Sunday, September 30, 2012

Dreams of Dreams

Consider this a business proposal.  Or, if you prefer, a pipe dream.  But everyone has a dream, and all of my dreams play like Travel Channel shows.  Honestly, I could have gotten a law degree online by now if travel channel didn’t exist.  I am consumed by everywhere that I am not.  I imagine it’s how Hemingway used to feel.  It’s a combination of restlessness and discontent, and no, I didn’t just compare myself to Hemingway.  That guy was a hack.  Today I spent nearly two hours navigating through a Nat Geo app on my iPad, oogling over photos from other people’s adventures, and wishing the photos were mine.  And that’s when it hit me, what I’ve always wanted to do with my life is see the world, take pictures, and write about it, all on someone else’s dime.

And there’s the rub.  Aside from being lucky enough to work for travel channel or national geographic, there’s not a lot of people who get paid to go on vacation.  So I got to thinking, how do I get other people to pay for this nonsense?  And then I came up with this: 

Test Case

One Week Visit of New Zealand

Airfare    --    $1,648

Lodging -- $180

Food    --    $300

Transport    --    $300

Misc    --    $500

Total    --    $2,928


Now, I have many awesome friends, and if 300 of them were to each give me ten dollars, this trip is bought and paid for.  Now, why would anyone freely give me money you ask?  Excellent question, hermano.  The end result of this whole experiment is a funny, beautiful, and insightful travel memoir, released as an ebook, and automatically free to those who financed it.  What do you think?  Would you pay ten dollars for that?  And just for comparison, it’s two lattes, or 77 Botswanan Pula.  Tell me you don’t have that laying around.  So give me your thoughts.  I’d love to do this, but it takes a rossnation... out.