1. Air

2. Water

3. Shelter

4. Food

5. Sleep

6. Exercise

But really, there’s more to it. You need clean air and water, nutritious food, safe shelter, enough sleep and exercise to stay strong. You possibly need money, literacy and numeracy skills and some form of medication to function effectively.

I believe humans need each other. We need friends, family and lovers. Most adults need sex and intimacy and laughter. We need purpose, hope and a sense of community.

What you don’t need is more crap. You don’t need a new TV. You don’t need a gym membership. You don’t need alcohol or drugs or gambling. You don’t need stilettos or a Playstation. You definitely don’t need a new car.

What you need is love, peace, humility, kindness and grace.

Get those and you won’t need to worry about the rest.

What do you need to stay happy? I, for one, really need sunlight!

Upon discovering that his estranged son (played by Emilio Estevez) has died on the El camino de Santiago in the French Pyrenees, American opthamologist Tom travels from California to identify and retrieve his son’s body.

Something happens when he gets to St Jean Pied de Port, the tiny French village where his son is in the morgue. You could call it an epiphany: that his life is running out.

Tom sets out – with his son’s backpack containing all of his belongings – to finish what his son started; retracing the steps of Saint James all the way to Santiago de Compostela on the western side of Spain.

The Way, which begins as a lament on the difficulties of father/son relationships, ends up as a celebration of unlikely friendships. Tom –a stern old bugger unaccustomed to discomfort– quickly adapts to the unpredictable nature of life on the road and finds peace (and perhaps  self-forgiveness) in the act of placing his son’s ashes along the route.

He also manages to pick up a few hangers on; people whose foibles, idiosyncrasies and charms are played out amidst the Spanish backcountry walking trails.

See it for the scenery. Like it for the weepy bits. Love it for the cool gypsy subplot. The Way is in cinemas now.

Have you seen it? What did you think?

Sihanoukville is a strange paradise, composed of dusty red-soil roads, colour-chequered huts and houses and weather-beaten seaside bungalows. The highest point fall into space on two sides and lush green fields rolls down on one, powdery picture-perfect sand to the ocean on the other. All the names in Sihanoukville are like this: ‘Holy Cow,’ ‘Starfish,’ and ‘Happy Herb Pizza,’ all strange western ramblings that resound with tourists and present the possibilities of profit and progress.

Sihanoukville is the only sea port city of Cambodia and the major gateway to the islands close by. Pitted against the rest of the country, it seems like a rural utopia, filled with sleepy pyjama-wearing inhabitants who wonder amidst free-running chickens and grazing cattle. Most of them are fishermen who scale mighty sea cliffs for food. Others are women of fishermen who sell grilled squid and lobster on the beach or offer,“pedicure, manicure or Bikini wax, Miss,” and teach their children how to make bracelets, drive a moto or gather garbage from the streets. Their lives are pitied and envied in equal measure for their simplicity, sleepiness and serenity.

On the morning after my arrival, the pounding rain has finally stopped (daily monsoons are the side-effect of the rainy season!). The sky has cleared and I can quite easily see why these people turned into fishermen or became women of fishermen and never looked back: who wouldn’t swap a city-life for living life close to the sea? There it was – the answer to my self-imposed task of my trip to ‘Snoukieville”, as some foreigners like to call this seaport town – to find out the secret of Sihanoukville: its noble savage role of hosting a seaside.

In the fading light of the late afternoon, I kneel down along the water’s edge and let my fingers run through the fine muddy sand. Right here at Otres Beach, I force myself to sit still and watch the waves crushing at the water’s edge, washing the sand to shore like golden honey melting into a glass of milk. There is something special about the waves and the wind and the water here: a kind of hypnotic rhythm to the strangeness of Sihanoukville.

As the sun fades away, I lie down in the sand and look at the sky, the spitting image of the glittery silver blue ocean that surrounds me. Sitting on Otres is like sitting on the prow of a ship; every moment you expect to feel it pitching beneath you … The next morning the sun is shining like a fireball and at an instance life feels utterly beautiful. The magic of Sihanoukville is that its seaside can turn the daily grind into a dream, making the ordinary look a little surreal in the end.

And so the strangeness that lingers upon Sihanoukville and its PJ wearing inhabitants isn’t that awkward and strange anymore. The longer I am here, the more I get the gist of it; laziness can be appealing when close to the sea. And on a fine day like today, after Sihanoukville’s fishermen and women of fishermen have arrived on the beach, I slowly make my way back to town, walking along its seaside and vanishing like mist over the bright blue sea.

A few friends recently made a pact to do more outdoorsy things. After a few walks and car camping trips, someone decided we should walk the main range track from Charlotte Pass to Kosciuszko – the highest point on the Australian mainland. Plans were hatched, dates debated and soon enough, we were off.

The snowy mountains has a large population of kangaroos and wombats; I once hit a ‘roo on the way to Jindabyne so I’m very cautious there now – there are just so many on the road. Once you arrive in the Kosciuszko National Park there are plenty of camping spots to choose from. We set up camp at Island bend on the Guthega Rd. Camping is free after you pay the park entry at the gate. The campgrounds are basic, but well laid out.

The walk itself is almost 22km of some of the most stunning scenery you will see in Australia. There is also 900m of vertical ascent so you need to be somewhat fit for this walk (not that any of our group are super fit, just don’t do this as a first walk!). Make sure you load up at breakfast time.

We saw thousands of wild flowers, glacial lakes, gorgeous clouds over the rolling valleys, pristine water, snow and hills hills hills.

We didn’t get foul weather but it can happen. Make sure you take first aid stuff, warm clothes and rain clothes. Pack plenty of food and water. We went in January and it had snowed heavily the week before. We had a balmy 4-14 degrees, and got sunburned.

Camping and park information (check for updates before you leave)
Walk details

Age: 35

Occupation: Social Media Marketer – Go Future Media

Favourite travel destination?: Really hard to pick, my last trip was Sri Lanka so that’s the top of my list at the moment. An easy place to travel in with awesome people, food, weather, Ayurvedic spa treatments and also really cheap.

Best meal you’ve ever had while travelling?: In India I was staying in a camp where the meals would be cooked up by a team of women in massive pots to feed loads of people. Each of the pots would have a different curry or dahl – they were the tastiest meals I ever ate.

Best kiss?: My last kiss is always my best kiss.

Best/scariest/funniest drive?: I had a driving adventure through Switzerland, part of Italy, France and into and across Spain, which was one of the best trips I have done so far. I was always freaked out driving through the tunnels but the car train (Furka Tunnel) through the mountain in Switzerland was very cool.

Where is the best/weirdest/worst place you’ve ever stayed?: I have stayed in a few weird places like a room made out of salt in Bolivia and I have been fortunate enough to stay is some pretty awesome luxury places like Conrad Bali Nusa Dua and Montelucia Resort and Spa Arizona.

What has been the big  ‘wow’ moment of your travelling life?: Visiting Easter Island was a life long dream come true.

What is your number one travel tip?: If you can only go for a short amount of time, it’s still better than not going at all.

You will find me freezing my sweet ass off outside the QVB from 8am – 10am handing out leis and asking people to enter the Lei Day competition at www.winhawaii.com.au

Come and say Hi. I will be the chick in the Hawai’ian shirt with 1000 leis.

It would be awesome if you entered, mostly to make me look good to my boss, but you may also win a trip for two to Hawai’i. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So tell me, hoalohas (friends), what do you love about Hawai’í?

I’ve spent years feeling overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted. I’ve tried to conform, achieve and contort myself into standard issue roles.

I’ve failed in varying degrees and I’m finally starting to feel OK.

I have taken to sleeping in, eating whatever I want and reading instead of going out.

My mind has started to open to possibilities that I had previously ignored. Maybe I will be childless and that will be fine. Maybe I will never remarry and that will be fine too.

The only things I seem to need these days are coffee in the morning and tea at night, restorative sleep, easy, joyful friendships, interesting work, things to read, watch, listen to and do, wine, water and a blessed abundance of fresh food. I love walking – around my neighbourhood or in the bush – and hanging out with my cat.

I feel happy in this quiet, simple place.

Have you figured out how to be happy? What are you doing?

Shacks ahoy!

I do. I want to build a shack out of straw bales, mud and recycled building materials.

I want to boil billies, sleep under stars and drink wine in outdoor bathtubs.

Yes. That’s what I want.

If you’re into that sort of thing, check out Cabin Porn for inspiration.

The view from where we ate lunch

Nonetheless, it’s not raining so my friends and I are going for a bushwalk in the Blue Mountains. Natureboy has sussed out a route – Lockley’s Pylon – so we pile into the car and drive up the M4 to Leura, turn right at Mt Hay Road and 10.4 kms later, we have bumped our way down a corrugated dirt road to the trail head.

This is an unusual landscape. Initially there is scrubby bushland but it rapidly thins out to low, scrubby heather. I should be wearing something white and winsome and running toward a bloke named Heathcliff. It’s beautiful. It’s quiet. It’s completely isolated and blue, green, grey.

Natureboy tells us about the local crazies that live in caves. One such cave dweller thinks he’s the King of the Snakes. Apparently if anyone tries to develop the bushland, this mentally ill hermit will burn whatever they build to the ground.

Having visited this wild place for a very flat, easy three-hour walk along the ridge line, I tend to agree with Snake Dude. No one should wreck this place, unobstructed as it is by manmade structures. Not sure about the ‘Burn it’ philosophy but it should be preserved at all costs.

Have you been for a good bushwalk lately? Where to? Do tell!

I made it to the top of Lion’s Rock in Sri Lanka

Occupation: Assistant Director of Public Relations for Anantara Resorts and Spas

Favourite travel destination?: Laos

Worst travel experience?: Getting drugged on a train from Madrid to Algeciras and still managing to stay wake for the entire 12 hour journey (it’s a very long story …)

Best meal you’ve ever had while travelling?: Street stall food in the main square  of Marrakesh.

Best/scariest/funniest drive?: The best, scariest and funniest (all in one) experience was a three day mahout training course learning to ‘drive’ an elephant in the Golden Triangle.

Where is the best/weirdest/worst place you’ve ever stayed?: The worst places are dossing on numerous friends old sofas all around the world.

What has been the big ‘wow’ moment of your travelling life?: There’s been so many – Dancing in the streets with the locals in Myanmar during Thingyan (New Year);  seeing Angkor Wat in Cambodia at dawn; counting down the millennium in Galway, Ireland;  spotting rare pygmy elephants in Borneo; climbing The Lion Rock in Sigiriya, Sri Lanka; white water rafting in Laos … the list is endless …

What is your number one travel tip?: Smile and enjoy!