Bindu's Repose

Technomad

My intentions with this trip revolve around three key things: self-discovery, tea and technology. Obviously there is also a good dose of wanting to see the world and it’s inhabitants in the astonishing diversity that exists.

I believe that Steven Roberts came up with the term Technomad to describe his wandering life at the controls of a net connected bicycle. In January of '97, I heard Steven talk about his Winnebiko and the beginnings of the Microship project at an annual sales meeting for Aspect Telecommunications.

My fantasy about traveling around the world started way before that. Early on I was going to do the whole trip on a motorcycle. Now, just the thought of that much time on a bike makes my butt hurt! Lugging 20lbs of electronics (in addition to all the other necessities that made it into my pack) around with me seems to pail in comparison to trying to figure out how to get a motorcycle out of China and into Japan for example... And yet I still feel some trepidation about lugging that much gear (Laptop, PDA, GPS, Digital Camera) all the way around the world.

I was looking through an old friend’s website when I came across a technomad reference and realized that I had rediscovered a cultural paradigm that begins to describe this crazy obsession with lugging around gear.

As I read through Steven’s site I noticed one really interesting quote:

So there you have it. I’m heading off on a technomad trip. I wonder if I’ll pack up all my gear and ship it back home or if I will be able to sustain my sense of glee…