In my quest to get more accomplished and be more efficient (profitable) in year 27, I’ve decided to follow in the footsteps of some other great travel bloggers (like Never Ending Voyage & Traveling Savage) and write a monthly report. This will help me stay focused on site goals, update everyone on my current missions and rant about anything fun or stupid that happened in the past 4 weeks.
February Recap:
- I returned to Medellin on February 5th after an amazing trip to Santa Marta, Taganga and Cartagena.
- The next day I fractured my ankle playing basketball at the local University.
- I’ve been hobbling around like an idiot ever since.
- The injury has been great for consulting projects and the new website but it’s been terrible for my social life.
- I’m very excited about the new Tourist 2 Townie site that is being tested as we speak I write this!
- My 27th Birthday came and went pretty uneventfully. A few bottles of rum, some pizza and a late night orgy… no big deal.
- I attended my first professional soccer match (Nacional vs Cali).
- I spent a week out in the country at a friend’s family finca (farm).
- With help from Medellin Living, I extended my tourist VISA for 30 more days. I’ll have to do it once more before I head back to the States.
- I purchased my plane tickets home in April for a wedding in Charlotte and Easter in New York.
- If everything goes as planned I’ll be back in Colombia on May 3.
- I currently live with 4 other American guys and it’s driving me crazy. They’re all great guys but if I wanted to live with other Gringos and speak English I would have stayed in the States.
- I took a break while writing this post and just found a NEW APARTMENT in Envigado… I move in on the 10th!
Current Mission: Salsa & Spanish
- Just as I was starting to replace the gringo shuffle with some solid salsa swagger I got put on the injured reserve.
- If I can bring myself to stop moving for 10 seconds, and let it heal, I should be back at it by mid-March.
- The goal is to hit Cali, Colombia (Salsa Capital) when I get back in May for a month of intense ass-shaking training.
- In other news, I’m still taking private Spanish classes everyday to improve my grammar and vocabulary.
- If I was living with Colombians, I’d be in great shape with my Spanish but I’m speaking way to much English.
- I just bought my first Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez book so I’m going to work my way through that.
- I’ve also been listening to a lot more Spanish music.
- Check out “El Pobre” by Bajo Tierra or “Yo No Se Manana” by Luis Enrique
T2T Around the Web:
- Have I mentioned the new website is coming very soon? Well if not, it is and I’m very excited.
- Wandering Trader provided a virtual fist bump by mentioning me in his “People Doing Awesome Things Right Now” article. This coming from the guy who’s at Carnival in Rio right now is pretty cool… that son of a bitch.
- Lonely Planet featured 3 recent T2T posts, including “If I had a Castle…”, “Botero’s Cavity Search” and “Talking Your Way into the Best Views”. Thanks to some advice from Simon and Erin from Never Ending Voyage.
- As We Travel featured not one, but two T2T posts this month on their “Favorite Travel Bloggers Daily” feature.
- I had the privilege of meeting Jeff from Career Break Secrets in Bogota who interviewed me for his “Who’s Out There Now” Spotlight.
- February was a great month for the site and I look forward to getting more involved with the travel community in the coming months.
Site of the Month:
This month I want to shout out DesignDetox.com it’s a “visual cleanse” from some friends at Queen City Studios based out of Buffalo, New York. Not only are they super inspiring as I work on stepping up my design game, but they’ve also been helping with the new T2T site.
What’s to come in March:
New Apartment. New Website. New Haircut.
Upcoming Posts:
- Futbol in Colombia: My First Soccer Match (Nacional vs. Cali)
- Country Living Colombian Style
- A Colombian Family Vacation
- Let’s Talk Money, Part III
- Beating the Solo Blues
*This is my first “monthly update” so what else do you want to see or NOT see in future updates?*
