I don’t see TechCrunch, Mashable, or anyone noticing this. But everyone was very quick to get upset when slide’s ‘Top Friends’ app was taken down (it was a legitimate security concern).

I hate this short-term-memory-loss-lynch-mob we like to call the internet. Uproar and knee jerk reactions over perfectly understandable non-issues. But no praise for the good anyone does. It seems the consensus is: “let’s move on to something else we can get upset about”. This is why Valleywag is dead. Nobody likes complainers. Do something about it. On the other hand, this is the same pandering nature that network news channels commit every day. The same ones that “we” bloggers say we’re up against.

Oh, and if you’re still reading and waiting for the punch-line, here you go. From the Facebook help page taken today:

The internet is weird.

Related posts:

1. Facebook Friend Game
2. Hidden Facebook Connection
3. Facebook Toolbar: First Glance

I got the right (portable) tools in place

These days we all have laptops: they’re light, portable, and can go anywhere. I’m fortunate enough to have one for both work and play. My laptop (MacBook Air, my primary and only computer) goes with me everywhere (so all the tips will be for Mac users). 

• Office to home office
• Conference room to conferences
• Couch to bed
• Bus and train

Not to mention the fact I carry a web-enabled device (iPhone) at all times (send tasks with an e-mail dropbox). In school, we took notes on paper because: it was portable. But now, the same can be said around the office with a laptop (and in school of course). I can plop down at someone else’s desk, I can get on a call, I can go in the hall, etc. I can conduct business anywhere. Sure, all you need is a computer, but a ’satellite’ is key.

The downside to technology

When you interact with humans, face-to-face, laptops and phones become a barrier. Its best to take notes on paper when sitting with co-workers or clients, but certainly not necessary. Being aware of the distraction and visible wall placed between you will help you navigate this problem.

Luckily I deal with most people online (phone or internet) and this makes it easy for me.

Technologies I work with

On day one I removed all paper and writing utensils from my work area to prevent any temptation. Sure, I still have a stack of business cards on my desk but I’ll tackle that later. These are the four simple technologies I require to go completely paperless:

• Plain text editor: Anything from TextMate to Coda will suffice. You simply need a tool to take notes. When you talk to someone, take notes. When you have a meeting, take notes. When you draft a proposal or write a report write everything in markdown so you can convert it (PDF, HTML), keep track of revisions (subversion, git), and edit it with any other text editor. That’s right Microsoft Word, I’m looking at you. Bonus: a tool like SubEthaEdit allows collaborative editing which means you can take notes with everyone else on the call in the same room.
• Web-based calendaring: I use Google Calendar so I can access my calendar anywhere. Plus, there are tools like BusySync and SpanningSync that allow me to go from Google Calendar to iCal to iPhone and back. Adding events from my phone or computer mean one less thing I need to scribble down.
• Web-based tasks: Again, having my tasks accessible from any computer, anywhere is key. Since we eat our own dogfood at Crowd Favorite I use our tasks suite for both a work and personal to-do list. E-mail dropboxes (I always have my iPhone) allow a quick thought to turn into an actionable item and I never need to jot anything down.
• Communication tools: My RescueTime dashboard says I spend nearly 70% of my time in applications and on websites I’ve tagged ‘communication’. It’s important to my job and so I’m glad I have reliable e-mail at GMail, cheap calls on Skype, instant messages with Adium (Google Talk, AIM) and a phone on my desk. When’s the last time you used paper to communicate in a day-to-day setting?
• Paperless faxes: Most people have a scanner/printer (it’s hard to find the two separated these days) so they don’t need to fax anything. Just e-mail me the high-quality image. But, some things never change. Go spend the $9.99 and buy an e-fax number for the rest of the John McCain’s out there.
• Digital Signatures: I say nay to faxes in the first place, you don’t need them to sign a document. Adobe has come out with perfectly acceptable digital signature technology. It’s really straight forward and allows for near-instant turn-around on contracts, NDAs, etc. Plus, hand-written signatures can be forged, right?

We’re all familiar with the 80/20 concept, right? These simple technologies catch far more than the majority (probably 90%) of paper that could possibly enter my work life.

But, some things cant be avoided

Little things come up every day and we pay little attention to them. Business cards are handed out at dinners, conferences and other events. Going to lunch or drinks after work mean you’ll be handed a receipt. So what do you do with the unavoidable?

• Receipts: If I can see that the credit card printer has already spit out a second customer receipt I’ll be sure to ask for it. Why? So I can make sure I take it back and recycle it. Odds are when you decline it’s tossed straight into the trash.
• Business Cards: I will gladly accept a card from someone if its seems appropriate (and offer them mine). Like receipts I will always put them in my phone and recycle the card. But, if the situation is right, I will then offer them to use my contxts account (simply SMS ‘devin’ to 50500). There are plenty of other services out there: TextMarks, MyDropCard.
• Shipping Labels: Welp, some things can’t be avoided. I had to ship a book to a friend the other day and realized it was one of my few ‘non-digital’ exchanges this month.
• Checks: Cash is king and if you want to do business you’ll accept checks. Online services are becoming more popular but there are things like fees involved. Free checking is far too easy right now.
• Account Statements: If you can, obviously have them sent to you online (banking, bills, etc.). I have a few accounts that still don’t offer it and that kills me. Again, I have to suck it up, shred, and recycle, that’s the best I can do.
• Periodicals: They’re mostly there, newspapers, magazines*, etc. They all syndicate online. The hardest part is when you’re faced with ‘offline’ time. NetNewsWire is my app of choice but that still leaves me high and dry with partial feeds and those that don’t push to RSS.
• Books: With services like Audible and Audio-Tech business book summaries I haven’t read from a tangible book in a while. I have plenty that I will read (on planes, on the bus, etc.) because, well, they’re books. But taking steps like re-selling them on Amazon (reduce, reuse, recycle?) and subscribing to podcasts will certainly help you become paperless.

As you can see, there are some things that are hard to avoid. But you’re certainly not helpless.

So how did I do?

I feel pretty good about my new habits and I’m sure I’m not alone in my quest to work and live paperless. Is there something I’ve missed? Or is there something you’ve found that works better? Share your thoughts in the comments.

* I’ve collected nearly ten years of WIRED magazines and use them as a night stand. I love that magazine.

Related posts:

1. Working From Home
2. PIP Resolution: Working Out
3. Working with conflicting personalities

• Administration navigation: say goodbye to the bar across the top, everything is down the side now. Oh, and there are icons. Neat! Seriously, this in itself takes a bit to get used to. Even when I can see all options (which is great, seeing everything is very helpful) I still get lost. I think WordPress still has a UX problem here but can’t put my finger on it.
• Top-level navigation tabs: I had a lot of plugins that would show up top next to ‘Write’ and ‘Manage’. It took me two days to realize they went into the ‘Tools’ section. TWO DAYS. Why so long, you ask? Another plugin, that didn’t use the right methodology (use the WordPress functions, don’t hack it, jerk), is still at the ‘top level’, with no icon, looking very randomly out of place.
• Plugins: see previous point, stuff is going to break. Especially if you’ve built something that didn’t go nicely into the ‘Settings’ menu.
• Importing content: I’ve setup three new blogs in the last two weeks and the ability to import attachments fails. It failed on Dreamhost and Bluehost both. Not sure what fread’s problem is, but that was painful. Oh, and why doesn’t WordPress export into Y-sized chunks? If I can’t change my PHP import size then I have to manually break up my files before I import them.
• Media Library: Still sucks. Yeah you wish this was any better.
• Intense Debate: Not yet integrated. Features in this release are frozen so, no, it won’t make it.
• PollDaddy: Hmm, not there either. It’s obvious the focus is business first (that happens with investors) a la WordPress.com. Oh well, that’s why we have plugins!

Now here’s the stuff you’re looking for. The following will really help and change the way you use WordPress:

• Plugin installation: you can download and install them directly from a browser (WordPress.org) built into the dashboard. Just search, click, install, activate, done. So great. This will help people who don’t use “protection” or “common sense” when downloading plugins that can potentially damage their sites.
• Plugin uninstallation: They can uninstall themselves which is great, instead of me just de-activating and deleting the developer can have a routine that removes the data and “leftovers” that I invariably miss when playing with dozens of plugins.
• Administration navigation: This stuff is awesome, you can customize what elements are on your ‘Write’ pages (tags should be below categories, drag and drop it). The sidebar is still a bit iffy, but things will get fixed before beta/release.
• New Akismet: lots of little updates, one being an Akismet Stats screen added to the dashboard.
• Quick Edit: This awesome feature was around up until around October 15th. With the power of AJAX you wouldn’t have to load a page to change a post/page: slug, title, category, tags, publish status, date, etc. Such a necessary feature that disappear as of this posting.
• Sticky Posts: Welp, that killed a perfectly good plugin. But seriously, this is handy.
• Comment Threading and Pagination: I haven’t played much with this but look forward to it. A quick look at the tickets suggests this has nothing to do with IntenseDebate.
• Updating Core WordPress: Finally! You can update plugins and WordPress all from the dashboard. Never again will you need to FTP (in theory) to maintain your blog.
• Oh, and the new dashboard is going to be pretty sweet.

I’m still annoyed that there is no structure for how plugin settings should be arranged in the back-end administration. I have WordPress Stats options under Plugins, other plugins under Settings, other plugins under Tools. This is too confusing. What if I could pick where they go?

Conclusion

Visually speaking, WordPress 2.7 is a great leap forward. Just like any big revision people will have trouble and stuff will break. But, I think it’s a step in the right direction for the user interaction. There is still lots to do but I think the plugins, core WordPress updating and ‘movable’ elements on administration pages is huge.

This update is definitely worth looking at now so you don’t get stuck in the headlights in November. Oh, and always remember to backup. For more information check out Planet WordPress (Automattic has become very open about their development and iteration process).

Related posts:

1. WordPress 2.1 Rap
2. It’s Called WordPress

But seriously, time flies when you’re having fun and I’ve hardly had time to reflect (let alone notice) my day of birth this year. So, like any self-respecting individual I decided to spend a minute and blog about it. I asked everyone on Facebook to let me know their biggest accomplishment this year and figured I should do the same:

I left my “day job” at a big accounting firm to do what I really like: work with cool people and help build cool things.

Enough said. Let me know what you’ve done and then read about my learning experience here: The One About The New Job.

Happy National Punctuation Day!

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2. I love brevity
3. Top 5 Social Media Tools

Interestingly enough my knee jerk reaction was to say either:

1. if you call it social media you’re doing it wrong, or
2. just stop trying, FFS.

At least, that’s the way I’ve felt in the recent months. In fact, it’s a new rule for me on twitter. If you’re a self-proclaimed “social media” guru, then you’re not.

That leads me to my point: to be successful in social media (or any media, I believe) you need to be authentic. It goes back to one of my personal favorite posts: my thoughts on transparency and honesty. If someone is extremely active across a variety of services and trying to connect with so many people (Linkedin, twitter, pownce, etc.) it sends the message that you’re convincing me I need to listen to you. It’s like trying to advertise your product after building it and calling that “marketing.” The biggest way to fail is to reach out to as many people as possible just to broadcast to your followship.

Instead, be an authentic person. Just be you and the right people will find you. For instance:

• Penelope Trunk, although a writer (its her day job to make uninteresting things interesting), is a geniune lady who will bare all and do her best to connect. I consider her the Britney Spears of the internet sometimes but she’s authentic and, thanks in part to that, has a tremendous followship; in both size and passion.
• Gary Vaynerchuk, although a marketer (its his day job to get the message out to everyone), is a geniune guy who will talk to anyone and go out of his way to make them feel important. He’s a busy guy but spends most of his day just talking to people via e-mail, twitter, facebook, and so on. In turn, he’s built up one of the most popular video podcasts about a product that no-one had ever thought to look for online: wine.

There’s my thoughts on how to do social media the right way. Agree / disagree?

Tag, you’re it: noah kagan, Andrew Chen, Ramit Sethi. (original link)

Related posts:

1. Top 5 Social Media Tools
2. Media Center Edition
3. On Being Social

1. GMail

• Who: Google
• What: Free e-mail with lots of space, IMAP, mobile accessibility, powered by ads
• Why it’s cool: GMail was on the cutting edge of webmail with a huge giveaway of space and a smart interface coupled with the awesome power of Google search.
• Why it’s not mainstream: People are afraid of Google still. They see the ads and think that your information is no longer private nor secure and that your precious e-mail and information will be sold to spammers and advertisers. Ironically enough, Google is one of the best at combating spam.
• Send me an e-mail

2. Hulu

• Who: NBC, News Corp (and now the content of dozens of others)
• What: Free access to legitimate television shows and movies in high quality, powered by ads
• Why it’s cool: I can watch Comedy Central shows, Food Network, Fox, etc. in high definition with less advertising and all for free. I can even subscribe to the show and get alerts when a new episode is up.
• Why it’s not mainstream: Nobody has heard of it. And NBC continues to botch up their video content by releasing stuff like NBCOlympics.com. So, we all assume media companies don’t get “real” video yet and wander over to YouTube.
• View my public profile on Hulu

3. Newsvine

• Who: Veterans of Disney, ESPN, and other media organizations; MSNBC
• What: News from multiple sources PLUS the ability for anyone to write, “seed” (post an existing) or comment on an article.
• Why it’s cool: We can contribute the news and read about whats important to us. Plus we can engage with others and talk about stories, debate points, create long lasting friendships, call someone a retard, the list goes on…
• Why it’s not mainstream: I think it’s too much work for someone to ’seed’ the news and it gives little value for me to share it with someone else. To many, there is not enough incentive to write articles either. The only saving grace is the fun in arguing and being social on the internet. More people are interested in participating but I don’t think they know about their options.
• Add me as a friend on Newsvine

4. Twitter

• Who: Obvious (Ev Williams)
• What: 140 character message broadcast to anyone who wants to “follow” you (and you get to follow people back)
• Why it’s cool: It’s like chatting with only the people you want to listen to via SMS, the web, and many other applications
• Why it’s not mainstream: People still don’t “get” it because nobody has explained it the right way to people. You can’t just say “you have to do it” because everyone can see through internet fads. Not everyone is into making random connections with strangers on the internet. Plus, the site really isn’t what I’d call user friendly.
• Follow me on Twitter

I thought about adding a “how to fix it” to each of these but nothing about them is broken. They’re just different, unknown, and misunderstood websites that may just always maintain that “web2.0″ charm.

But then again, only the “early adopters” were using these sites:

• Facebook - why do you need a profile online? I have real friends.
• Google - what else is there to search for? I found the porn.
• Craigslist - we already have classifieds, they’re called the classifieds.
• eBay - I can buy cheap things at Wal-Mart.
• Amazon - books belong in stores (so that I can read them for free!).

Related posts:

1. Quickly Open Websites
2. Twitter is about me and you and you
3. Live vs Google Domains

The Previous Employer

If you’re not aware, I left my job of 11 months and 3 weeks (just barely a year) this past July 18th. I had been working at Ernst & Young* and made a quick decision to move on to my passion: the internet. The firm itself is awesome; they’ve definitely earned the many awards and recognitions (a top 25 employer for a decade according to Fortune). I learned a lot, worked with great people and clients, and I don’t really regret anything about my time spent at E&Y.

Lessons learned from my first full-time job out of college:

I’ve learned plenty from my other experiences and jobs but this one is a bit different. It was my first full-time job out of college (not an internship, not a part-time job); one where I had bosses, business cards, a phone number, responsibilities, performance reviews, etc. Some things may be obvious or things you’ve read about before–but this is the kind of stuff I finally learned from experience.

• You’ll never love everything about any job. But it’s definitely possible to dislike most of it.
• The people you work with are extremely important (50 hours is different than a few times a week).
• Hopefully you like those people if you don’t like the work, or else things get frustrating.
• Despite management’s best attempts, I’m still convinced I can work an entry-level corporate job from home.
• And I could probably do a typical entry-level corporate job in 20 hours a week.
• Many people still see the ‘ladder’ and the need to ‘pay dues’, they’re the rule, not the exception
• Some people are very good at getting work done, but that doesn’t mean they can manage / lead
• Big companies are great because there are processes and structure that help support you
• The wealth of knowledge is “out there” but so damned hard to collect and organize
• Traveling can be fun no matter where you go (anywhere from Lexington to Atlanta)

…and I could go on and on.

The Current Employer

I’m now working for Crowd Favorite which is an internet company specializing in Wordpress (the software that powers this website), custom web development and design, consulting, and builds some web products. Surprise surprise, I’m working on the web!

I suppose this isn’t new: I’ve moved around a lot and some people might look at that as being scattered or unfocused. But, guess what: all that moving around and dabbling paid off! I found something I really enjoy (and I think I’m good at it, too). How do I know? For starters, I’ve been excited to go to work all 10 days these last two weeks (and enjoy checking / responding to business e-mails during some of my spare time)!

My job is a mixture of things but I think we could describe it as a mix of the following:

• Account management: working closely with customers to help address things including future development needs
• Business development: following up with individuals that are looking to use our services, deciding what we can do to help and make sure they’ve fully explored their projects
• Project management: managing project goals and tasks, scheduling them internally, managing budgets, updates to clients, etc.
• Internal projects: there are some things we’d like to do internally and I’ll be managing those, too

So, that sums up what I’ve been doing and what I’ll be working on. Everyone I work with is great, I’m happy, excited and learning plenty each and every day.

—

* Note: this is the first and only time the firm name was used on my site (for employment / search engine / opinion purposes). They were aware of devinreams.com and I was aware of their awareness.

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3. One of the best companies…

I started cataloging all the items I have around the house and was quite surprised; I think you would be, too. But first, here are some of my initial thoughts:

• You should define a “thing” at first. I did consider a collection as one “thing.”
• Pay attention to all the things on all your shelves, in the closet, etc. You forget about things.
• List your things in the room or area they belong, this helps recognize where stuff clutters.
• That box sitting there that you haven’t touched since you last moved? Go ahead and get rid of it. No! Don’t even open it.
• Make sure you’ve considered every part of the house. Food didn’t make it on my list.
• I have nearly as many “things” in my office as my bedroom. But I only spend a few hours a week in the office!
• As I went through and cataloged things I made a pile of stuff I don’t want on the list (and will get rid of immediately), this is immediate gratification!

Now the point isn’t to simply remove things from your life (even though that’s a big part of it). The point of the (arbitrary) number, 100, is to keep a sense of value in mind. What is it that makes it into my top 100? What can I limit myself to? How do I prioritize the “stuff” that is tied to my name?

After a couple hours of rummaging around this morning I easily dropped my list down to 108 items. Thaaats right. There are only 108 things in my house. These things include:

• Bed
• iPhone
• Lint roller
• Umbrella
• Golf clubs
• Big green fern
• Spindle of CDs
• 24″ LCD monitor

Once you get into it, 100 is a very reasonable number. What are some of the things I’ve done to minimize my “thing footprint”?

• Digitize things! Documents, photographs, important receipts. Paper does not need to add to your list.
• Keep the digital needs simple! One thing I’ve tried to do is decrease the number of gadgets / chargers / toys I own. The iPhone is awesome, it’s my phone, calendar, mobile internet device, etc. The Sonos is great, its my house-wide sound system (no need for PC speakers, for example).
• Minimize the knick-knacks. I try to be very intentional about the things I put on ‘horizontal surfaces’. A lamp here, a fountain there. I had clutter and ’simple’ is so much more pleasing. Some cool knick-knacks I’ve kept are from around the world (India, New Zealand, Mexico)
• Clean out the desk. I found a lot of junk I don’t use (I don’t have a tack board, why do I have tacks!?) in the many drawers around my house. Don’t think, just toss. If you feel bad about it, throw it all in a box and check back in 6 months. Didn’t open it? Nuff said.
• Turn your hangers around. To minimize the amount of clothing in your closet you don’t wear simply put all your hangers in backwards. Then when you wear something for the first time, turn it around (thanks Peter). Every few months I take the unworn to Goodwill. Easy.

Now its nice becuase, no, I don’t own my own place. My roommate is the owner of the plates, knives, forks, etc. But that’s fine, if you use the ‘collection rule’ you’ll see you’ve only got a dozen more things than I do.

I’m staring at my list. These eight things aren’t going to go without a fight.

Have you tried minimizing the ’stuff’ in your life? How do you declutter?

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I’ve seen, first hand, the challenges faced when trying to get a group of people together on the internet. I’m a member of a of a number of online communities. I’ve also helped found a few communities. They include:

• 9rules - a group I really wanted to become a part of, the best of the best content
• yopos - something noah and I tried to start (coming again soon!): young professionals
• Twenty Somethings - a group of attractive, witty, smart bloggers all in their twenties
• Employee Evolution - smart professionals guest blogging about work, life, entrepreneurship
• Brazen Careerist - the natural extension of EE, network of existing and new bloggers about the above
• BarCamp/New Tech - online and offline, meetup with some local nerds
• SXSW/CommunityNext - organized events/conferences around a community
• AKPsi - offline, but 50+ college students with an interest in business (VP/President)
• Two other college clubs - again, offline but a good look at how people interact

And I’ve done tons of observation of popular online groups (FlyerTalk, Zen Habits, Get Rich Slowly, I Will Teach You To Be Rich). Here are my top three lessons learned.

Existing community must already be strong

When I say strong you need to have an extreme amount of quality or quantity. A little of each will not be sufficient.

Employee Evolution and 9rules attracted people because of the high quality–they both grew very quickly. On the other hand, yopos sought out to do the same and, I admit, consistent quality wasn’t there (and we didn’t have the numbers either).

In college, AKPsi was one of the largest groups in the business school (100+) and because of that it kept attracting more and more people (network effect). Once our numbers started to drop off we had to quickly focus on quality or else we’d get stuck in mediocrity. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. We had generations of mediocrity in the group, as the numbers diminished even they left. By the end of my college career the group dropped to a quarter of it’s original size. The same happened with two other groups–when the strength dwindled, the community failed.

Without the quality or quantity it’s very hard to do anything. You could take five very talented people and create something amazing. If you have 100 people, odds are you will find some great, active, and interesting people worth sticking around for.

People always talk about meeting up, rarely do

It must be how we are hard-wired as humans, but no matter what your group is–people will want to meet in person. People will try to organize and coordinate these events but they rarely happen. Even in college, where we met as a group every week, it was challenging to have people commit to anything outside of something we’ve already structured for them.

Lucky for the internet there are groups like the SXSW coordinators who will put on an event for everyone to go to. But even with 9rules we never saw any official “get togethers” no matter how often it was brought up. I’ve seen the same start over at Brazen Careerist and I question what will come from the discussions (I have a good idea, though: nothing).

Some obvious exceptions to the rule are groups like BarCamp. These still usually require a big investment from one or two people (and that’s it). If you want something to happen you have to take the initiative yourself at first. Then, make sure you have the strong community to help in the future (see previous point). People usually need to see value first.

Now, the inverse of this is also true: people love to participate a lot in the beginning. Say you open up a forum: people will chat about anything and everything they think of on day one. By day ten they have less to talk about, less to reply to. The challenge here, depending on your group, is maintaining participation and having people come back (quality and quantity help).

There are key participants, focus on them

No matter where you go, one will notice the “key” players. Especially in a discussion environment like a forum. Within five minutes of surfing FlyerTalk it was clear who knew what they were talking about and was respected by the group. When I started yopos there were a few guys who were very eager and I didn’t have them time to focus on them and empower them to help with the community. Lesson learned.

CommunityNext had a ton of people show up and a lot of it was due to key figures. Get them involved, get them in your group and make sure people know about them. One of my favorite stories was watching Hiten Shah try to fix the wireless network at Stanford. People noticed him working on it and one or two people stopped and offered to help.

What about you? Do you agree or disagree? Have you learned anything worth sharing?

PS: I’ve been working on updating and consistent-ifying my look. Click through to devin reams and let me know what you think. Oh, and be sure to tell your friends about my services.

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Click here to see the full album on flickr.

Travel

Sucked. Getting there was like… imagine the worst flight you’ve ever had. Okay, now extend that over a 36 hour period.

• First flight delayed (at midnight, moved gates three times).
• Then the twelve hour layover.
• Flight to Colombia delayed.
• Third flight missed. No bags.
• Finally got the next flight in the morning.

The day went from 10:00pm Saturday to 10am Monday.

Still no bags. Didn’t get those until Saturday afternoon. Yeah.

Coming home was alright. Except it started at 3:30am the following Sunday. We slept a lot. But here’s the kicker: I went through security five times in 12 hours (including one pat down and my bags hand inspected twice).

• Delayed in customs on the way back to Denver. Missed the flight.
• Weather delays. Red Carpet Club to the rescue.
• Ended up in an emergency exit seat on the way home on a totally different flight.
• Mi novia was nice enough to pick me up at midnight.

It was great to get home, change my clothes for the first time all week and shower with hot water.

People

Ironically it was easier to go up to a random Colombian girl and chat then ever in America. My friends did most of the speaking throughout the trip (I can listen, but talking—I forgot how to do that) and I just pictured how it’d be so much easier for me without the language barrier. Everyone was very approachable.

A lot of vendors make a living at the beach selling massages, sunglasses, water, beer, crab meat, etc. That gets old real quick as you’re constantly bombarded.

Everything else

It was a very fun, very nice and a very safe place to be. Police presence was everywhere we went (police, military, private security at establishments, and tourism guards in the busy places). Drinks were cheap. But it was very hot and humid (which sucks when you have nothing to change into).

FAQs

Where exactly did you go? Cartagena and Santa Marta. Our friend was working in Cartagena and then we vacationed in Santa Marta. Both coastal with beaches and fresh fish.

Was it expensive? Nope. The flight was $1,000 but the entire week cost about $300. That includes 6 nights of lodging ($8 per night at a hostel, then $15 per night renting an apartment), food, drinks (a bottle of rum split three ways comes to maybe $10 per person). Cab rides almost anywhere were no more than $5.

Did you feel safe? Absolutely. In fact, we got a bit nervous when one of the wandering military guards stopped us. It was me and my friend with a group of a dozen local girls. Suspicious? Maybe. Harmless? Definitely. But he still could’ve given us a hard time (especially without any documentation on us).

How is the water? Very clear and a great temperature. The northern coast of Colombia is, mind you, the Caribbean. Standing up to our chest in water we could still see our feet on the bottom. The beaches were clean, too.

Would you go back? Probably—but I’d need a game plan. Wandering around wouldn’t yield much entertainment value.

Fin

So, there’s my trip in a nutshell. I’ve put up pictures on flickr so be sure to check them out. Unfortunately I only had my camera maybe 10% of the time so I can’t share some of the hilarity we found. I guess you’ll have to go for yourself!

Related posts:

1. Dreams’ Daily Dosage
2. San Francisco Vacation
3. Flickr Groups