Traveling (Flash back)

Today is the first day I’ve reconsidered traveling. I was told my apartment was suppose to be showed yesterday, so made a point to leave the house two hours early and head to a wine tasting. They showed up today at 5:30, I was still in my pjs working on my computer. Needless to say I don’t want to leave my house just yet but don’t want to awkwardly sit here while people wander through my home.

About my apartment

I have a gorgeous apartment in the Lyndale area of uptown Minneapolis. Uptown Minneapolis is gorgeous from March to November and my apartment is in the heart of it all. It’s a spacious modern one bedroom overlooking the street from the third floor. I get plenty of light and love the interior design. I can walk to Calhoun square from here within ten minutes. Basically this apartment is to die for and is fairly reasonably priced, it’s not suburb pricing but for the considering it’s pretty good. Plus it comes with one parking spot and street parking is free. It’s a gem on the edge of the nice neighborhoods and what I what consider the precipice of the ghetto. Any further East of my place and everyone only speaks Spanish or Somalian. To the West is Fujiya (the delicious little sushi spot) and more of the upscale living. For me it’s perfect, minus the fact that I hate winter and it’s in the middle of one of the coldest states in the United States.

If you’re interested in the apartment let me know. You can just leave a note in the comments and I’ll get ahold of you.

Why Am I Leaving?

In short I’m bored and don’t like getting cold. So I’m leaving to avoid the winter. Plus I figured I had two options 1. get a job and buy a house 2. stay working for myself and go travel the world for 3-24 months. I chose the ladder. Well sort of the ladder. I’m going to travel and when I find a place I like I’ll buy a house and maybe/maybe not go work for a company. Their is something very nice about working for yourself from home. It’s a natural freedom, that takes a lot of motivation to find new clients and the creativity to follow through. On the other hand a big part of me would love to settle in and have a job that comes with benefits, where I can focus on one project or at least one at a time, and know when I’m getting paid every month. Plus I’m not nearly as much of a loner as some people may think. I don’t handle spending weeks in my apartment alone very well. Just gives me cabin fever. I do realize that it’s no ones fault but my own. I could easily work from CoCo or a coffee shop.

I love Minnesota, I do. I’ll miss my friends, but reality is my family doesn’t live here. I’m not a fan of winter and I’ve been wanting to travel and get this out of my system for over five years. Better now than later. Plus I figure when I’m done traveling I’ll have saved up all that apartment money and be able to have a VERY nice house down payment. Who knows maybe that house will be in Minnesota.

Where to?

I don’t have the entire trip mapped out but have at least planned some of it. First stop is Washington state, my dad lives there and I’d like to visit some friends in Seattle. Maybe even apply for a few jobs. I lived in Washington for nine years and love that state, plus I don’t mind the rain. Other two states I’ll for sure stop at are Texas and California. I’ve always considering moving to both. The only Irony is I’ve never visited either state. So I think it’s time to rectify that situation.

I’ll let the rest be a surprise seeing as I’ve been planning this for a few months now. Guess you’ll just have to read my blog if you want to know more.

Want to meetup?

Well if you live in Minneapolis you have until November 1st to make plans with me and then I’m leaving. Everyone else, if you’d like me to visit your state or grab coffee along the way, leave me a comment or send me a tweet @desaraev. I’d be happy to stop in your state for public speaking or to discuss business opportunities if you need a website or social media planning.

Blogging along the way…

So I’ve been told I should write about my trip. I was considering this trip more of a sole searching adventure, but I do like sharing. Just wasn’t sure how many people would actually be interested in reading my traveling rants. So I started considering turning this into a fun little niche blog (or starting a new blog). One friend suggested I take pictures of a doll in front of the different land marks I find along the way, another suggested I just find hot spots that the locals recommend and write my own personal thoughts in a non-Fromers kind of way. Then I started considering how am I going to pay for this trip?

Paying for the trip

Well I’ve already figured out most of paying for it by giving up my apartment. That alone eats up most of my monthly income. I don’t want to cheapen the experience but what if I found trinkets along the way and sold gift baskets of them for $40 a piece. Would anyone buy that?

Advertising on my trip..

I even considering pitching advertising to companies. I could pick out five companies looking to target twenty-somethings who are spontaneous, adventurous and love shopping. Was thinking companies like Zappos, Groupon, REI, Travelocity, Virgin America, Red Bull, American Express or Starbucks might be good choices. Maybe even smaller versions of these companies would be better choices, but I’m not sure if smaller companies would have the budget to put towards this. In return I could offer them:

A logo on the side of my truck or RV

Product placement in photos

A sponsor logo on the side of my blog

Wearing shirts with their company logo

Blogging

Social Media assistance

Setup giveaways at stores for an hour a week and run promotion bran representation events

What do you think?

Is that cheezy? Would you be interested in seeing that or reading about it? Have any cool ideas you want to add to the mix? Think I’m just wasting my time blogging and should just go have a good time… let me know.