It’s pretty clear that running my business blog means I pay little attention to my personal blog. Yet since leaving Vancouver on 2 October I’ve been travelling around the US for various conferences and to stay with overly generous friends and had some fun adventures.

In short I did the border run crossing to get my Permanent Residency from Canada, literally around the flagpole as they call it. Then continued on into the US where my good friend Justin drove me all the way to Seattle so I wouldn’t miss my flight.

I forget that many US airlines charge you extra for baggage, turns out when your life is one suitcase, and a tennis racquet bag plus laptop bag, your luggage is kind of heavy. And it cost me more than my flight!

But I figured it was a small price to pay for hauling my life around in bags that make me look like a travelling Xmas elf.

I headed to LA to stay in the lovely mansion of Rebecca and Scott and hang out with Kernby and Tucker – my two best friends who’ve made me remember why I love dogs so much.

For two weeks I basically kept working on my business, putting big plans into place for some key projects next year, preparing for upcoming conferences and continuing to learn more about the online marketing world.

Then I was off to Las Vegas for close to 3 weeks – don’t worry I didn’t stay on the strip that whole time – that would drive a girl crazy. But I did see a really different side to Vegas including staying out in suburbia thanks to family friend Tina Gent and family, and staying behind the strip in a residential apartment thanks to a friend of a friend and talented poker player Dan.

I also got to attend BlogWorld – yes a conference for bloggers and probably one of the best and most useful events I’ve ever attended that sparked my desire to really make my blog remarkable. I wrote about it in this article: How to become a Problogger in 3 days or less – even the probloggers liked it.

I worked on producing social media bootcamp videos, posts, guest posts, setting up affiliate product recommendations and some other projects in between this conference and Shine – `Discover your true wealth’. A conference put on by the pretty amazing Ali Brown who earns $5 million a year and started out writing e-newsletters.

Luckily I got to interview her before the conference too.

During my time in Vegas I got to play some ultimate Frisbee, see`Peepshow’ for free with Tina and the dragcar races too.

A real highlight was visiting the incredible Hoover Dam plus getting lost in the desert for real. A 6 hour epic ordeal with little water or food, an iPhone as torch light and attempting to read the stars while tripping over rocks.

Luckily we made it out (that 2 hour round hike to some hot springs really was quite the adventure).

Then I was off to San Francisco – a city that also delivers and gets better. I had two solid weeks of amazing sunshine and beautiful days – very rare. My friend Jeff kindly lent me his apartment by the marina – an awesome area by the water to be in with tonnes of great cafes and restaurants.

He was never there so I felt very lucky indeed to be left alone with this great apartment in a neat location. My friend Mo who’s recently moved to SFO kept me entertained with a few nights out and we went to Alcatraz which was so worth it.

I even met a fellow traveller on my first day and his last in the city and we cycled across the Golden Gate bridge, to lovely Sausalito and Tibador and came back on the ferry, just  fantastic day. Even paid $7 to watch a bit of a college football game. So doesn’t compare to rugby!

The whole reason for being there was to speak at Incubate 2.0 conference, part of Global Entrepreneurship week, I got sick however for the first time in two years with some stupid flu that meant I couldn’t even attend let alone get out of bed.

I did however still manage to host my first ever webinar with a husky voice and sore throat and then almost manage to fly out on the wrong day – i.e I read my itinerary wrong and luckily others picking me up from LAX read it right!

Now I’m back in LA, where it’s still sunny and listening to my Vancouver friends regaling me of stories of snow and the worst winter anticipated ever.

I’m just so glad I made the choice to guy and test out living in Buenos Aires. I fly out next Sunday for 6 months and it’s an open invitation to all you to come stay before I leave in May!

And for those of you who wonder why Buenos Aires, here’s my reasons:

1. Heading to a summer and avoiding another Vancouver winter
2. Improve my Spanish which currently sucks in a country that won’t break into English each time I falter
3. To learn to tango
4. Cheaper cost of living and since I can run my biz from anywhere why not
5. Sophistication of Europe combined with the passion of South America

So come join me!

WomanzWorld Founders

It’s ironic that my personal blog for friends and family is called Global Adventures, particularly as right now I’m confined to National travel only. Yep I’m treading a fine immigration line. It dawned on me 2 weeks ago when I was going to book my flights to NYC to hang with great friends and capitalize on 5 days worth of US Open Tennis tickets (including the finals!) that it may not be a smart idea. My work permit expires on the 9/9/09  – right when I was going to be away.

The immigration lady basically told me to avoid any travel outside of Canada or risk not let being back in.

This was a big wake up call, since when has this nomad ever been stopped from travelling? I felt a little trapped. Unless my work permit extension letter came through in the next few weeks (unlikely) or my Permanent Resident application was suddenly approved (very unlikely) I was going nowhere!

For once in my life, I had to make a sensible decision:

1. Spend close to $2K on 8 days in NYC watching a sport I love and catching up with friends I love too.OR
2. Stay put, save money and get on with launching two businesses…..

So this spur of the moment adventurer made a very adult decision to not go. I know, what’s become of me? This has allowed me instead to enjoy the joys of true Canadian life. A trip to Vancouver Island and Sproat Lake was a

Sproat Lake

truly relaxing weekend thanks to Drew and allowed Liz & I to work on our new online business – WomanzWorld and get super excited about it. It also saw me become so focused (reading `The Power of Focus’ can do that to you) that I set not just 1 but 3,5 and 10 year goals in the space of a weekend and detailed out the 1 and 3. I was pretty exhausted after that but also very…focused.

I also got to enjoy the beauty and culture of `The Peg’ as Winnipeg is fondly known where our women’s ultimate Frisbee team Zephyr had an amazing time at Canadian Nationals just last weekend. Ok so truthfully Winnipeg was a scary city – especially downtown and not a place I’d revisit. But we came home with a bronze medal after 4 days, hopefully a spot at World Clubs in Prague next year and having won the party as true cowgirls. I can’t describe how awesome it was to play with the ladies of Zephyr and I’m looking forward to more shenanigans with them as head to Sectionals in September. I was super proud to be awarded `Miss D’ for defence over the tourney, that meant a lot, and the hand made and embroidered sash was so pretty – thanks Kiwi.

I’m really hoping my visa comes through as I don’t want to miss launching FundRazr in San Francisco in September with Daryl –  can’t say why we’re launching as it’s part of the terms of the competition we entered and made the top 100 who get to present on the day to PR, investors and the tech world so will be really big for us. Big for me if I can be part of it by actually being there! Same with sectionals just over the border 5 days after.

The great thing is that I have had time to really reflect and out of that great things have happened. First off I’d like to thank you all for being a big part of my life, wherever you are in the world, and for making me believe in myself and to go after my dreams. I’m proud to start my own business WomanzWorld.

It’s come about from my 10 months as an `Entrepreneur’ and co-founder of ConnectionPoint Systems Inc with Daryl. On the rollercoaster ride of developing FundRazr – our awesome application for Facebook that helps you collect fees and donations and manage members (had to plug that and thank all our friends who became our fans recently), I was really surprised to see so few female CEOs at business and networking events. I recently found out 35% of all businesses in BC are owned by women. So where are they all?

There have been many times when I’ve wanted to chat with women in business to get their take on how they’ve coped with the challenges, what they’ve learned and more importantly their perspective, as a woman. From my constant discussions with everyone I met I started getting really positive feedback on my idea and that made me more passionate to get women into business. That perhaps I could help drive women to do that, to motivate, inspire and advise. At the same time I could learn from those succeeding right now and pass that on to others aspiring to become entrepreneurs. A win win situation for everyone.

So hence the idea to start a blog and recount my journey right here, right now, interview amazing women, review great resources for females in business and build a community of great women. That journey has already begun. Wish my good friend and talented business partner Elizabeth and me luck and please tell anyone you think who could benefit from WomanzWorld to visit our site www.womanzworld.com – as Tessa my good friend and the talented designer of our site noted, it was an apt domain name as I’m an NZ Woman.

Keep living life to the full