Hey Sam,

Found your name while online at GuardianUnlimited. You stood out of the three people on the Guardian project 'cos you're nearest my age (I'm 27) and 'cos I intend to uproot myself in a couple of years too... though my route when the time comes will be different from yours.

You're en route to some groovy places - just read your report from Yosemite - I visited it as a kid (my Dad was at high school in a place called Atwater, somewhere near there). Your photos remind me how pretty it is.

Do you want some top tips?... (you're probably inundated, but it seems this is part of the point of the exercise!)

You'll love Fiji - the south Pacific is just so amazingly beautiful. When you get there, do you have time to get even further off the beaten track? If so, do. I visited Tonga a couple of years ago - and it was so amazingly peaceful and remote it was wonderful. It made Fiji look positively concrete jungle, and pickled with tourists.

If you can find your way to Vava'u and to the Bounty Bar in Neiafu, say "Hi" to Allan and Lyn Bowe, who run it. Don't know whether lounging around on pristine beaches, scuba diving in the reef etc. is what you really want to do, but if it is check out their own a blissful retreat nearby ( TARGET="_NEW">www.mounu.com/index). I've only been out to that part of the world once, so can only recommend one highlight, but I met others who similarly gushed about Samoa - maybe you'll end up there?

Later on - when you get to Christchurch - I can give you some tips you are far more likely to follow. Make absolutely certain you get over to the west coast, especially to Mount Cook National Park, Milford Sound, and Fox Glacier. Milford Sound is the most amazing of all, but all of the west coast of the South Island really does rock - but then, my wife's a Kiwi, so I would say that! We flew over from Queenstown to Milford in a six seater. It's cheap and beautiful (it's also shit scary if you've never been in a plane that small - which I hadn't). Have you ever seen a cliff a mile high? No? Then go.

And when you're on the way from Christchurch to Queenstown, if you go past Tekapo you'll pass the little church by the lake where my wife and I got married. You can't miss it, it's rather cute.

I could carry on writing my travel-drivel, but I'll save you the tedium. However, if you write back and are interested, I used to live in Zimbabwe - so I could give you a few good thoughts round there.

Anyway, the point of this message wasn't really for me to boast about my travels, but to say good-on-ya to a fellow free spirit, and to wish you good luck.

Alex (Fellow Northern Line traveller, London.)