distance of some spectacular ocean scenery.
Busy planning the next stop…
Current thoughts are Thailand, although we’ve flirted with the idea of the Greek islands. As low cost is our driving factor this year, some rough figures determined Thailand to be cheaper even if you factor in the cost of the longer flights. And if we’re over that way, then we’re likely to stay there for a bit and do some of the Philippines and also call in to HK for the first time in a few years.
As ever, it’s proving to be a little time-consuming checking out all the flights and we haven’t even started on accommodation yet (although I have a trick up my sleeve for that one in Thailand – in the form of my parents who’ve just spent 2 months there).
Prioritising business growth…
As I wrote recently on my personal blog , I’ve had a little blip over the past few months and put way too much emphasis on the blogging side of things when it’s really not my main business (I just enjoy it far too much!).
This has been duly corrected and we’re on a big push to grow our business to the stage where we effectively remove ourselves from it and just oversee everything and do the bits we enjoy (also leaving me free to get back to blogging and writing).
So far, so good and the renewed focus on the business is going great – with clients and new business appearing all over the world and from unexpected (and expected) sources.
So that’s where we are and what we’ve been doing…how about you? What have you all been up to recently?
It all sounds great there in South Africa except 3gig a month. 3gig a month? You have got to be kidding……wow !
Have a great time in Thailand :)
Sounds cool there in SA. I’ve read your “X Marks the Spot” twice now and want to thank you again for creating it. SO useful as I figure out how I want to implement my writing and performing businesses!
I was wondering, how much are you paying monthly for rent?
We hadn’t considered South Africa, but now I’ll have to add it to the list. Greece has definitely crossed my mind. I’ve heard Croatia can be similar at a cheaper price.
We’ll be in Buenos Aires for the next several months, but I think the next place has to be in the southern hemisphere. Don’t want to end up right back in winter again when we leave!
I’d consider Turkey over Greece – much cheaper, better Greek ruins, nicer people! What have I been up to? Well I have got myself 2 part-time jobs because the $20/month I was earning blogging was not helping the savings for the next trip! I one job early morning cleaning which basically means they pay me to keep fit instead of me paying a gym – and I actually go the job and I dont get to the gym! And after a break of nearly 13 years I have got a job back in geology – I was determined to not go back to meaningless but well paid IT projects again.
@jim – I know, 3GB sucks BIG time, doesn’t it?!?! No rhyme or reason to how it seems to be used/calculated though so it keeps us guessing!!
@Justin – I am so pleased you’re finding the book useful…look forward to seeing how things work out for you…
@Pedro – we’re paying GBP 500 here which is probably over the odds but we were so disorganised about our trip here (gone way the other way from last year’s booking everything several months in advance!!) that we hadn’t really lined up much else to see. You can get cheaper but we really like where we are, so we’re happy.
@Jason Van Order – we are LOVING South Africa…we’re even talking about perhaps wanting to settle here eventually!! Croatia is supposed to be gorgeous – although I know prices have sjyrocketed recently, especially around Dubrovnik. We’re now planning to come back to SA after Asia…we like it that much!! How’s things in BA going?
I hadn’t thought of Turkey…thanks Lissie, will have to investigate altho we’re now pretty much set on Thailand for the next few months. Congrats on the jobs – great tactic to keep fit…I worked as a cleaner once and it was very hard work – you’ll have a beach-worthy bod in no time ;-) What’s the geology job??
we’re looking for good addresses to stay over there. any recommendations are welcomed. we’ve checked a lot of sites yet 500 GBP seems reasonable compared to the prices listed online.
curious how/where you found your apartment