Starting Saturday, September 26, 2009, I will begin a 30 day, 9 city, and 11 session speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand. While I have been on several 2 and 3 week speaking tours, this will be my longest and most complex.

I have spent nearly a year making the arrangements, coordinating the tour with various user groups so I could make as many presentations as I could in the shortest time possible. This past two months have really been intensive, as I have had to book flights, train rides, and hotels for all these locations. The entire journey will include nearly 20,000 miles of traveling.

My first stop will be in Perth Australia, where I will be speaking at the .NET Users Group on Thursday, October 1, and the SQL Server Users Group on Friday, October 2. Mitch Wheat, who is the leader the .NET group, has helped me a lot in coordinating the Australia part of my tour.

Next, I speak at the Newcastle Coders Group on Wednesday, October 7, then I head to Wagga Wagga to make two presentations at the SQL Down Under Code Camp, on the weekend of October 10 and 11.

From the SQL Down Under Code Camp, I head to Melbourne to speak at the Melbourne SQL Server Users Group on Monday, October 12, and the following day, Tuesday, October 13, I speak at the Sydney SQL Server Users Group.

Next, I fly to New Zealand to speak at four different groups, one after another, four days in a row. My first stop is at the Auckland SQL Server Users Group on Monday, October 19, which is headed by Dave Dustin, who helped me a lot in coordinating my travels in New Zealand. On Tuesday, October 20, I am speaking at the Wellington SQL Server Users Group. Then on Wednesday, October 21, I speak in Christchurch, and on Thursday, October 22, I speak in Dunedin. Finally, I fly home on Sunday, October 25, back home to Hawaii.

Unfortunately, I won’t have much time to recover, as 4 days after I get back home, I am off to Seattle for the PASS Community Summit, and the following week I fly to Las Vegas to speak at SQL Server Connections. I will end up being on the road for 6 weeks, with only a minor reprieve. Fortunately, once I get back, my traveling for the rest of this year is over, and I will be taking a three week vacation the last three weeks of December, before starting the new year in 2010.

As I am on tour, I will try to blog almost every day, letting you know how things are going, and hopefully to provide you with some photos of the adventure as well.