When preparing to unleash your alter ego onto the world there’s one important decision you have to make – will he (or she) be a hero or a villain? Heroes are virtuous, brave, inspiring and a little boring. Villains – well, they can be whatever you want them to be. While my travel alter ego isn’t exactly a villain, he could be described as the most arrogant, smug, one upping traveller you’ll ever have the misfortune to meet.

Here’s an interview with my alter ego, who I’m calling “The Smug Nomad”, although he prefers to go by his pen name, “T.S Nomad”. I hope you love him as much as he loves himself.

Can you tell me (and my readers) a bit about yourself?

Think of me as a travel spirit guide, gifted to mankind to help everyone become better travellers. I quit my high level accounting job to travel the world because I felt, as a global citizen, the 9-5 lifestyle just wasn’t allowing my soul to soar.

Where have you travelled to so far?

I spent a lot of time living in ashrams and learning yoga in India. I’m really into self improvement tourism and think everyone should try a silent meditation course once in their life. I adore the book “Eat Pray Love” and am a huge Julia Roberts fan. I then did some “Woofing” (volunteering on organic farms/businesses) at a resort in the jungles of Borneo, which allowed me to get up at 5.30 am and practice yoga naked with my girlfriend in full view of the guests – it was very freeing. I then travelled through Southeast Asia but didn’t really enjoy it, there were too many tourists!

I don’t think we would get along; have you made many friends on your travels?

So many, I’ve connected with a huge variety of people on many different levels. I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t get along, you seem like a cool guy – I was horrified to read your post slagging Julia Roberts off though. I also find that the heart warming songs I sing next to bonfires on warm, starlit nights draw a lot of people to me. I wrote a post about that for you, but you forgot to give me the credit!

Sorry, I think people thought it was me who wrote it, we really need to remedy that! What else can we expect from you with your guest posts?

In one word… inspiration. I feel like I’ve hit on the secret formula for being an awesome traveller and I’d love to pass on that knowledge. I see so many people queuing up for tourist sites and feel like running over and screaming in their faces – “Go and see something different, stop following the crowd!!”. It frustrates me, but I’m glad you’ve given me this platform to spread what could end up being the new testament of travel

There would have to be an old testament first, why don’t you start with that?

It doesn’t sound as good….

Where are you originally from?

I’m a citizen of the world, so where I was technically born is irrelevant.  People put themselves in little boxes and become so narrow minded when they live in one place for too long. As a global citizen, I’ve had the chance to see so many places, and each one has left a mark on me in more ways than I could ever describe.

So you’re not going to tell me where you’re from? 

I belong to the world now. Since I started travelling I feel I’ve been born again as a borderless child of Mother Earth.

I think I have heard enough, thanks for your time T.S Nomad, I look forward to your guest posts in the future.

Thanks Jon, I hope I can bring some long overdue success to your website!

Keep a look out next week for a new post by my travel alter ego entitled “How to make people jealous with your photos from the road”, which is a guide to editing your travel photos for maximum social media affect.

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Jon Algie

A travel blogger from New Zealand who hates talking about himself in the third person and has no imagination when it comes to naming websites.

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