Below are letters home to friends and family I've written since 2004. Now it so happens that they are almost all in Norwegian, except the two that are from Norway. Please have a Norwegian friend translate. Or just look at the pretty pictures:

Prelude: Reykjavik, Iceland
Stretch 1: Alajuela/Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
Stretch 2: missing (dengue fever and laptop stolen)
Stretch 3: Bocas del Toro, Panama
Stretch 4: Panama City, Panama
Stretch 5: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Stretch 6: Mendoza og Andes, Argentina/Chile
Stretch 7: Rapa Nui, South Pacific
Stretch 8: April in Paris
Stretch 9: Stadlandet, Norway
Stretch 10: Bali og Nusa Lembongtan
Stretch 11: Java til Jakarta
Stretch 12: Living the dream på Lombok
Stretch 13: Enter the Dragon (Flores)
Stretch 14: Heart of Darkness (Borneo)
Stretch 15: Stopover, Hong Kong
Stretch 16: Colombia
Stretch 17: The Amazon
Stretch 18: Rio de Janeiro
Stretch 19: Punta del Diablo, Uruguay
Stretch 20: The Pacific Ocean
Stretch 21: Sydney
Stretch 22: The Great Ocean Road
Stretch 24: Hobart, Tasmania
Stretch 25: Svalbard
Stretch 26: Australia retrospective

I set out from Norway in 2004 to travel the world and live overseas, and I'm still on the road and enjoying it tremendously.

Growing up in Norway you get constantly told how great it is: that you're living in the worlds best country, the richest country in the world, that you have drawn the lucky lottery number. The rest of the world is there for us to save and help with our oil money and rationality.

But, not everything with living in Oslo or the suburban areas around the Oslofjord really adds up with having hit upon lifestyle nirvana. I wanted to go see if what we call the good life may actually be somewhere else. I suspected that the story we're told is just a devious marketing plot to cover up that Norway is actually just cold and expensive misery.

So far the lessons learnt have pointed in all directions. Happiness must come from inside, but belonging to a community is essential. Being surrounded by family and friends makes life fullfilled, but you must also reach your own potential.

Luckily, as long as I haven't figured it out, the adventure can go on. And it's an exciting adventure I don't want to stop. Since leaving Norway I've gotten married, been awarded a degree in psychology, surfed the edge of all the world's seven seas and I'm now a manager in a global company.

It's pretty nice out there, I tell you!