Author: Perry Payne

Anyone who loves to travel accepts that jet lag comes with the deal. Having said that, it never gets easier. For whatever reason, on my overnight travels across the Atlantic I never sleep. I often joke I can sleep well while driving but never as a passenger. 😊

So my formula is rather simple. Land, take care of all the customs, transfers and logistics, check in, freshen up and grab a quick nap. By that time it’s already afternoon, I venture out on the town for a good meal and great advice from a local bartender. Stuffed with good food and drink and having been up for over 36 hours, I sleep like a king and wake up well adjusted to the time change and ready to go!

Last night I spent the evening with excellent barkeep Robin at Razmataz.

As is necessary to whip the jet lag and fall into a deep slumber, Robin introduced me to the five-course chefs dinner with wine paring.

And as all good bartenders do, he quickly figured me out and provided good advice for sights to visit the next day.

Cheers, Robin!

If you’re joining in progress and curious about my trip, start here.

I’ve cleared customs and heading to meet Diewert, my host for the next couple of days. I’m staying on the bright and airy top floor of his houseboat perched high above one of the 165 canals in old Amsterdam and look forward to using it as home base for this leg of my journey.

Even though I’m half a world away today, my heart is with the city and greater metro Houston area, my family and friends who live and work there and all of the brave and tireless first responders still rescuing families and pets from the deluge Hurricane Harvey dumped across the area. My thoughts and prayers go out to all for safety in the coming days and a full recovery over what will surely take weeks, months and even years.

Not to be lost in the unfolding tragedy are the many business interests in the Houston area that have also been adversely impacted by the aftermath of Harvey. I can’t help but imagine well-designed Business Continuity Plans across eastern Texas dusted off and some facing a first-time test in a true disaster scenario. My best wishes to all those organizations for a quick, smooth and full return to productivity in the days and weeks ahead.

If you’re joining in progress and curious about my trip, start here.

Aside from the usual essentials such as passport, cash and prescriptions, I packed these items to help get me around the world in 30 days:

• Day pack – for those excursion days when the big Swiss Gear would be overkill. Great little waterproof pack that folds up to about the size of a pair of tube socks. Of similar utility and importance is my Columbia rain shell which when rolled up could fit into a Starbucks medium latte.
• Compression socks – not just for folks of advanced age but actually helps your legs feel better after long flights – just ask your favorite marathoner
• A Tonbux – this little <$50 GoPro knockoff records in 4K, has a waterproof case and fits in the palm of your hand. I hope to shoot some great video as well as a few interviews.
• My ASUS Zen Book – 2 lbs of SSD heaven
• My Kindle Fire HD with movies and books including a few classics like Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad and Following the Equator and when I need to be humbled, Michio Kaku’s Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions and the Future of the Cosmos.
• A Citizen’s Eco-Drive watch which automatically adjusts to new time zones via radio signal from various atomic clocks. It will be interesting to see how it reacts when I cross the International Dateline leaving New Zealand on a Saturday morning and arriving in Hawaii on Friday morning!

I also purposely left room in my bag for a few impulse-buy souvenirs. Packing light on clothes, I strategically booked Air bnb flats in Paris and Sydney as those washers and dryers will surely be put to good use!

That’s pretty much it! Ready to roll!

One thing you may have noticed is I haven’t posted details about my actual itinerary. You can chalk that up to #cyberparanoia but also a few lessons I learned about global travel and close-quarter protection from security guru and road warrior Tim Grieveson.

Along those lines, my former colleague at The Washington Post, Brian Krebs also recently wrote an excellent article on the dangers of posting a picture of your boarding pass on Facebook or Instagram (“Look, I got an upgrade!”) as the barcode on your boarding pass can be decoded to provide access to a lot of your private information such as frequent flyer number and record locator (a.k.a. “record key” for the flight your taking that day), etc.  A search on Instagram for the term “boarding pass”, for example, returned more than 91,000 such images. Krebs then went on to quote a source who was able to use the barcode info to proceed to the airline’s website and using the last name (which was encoded in the barcode) and the record locator was able to get access to the entire account. Not only could he see this one flight, but he could see ANY future flights that were booked to his frequent flyer number from the Star Alliance.” Scary stuff, indeed…

Next up: What to pack on Safari?

If you’re joining in progress and curious about my trip, start here.

A good question and as it turned out, a process that required a LOT more time and effort than I imagined. Keep in mind I’ve had some wonderful executive assistants over the years but truly had no idea what a pain I was until I had to manage my own travel arrangements!

At first I looked into the Around the World tickets offered by my preferred air carrier but found the terms to be too restrictive. I also worked with some online travel agencies, but again wasn’t comfortable with forking over my money and trusting that all the tickets and arrangements would be properly executed. So I proceeded the old fashioned way – with a calendar, the places I wanted to visit and through a combination of checking fares on different days of the week started putting my itinerary together jig-saw puzzle style.

I found fares on some routes to be half or less on certain days of the week. I also found business class fares for long haul overnight flights were significantly cheaper on Saturdays so I booked them accordingly. When I was flying on business, I tended to stick to United because of their global reach so I was able to use some Frequent Flyer miles but also chose flights on WOW, British Airways, Eurostar, Alitalia, Qantas, Vueling, ANA, Hawaiian Air and Virgin based on timing and price.

For accommodations, they range anywhere between staying with friends, Hilton and Airbnb. More on that later…

I’ll admit this isn’t the route I would recommend for everyone but for me it was worth it as it gave me the greatest control over my time and itinerary. And assuming I’ll likely only do this once, I wanted to get it right.

The last thing that took time and patience was getting Visa’s for the countries where a simple passport just won’t do. This requires either you apply in person at the closest consulate or embassy near your city or have an certified agent do it for you. I highly recommend passportsandvisas.com to expedite the process. It can all be done online and takes a week or two. However, it also requires a bit of trust as you must send your passport to the agent who will represent you and your application at the embassy then return it on time. I’ve used them twice over the years and in both cases the process was flawless.

Up next: A Few Safari Don’ts…

If you’re joining in progress and curious about my trip, start here.

As I browse Linked-In and security web sites I find many practitioners in the security field claim to be “Global Security Experts” but what does that mean exactly? In one form or another I’ve been doing Cybersecurity for over 20 years and two things I can say for sure –  1) I’m still no expert and 2) even though I’ve traveled extensively over the past few years I’m not sure I can claim to have a true global perspective.

So about a month ago while fishing in Costa Rica…I hatched this plan to go around the world in 30 days. Not just a vacation but part cyber security safari as well – spending actual boots-on-the-ground time with security experts as well as every day citizens from Amsterdam to Auckland to get their take on the state of cyber security today. From those encounters I hope to come away with is a better informed sense of how businesses and agencies across the globe approach security. Hopefully I’ll also learn a few things along the way that will help me in my quest to keep organizations one step ahead of the “bad guys”. (…it’s not really a boondoggle, Dear!)

On Tuesday, I blast off for Amsterdam and hop over to London to visit some mates in Twickenham then Saturday I have the highest honor to escort a dear friend to his wedding and traditional Zambian Kitchen Party. After a weekend in the UK, I continue east through the Chunnel back into continental Europe and later on to points in Asia, Oceania and eventually back to the US via Silicon Valley with my final destination just outside of Washington D.C.

As the old adage goes, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” so accordingly the majority of my posts will likely be #cybersabbatical travel blog, hence minimizing the potentially dull parts! I do look forward to blogging about some of the more fascinating non-cyber aspects of the places I visit, the people I meet and hopefully posting some great pix and video as well. If you wish to follow my sojourn from the beginning, start here and then follow the links at the bottom of each post.

Let the journey begin! #securitysafari