Various people have started from the motorbike end of things, in a whole variety of places: Peter Girling comes to mind in Morocco, as do Mikkel Thomson in Cali, Stefan Knopf in Heidelberg, and of course Javier and Sandra in B.A. I'm sure there are dozens more who I've never met (although of equally sure there are plenty who've tried and failed). There's something about anticipating a growth sector, getting ahead of the curve and contributing to that very growth by your presence on the ground. I don't see it as "following the tourists" so much as arriving a bit before they show up en masse--before prices skyrocket and markets get saturated.

Note that some of the folks I've named above take a fair amount of time off. It's not necessarily all nose-to-the-grindstone, 24/7. It does seem necessary to pour in a lot of blood and sweat (and probably cash), at least in the early days.

Of the suggestions above, Georgia sounds like the most interesting. Too bad the country is so small, and surrounded by so many argumentative neighbors.

I used to have some fancy ideas about setting up hostels in some of the more amazing places I've lived, but I could never get things to pencil out. What's more, I wasn't able to convince myself I'd be happy staying in one place to keep an eye on things, while dealing day-to-day with annoying people, a.k.a. "the public." That works for some, and I'm grateful to them.

In the meantime, I'm sticking to my day job....which continues to pay for expensive habits like surgeries and mountain biking between motorcycle trips.

Mark