Canada Itinerary

Bearing in mind that nothing’s final until noon on June 28th, here’s the tentative itinerary should this Canadian shakedown cruise take place:

  1. Thursday, July 29th—Drive 10 hours to Portland Oregon. Stay with Debi Leonard and her very own Craig.
  2. Saturday, July 31st—Drive 4 hours to Everett Washington and stay with Brad and Kristy Trnavsky.
  3. Monday, August 2nd—Drive 2 hours to Vancouver where Caitlyn and Ian will give us a place to stay for approximately 3 weeks, depending on their schedule. During our stay, we plan to
    • find places for me to do house concerts
    • put on training/coaching events for virtual assistants
    • host VA mixers, perhaps once a week, at a deserving local eatery
    • connect with as many friends-of-friends as possible
    • walk, nap, smell, hear, enjoy, hold hands, dream, write, smewch, snack, cook, and more
  4. Wednesday, August 25th—Depart Vancouver. I wonder where we’ll go. We don’t need to be home until September 3rd.

Streamlining, Paring, Tossing and We have to go!

So I’ve been working on streamlining our possessions. I’ve pared down the clothing quite a bit, tossed a bunch of trash, took 12 bags of clothing to Goodwill today. There’s lots more to go. I’ve been holding on to clothing for years that no longer fit or are worn or that don’t have as much sentimental value as I thought. Gone!

Fiona, our six-year old, is very excited about going to Canada for our trip in August. She knows it’s still tentative for a little while longer. She also knows we’ll be staying with a family that have a dog and Fiona says, “We have to go!” She wants to take care of the dog.

Don’t let Fiona down! Help her get to Canada to take care of the doggie. :)

It’s Work, Not a Vacation

Nice thing about believing that there’s no such thing as work/life balance is that we can mingle the two, or separate them, at will.

Sue wrote a great post at our Chief Virtual Officer site explaining that we want to add a more human dimension to our virtual work. Meeting folks in real life is enthralling; shaking hands and hugging and sharing a meal; seeing the look on their face when they grasp what you’re teaching; showing our daughter that there are real people out there, not just avatars on a Facebook page.

Our goal isn’t to retire with our immeasurable wealth in order to frequent the hotspots of the nouveau riche; our goal is to live, every single day; to work and love and share and learn and live.

Win/Win Sponsorship

(If you know why you’re here you can jump right to the survey; otherwise, read on!)

As Best Beloved and I plan a life as nomads, we’re looking for ways to create mutual benefit; the proverbial ‘win/win’, for ourselves and the other lives we touch, or could touch.

The folks who are putting us up on our first trip are getting business coaching, cooking (I’m very good) and music (all modesty aside, or shoved under the mattress even) I’m a great songwriter. We get something precious to us (a bed at night and a home cooked meal) and they get something they value.

It’s always nice to have a little extra in the travel fund, but traditional sponsorship won’t cut it here. We don’t want to wear jackets with a swoosh everywhere we go, or be seen publicly drinking from a silver beverage can or any of that.

We want to find sponsors to whom we can offer something they value, something they can get best from a traveling family of remarkable people, and who’ll consider the material contribution small by comparison.

Win/win.

I’ve prepared the World’s Shortest Survey to gather ideas. A few ideas have already been floated, but ideas are a great big ocean. Float as many as you want.

House Concerts Along the Way

Could I possibly end up performing in St. Helens, Oregon, Everett, Washington, and Vancouver? (Edit: St. Helens is out, this trip.)

House concerts beat coffee shops hands down. Coffee shops are really a place to go practice, knowing that absolutely no one is listening.

But show up to someone’s living room, where they’ve invited all their friends, and everyone brings something to drink and a snack, and you’re the guest host of a very cool party. When the hat is passed, literally or metaphorically, even a few drachmas from each guest turns into more than I’ve earned in every coffee shop I’ve ever played in.

There’s more than you really want to know about my house concerts at my tunehenge site.

More of the Plan

The long-term goal is to own nothing but what we can carry in a few suitcases, besides a few possessions too expensive or emotionally precious to replace. This isn’t meant to be Sherman’s march to the sea, slashing and burning as we go. At some point it’s likely we’ll come back to a more traditional lifestyle, and I’ll regret getting rid of all my books and my Dad’s stuff.

We rent our home right now, so we won’t have to sell anything that huge. Sue’s son might find a roomie or two and stay here, meaning we’d have an attic to store stuff in, an address to get mail at, and a place to sleep when we’re in town. Otherwise, we have dozens of friends who’d offer a room, an address, whatever we need.

We’ve got a tentative test trip planned for August 2nd through the 24th-ish. We’d be house-sitting just outside Vancouver, British Columbia. I mentioned the trip to a close friend today and he talked endlessly about the marvelous vacation he and his wife took there; about the mind-boggling beauty of the scenery.

Sue discovered that another one of her virtual assistant contacts is in Vancouver. She was going to track her down when she noticed late this afternoon that said VA had Tweeted something about looking for accountability partners to help her take her business to the next level . . . so tomorrow, we have a call planned to talk about arranging some sort of workshop (or workshops) while we’re there.

In the spirit of transparency, if we can make $600 in extra income while we’re there (beyond what we would have earned staying home) it will completely cover the cost of the trip. And if the big web job we’ve signed issues the first payment within the next month (almost a foregone conclusion) we’ll even have the funds up front, seed money, so to speak, and earn it back on the trip. Lather rinse repeat.

Might make a pre-dry-run (yeah, I just make this stuff up) to San Diego in July. Don’t tell Sue. If we can arrange a small informal event in LA and one in San Diego, we could make up the $300 that trip would cost.

These trips would let us test out what it’s like to work completely remotely. My wonky little Sony Vaio laptop; Sue on her son’s borrowed Dell beast (don’t tell him, either.)

Skype calls? Have to test. No headphones. Do we take speakers? Do we take the musician-quality microphones we’re used to using?

House concerts: if I could connect with folks who’d host a house concert, I show up, play music for an hour, pass a hat, play for another half hour.

Video everything (already a habit.) Take notes about everything (already a habit.)

Van needs rear tires and rear brakes. And windshield wipers.

There must be a dozen things I’m forgetting.

Devious Plot 01

Oh, you know there’s gonna be a book. I’ll be posting pre-order forms for the book/DVD/set but clearly, you’ll want something now! now! now! and not just a book and DVD a year from now.

I’ll be shooting endless reels of film (yeah, I know it’s not reels, nor is it film; work with me here) over the coming year of experimentation. While I’ll be posting bits and pieces, odds and ends, the reel stuff (ha!) as far as longer videos will be supported by and available to our sponsors. Which, y’know, means you.