Hello, and thanks for visiting!
I suppose you arrived here from one of the pages of my websites, so let me take this opportunity to thank you for reading it. I do appreciate the time you spent on it, and I hope my writings have provided you the information you are looking for.
My name is Timothy Tye. Everybody calls me Tim. I am a full time web-based travel writer. It is the best job in the world that started out as a hobby. I enjoy it so much that now I write full time for the web. It allows me to indulge in my passion and satisfy my curiosity about the world. Not to mention, travel and visit places that I am curious about. As I explore and discover, I document and share my information with everybody through my many websites. I began writing my websites to entertain myself, but since then, my websites have provided thousands of people, every day, with useful travel information and knowledge.
My passion lies in travel writing. Most of my thirty-plus websites are related to travel. I live in Penang, Malaysia, but I my websites describe the whole world. I am Chinese. My mother is Hokkien, my father is Sin Leng, a subgroup of Cantonese. Nevertheless, I am glad that I can make myself understood in English.
The first website that I created was AsiaExplorers. I started it back in 2003. At that time, I was still working. (Back then, I was a marketing communications manager at a computer company whose name rhymes with "sell".) Today AsiaExplorers is still my biggest website, with over a thousand travel articles. If AsiaExplorers were a book, it would be quite a massive tome. Since then, I have created many more websites, some centering on a particular city, such as the Travel Tips Series. Nothing escapes my pen, and my own hometown is described in detail in Penang Travel Tips while the country I live in is described in Exploring Malaysia. The beauty of writing on the web, as opposed to writing in print, is that I can easily update my articles and keep the information up-to-date. That would not be possible with printed text, which would require a revised edition. To pull together the different travel sites, I created EarthDocumentary and World Greatest Sites. Also related to travel are Travel Photography Workshop, Book Hotels Online and Budget Accommodation Guide.
The look-and-feel of my websites have come a long way since AsiaExplorers in 2003. Back then, every country has a different look. It required much effort to herd them all in a single direction, so that today, all my travel websites share the same look-and-feel, and they link so seamlessly together that you hardly realise that you are moving from one website to the next.
Two websites not related to travel that I happily author include Happy Jobless Guy and The Flowering Garden. Happy Jobless Guy is a website that celebrates my state of unemployment. Although I do not regularly update it, it is one of the websites that have touched many lives, especially those who were made redundant by unfavorable economic situations. Happy Jobless Guy is not a website about earning a living without working. I am still working, and very hard at it too, but I now work for myself. And people who follow my advise in Happy Jobless Guy will be working for themselves as well. The Flowering Garden is a website that I started with my wife, because we both love flowers, but do not care to do any gardening. So, the next best thing is to place our garden on the web, where we can enjoy flowers that continue to bloom 365 days of the year!
The photographs appearing on my websites are either shot by me, or attributed to photographers under licensing terms as captioned. My own photographs - those that do not bear an attribution to someone else are mine - are all copyrighted. Some have been licensed to appear in a variety of media, including guidebooks, magazines, calendars and other websites for advertising, editorial, promotional and other uses . If you need to use any of my photographs, just write me a mail, letting me know the purpose and duration, and in the case of magazines, your circulation size. I will advise you the fee involved.
Most of my time if spent in writing and updating my websites, if not travelling. Back in 2003, when I started AsiaExplorers, I used to organise tours, taking groups of travel enthusiasts to interesting destinations. I've toned down on organising such tours. I just don't have the time nor, honestly, the inclination. On the other hand, I now own travel businesses that allows me to take people on vacations, without my having to physically do it myself. I know it's not the same, but I work hard to help the people running the business to give it the best quality it can provide.
Now I can spend my time doing my writing as well as on my personal travels, and the more time I have on my hand allows me to do my research in greater depth. All my articles are written at a workstation, with three monitor screens side by side, two back-up notebook computers and, when I travel, a digital album, several camera bodies, lens and tripod. It is impossible for me to travel light. Even a trip to a neighbouring town feels like I am moving house. I work in a custom-designed study room. The room is very small, but cosy. It has a wall of dark-wood cabinets filled with my books. A lot of my research is done on the web nowadays, but I still enjoy a visit to the bookstore every now and then to look up the latest titles.
I have come a long way since the time I wrote for fun. Well, I still do write for fun - I definitely would not be able to face having to write yet another travel article if I do not - but now I also earn money from it. And that doubles the fun! When I write, I am also embarking on a mind trip of exploring and discovering. But more than just writing for fun, I now do it with a consciousness that what I write should not only entertain me, it should also provide the information that people are looking for. Some of my articles are the result of spending much time hunting for information, asking questions, interviewing people, talking to the locals, searching for that hard-to-find document, and all the while trying to make sense of this wonderful world that continues to intrigue and amuse. These are the things I enjoy, and the result is presented to you in articles which, I hope, flow almost effortlessly.
I love hearing from you. If you care to write, you'd be surprise that I do reply, to as many email as I can possibly manage. Once again, thank you for reading. I am most grateful.
My Travel Websites
Documenting places is my biggest passion. As a result, many of my websites are travel related.
My Travel Tips Series of Websites
The Travel Tips series of websites provide detailed information of destinations on a city-by-city basis.
My Travel Businesses
My Non-Travel Websites
While the majority of my websites are travel related, I have also created websites to celebrate my other hobbies and passions.
My NGO Websites
I am the webmaster for the websites of the following NGOs:
EarthDocumentary: Popocatepetl, author: Jakub Hejtmanek (GFDL)
WorldGreatestSites: Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls, author: Daniel Mayer (cc-by-sa)
London Travel Tips: author: User talk:Mewiki (GFDL)
New York Travel Tips: author: Simone Roda (cc-by-2.0)
Paris Travel Tips: author: Tognopop (public domain)
Sydney Travel Tips: author: Yukka tukka indians (public domain)
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