The Results Are In And My Next Adventure Destination Is…

Wow what a suspenseful title. Are you excited to know where your votes ended up and which of the 5 destinations I will head to next?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about then you should head to chapter 1 and read `Choose My Next Adventure from 5 Possible Endings‘ before proceeding any further!

And the winner is

So without further a do let me show you the actual poll results from over 140 people who were kind enough to get in on this and cast their vote:

As you can see the winner is India.

Followed closely by Vietnam (actually two comments were not counted in the poll for Vietnam so there was just one vote between them).

Had some more votes sneak in over the weekend for Europe so was surprised to see it so close behind.

The most fun part of running this experiment was the amazing interaction with my community and the awesome comments on the blog post, Twitter. Facebook and beyond. Love you guys!

Plus I liked peoples’ explanations of their choices – it really helped to clarify in my mind how you think as travelers and entrepreneurs. Always insightful. Here’s a few:

Selfishly I’d like you to come to the US! That said, I vote Vietnam. Why? You nailed it: 1) lovely people 2) beautiful scenery 3) culture 4) to die for food 5) history
Hana

I pick Vietnam for you. What a difference between Vietnam and Argentina! The contrast would be amazing and selfishly, I’d like to hear about it.
Nancy

I picked Columbia for you. I can only confirm your thoughts that they are very warm hearted, careing and emotional people. In addition the country’s business life is strong and growing. The younger generation is very educated and are just booming in the business market all over the world. I think it would be very interesting to learn more about Columbian business life.
Elina

I intuitively picked India – i think in the big cities you will be fine running your business – so many uk call centres are based there there internet and telecoms need to be reasonably good. That aside and maybe its becouse of the Julia Robers look a like and therefore the Eat, Pray, Love association coming to mind – I truly feel that it is a place that magic things will happen for you
Lisa

Natalie, my vote is for NYC. Perhaps not as exotic as some of the other locations on your list, but I sense that you could benefit from a business growth infusion at this juncture
Sabine

What are the next steps?

Well this is a brilliant question. As you may recall at the bottom of my post there was a caveat: I reserved the right to choose how this next adventure would pan out.

To be honest I was still torn between the choices until today.

After looking into flights late last week (as the results were becoming apparent), I realised there were some significant costs and roundabout flight paths that didn’t make things very easy, or make a lot of sense.

I then took a step back. I considered the effort involved to fly into New Delhi and find a place to stay, make new networks, figure out the lay of the land, the currency, the timezones and more. Plus plan in travel around such a vast country. To be honest India still overwhelms me.I considered the same for Vietnam.

I also thought about making smart travel choices that work in with my business plans, goals and budget. It actually makes more sense to fly from Los Angeles to New Zealand – everything else is a large sidestep in terms of flying time and linking up destinations.

Yes Natalie but get to the point what are you going to do now we’ve voted?

Alright I’ll spill the beans. I am going to fly from the US to… New Zealand.

My hometown Wellington, New Zealand

Yes I am heading home for a few months for the first time in 5.5 years!

It struck me today that for the first time in my life I was not thrilled or excited about the prospect of uprooting yet again and travelling to my next destination. That’s such a rarity for me that I realised that feeling was the very reason for having you choose for me.  For once I did not actually know where to go or, more importantly the why.

I’ve been living out of a suitcase for over 5 years now, and I suddenly realised it was about time I headed home to paradise. There’s been so much change there I might not recognise it.

The minute I confirmed that in my mind, I felt extraordinarily happy. Everything just felt right on so many levels.

And considering I’m heading to Cairo in early January for 4 months of cycling 12,000 km down to Capetown I did not need to add any more travel into the mix. New Zealand will be the perfect place to get in my training rides too.

My family are needless to say, over the moon. I can’t wait as I will even get in some skiing before the Rugby World Cup in September.

Your votes still totally count

Yes they really do. Here’s the immediate plan, a few things dependent on others. I will be delaying my return flight back to Los Angeles if possible to go and visit Colombia for 2 weeks before leaving South America (thanks for that astute suggestion Shannon).

I will also be taking a weekend trip into Uruguay in the next few weeks to add in another country to the mix.

When back in the United States there’s  distinct possibility I could be heading to NYC for an event – more on that if it comes off. I will also stick around in the US until around mid July for some business opportunities.

My rather smart Dad mentioned that travelling to Asia (in particular Vietnam) is way more cost effective from New Zealand as it’s technically on our doorstep, so there’s still a very real chance I will look to do a trip to Vietnam during my time back in New Zealand and heading to Cairo.

India is still very much on my list but I believe 2012 is likely to be the year I head there. And I’ve made the tough decision to not head to Europe, as much as I’d love to head to World Beach and weddings and more.

I am actually, over the moon with my decision and I’d like to extend a huge thank you to the 150 or so people who took the time to vote, comment and send me messages. The adventure is still most definitely ahead of me, and as I mention above, I will be incorporating some of those destinations into my next travels.

Go ahead and have your say below, I know you want to!