Travel Blog

Drew Ott

Drew Ott

Wish I were banned.
I just started a blog a couple of days ago. Here's the synopsis from the about section:

Starting this summer, once I graduate high school, I’m hopping in my car and heading west out of Austin to wherever the road takes me. It should be a good time. After that, I’ll be looking for suggestions from you guys to create the rest of my trip. Any kind of suggestion, from “go to Seattle” to “climb a mountain” is welcomed.

Check it out... right now I only get views from friends at school, so I'm trying to expand my audience. I imagine the entertainment level will greatly increase once I'm actually on the trip. We'll see...
 
That actually sounds pretty interesting Drew. Are you going with anyone? Other than west, do you have a final destination or just sort of going with the flow? Also, how long do you plan to be gone and have you put together some sort of budget for the trip?

Just curious, because I myself wouldn't mind doing this...just west in Canada.

Kegan
 
West to Southern California, north to Washington, east to Montana, then south down through Colorado and all those states. Not straight lines though. I'll be zig-zagging to National Parks and things like that.

I might try to check out Canada too. How hard is it to get a passport and cross the border? I have no idea.
 
Oh, cool, I forgot to answer 3/4 of your questions.

I'm not going with anybody but I hope to meet a lot of people, so hopefully I won't go insane from isolation from society. I'll probably be gone for about 3 months. I'm not sure. Whenever I get bored I guess.

I'm going to sell some stuff I won't be able to bring in my car for cash during the trip. I realized I have a lot of equipment that I never make money off of. I'm not so sure about this though -- still deciding.
 
Haha, I was hoping you'd get to the rest of my questions. Thanks for the answers. Well, if you find yourself in Ontario, shoot me a PM. I'd be happy to show you around Toronto.

Sounds like an interesting trip for sure. As far as getting a passport goes, in Canada its pretty easy. Takes about 2 weeks and its over with. With regards to crossing the border, I go across to Buffalo all the time without any problems. Just make sure you have nothing that would cause suspicion and declare all of your equipment if any (ie - DSLR, camcorder, etc) so you won't get hassled on your way back in.

Kegan
 
Visit the National Seashore, Cape Cod, Massachusetts...

You have no idea who I am, but ill show you around
 
Drew Ott said:
West to Southern California, north to Washington, east to Montana, then south down through Colorado and all those states. Not straight lines though. I'll be zig-zagging to National Parks and things like that.

I might try to check out Canada too. How hard is it to get a passport and cross the border? I have no idea.
Click to expand...

It won't matter. You will have plenty to keep you busy in the states. I've done this kind of thing a couple of times. LOVE LOVE LOVE it, just getting in the car and going.

That's actually my best memory of a foreign trip too, getting a car in Athens, heading to Epidaurus for a play, and then just going wherever we wanted all over Greece. Of course, all of Greece fits like in San Bernadino County, but it's the thought... :)

This rocks.

The only thing I will suggest is do NOT take a frickin' video camera and do NOT blog about it. Nothing destroys experience like trying to record it. Besides checking in for suggestions on your blog, just cut it all off man, check out and hang loose.
 
Hunter007 said:
Haha, I was hoping you'd get to the rest of my questions. Thanks for the answers. Well, if you find yourself in Ontario, shoot me a PM. I'd be happy to show you around Toronto.

Sounds like an interesting trip for sure. As far as getting a passport goes, in Canada its pretty easy. Takes about 2 weeks and its over with. With regards to crossing the border, I go across to Buffalo all the time without any problems. Just make sure you have nothing that would cause suspicion and declare all of your equipment if any (ie - DSLR, camcorder, etc) so you won't get hassled on your way back in.

Kegan
Click to expand...

Cool. Thanks for the suggestions. I've never been outside the country, so that might be a good thing to do.

Zacatac said:
Visit the National Seashore, Cape Cod, Massachusetts...

You have no idea who I am, but ill show you around
Click to expand...

Good suggestions. I just looked here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...onal_Seashore_headlands_from_Chimney_Rock.jpg

Looks very nice. I'd love to be "shown around" anywhere I go. That is the ideal situation.

ugafan said:
3 months is a pretty long time. where are you going to sleep?
Click to expand...

I'll be sleeping in my car most of the time. I'm going to make a post about sleeping in my car soon. I drive a Honda Accord, so it's sort of not the best, but it'll have to do.
 
Mark Harris said:
The only thing I will suggest is do NOT take a frickin' video camera and do NOT blog about it. Nothing destroys experience like trying to record it. Besides checking in for suggestions on your blog, just cut it all off man, check out and hang loose.
Click to expand...


Interesting. I'm not going to be taking videos, but a ton of photos. A lot of this will be exploration in nature, so I think that's a reasonable thing to take photos of. I like the idea of blogging about it just so I'll have the memory somewhere, but I think you're right that it could make me almost conscious about the whole experience. If it starts to do that, I'll stop.

Oh, and I guess to be clear, I'm not going to be trying to document all that I do while it happens... just at the end of each "chapter" or whatever. I'll give that a hefty dose of consideration though.
 
Mark Harris said:
That's actually my best memory of a foreign trip too, getting a car in Athens, heading to Epidaurus for a play, and then just going wherever we wanted all over Greece. Of course, all of Greece fits like in San Bernadino County, but it's the thought... :)
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty awesome. When was this?
 
I might try to check out Canada too. How hard is it to get a passport and cross the border? I have no idea.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you need a passport to get into Canada from the States. You need a passport if your Canadian to get into the US now (air now and car in July), but I don't think we've put those restrictions on US citizens. I just got my passport renewed here and it took about 2 weeks.

If your going up to Seattle, why not check out Canada? How often are you going to be in that position again and also consider that the major Canadian cities are basically just on the other side of the border. If I had 3 months to drive across the US, I'd be zig zagging all across North America.

I've driven across Canada before and it was a blast.
 
check out this site for some motivation drew: 50 states in 11 days

this guy took an 11 day trip and hit all 50 states. he rented a car that had around 500 miles and when he returned it it had almost 9000. pretty funny. anyway, a fun story.
 
In California, north of San Francisco, don't miss the San Reyes National Seashore. Just beautiful.

And, if you do end up in New England, you should definitely see Acadia National Park in Maine. It's pretty far north, but well worth the extra driving.

Just some random destinations that popped into my head.

MARK HARRIS: That's what I want to do on my next trip to Europe, too! I have a whole France-Italy-France-Spain-France loop I want to do. But, I'll skip London. Where do we meet up???
 
MsManhattan said:
MARK HARRIS: That's what I want to do on my next trip to Europe, too! I have a whole France-Italy-France-Spain-France loop I want to do. But, I'll skip London. Where do we meet up???
Click to expand...

Now that's what I'm talking about lady, let's ditch the ol' ball and chains and hit the ROAD!

I guess we can meet in Paris...
 
Europe seems like a great place to visit. That will be my next trip. :) I speak a bit of German, so who knows.

Thanks, JConnors, for the passport tips. That's encouraging.

I don't think I could do 50 states in 11 days... or even 50 states in a year. That's crazy.

Thanks for the recommendations MsManhattan. San Reyes National Seashore looks lovely in picture form; I can't imagine how great it would/will be in real life.
 
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