A Year of Travel

A Year of Travel
Since we are just about to get onboard the Norwegian Jewel for a cruise from Los Angeles to the Meixcan Riviera this may be our last post of the year. We drove to Seattle on Friday and then flew to LA yesterday and had some time to reflect on all of the places we have been, and the air miles, land miles, ferry miles and hotel stays of 2016.

Air Miles
10,000 – Together we traveled from Vancouver to Winnipeg, Toronto and LA. Not a huge air travel year for us but if you add in Jeff’s extra 4,500 from San Diego to the Vancouver and Seattle Golf Shows and 9 Harbour Air trips from Vancouver Harbour to Nanaimo, another 1,000 miles, he was in the sky quite a few times. The highlights of our air travel included surprising Jeff’s brother Mike on his 40th birthday in Winnipeg, connecting with golf industry leaders at the NGCOA Canada Conference in Mississauga and of course the cruise that we are about to take.

Land Miles
15,000 – Since we live within walking distance of so many things we generally only drive our car for business. In addition to visiting clients in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island we made two road trips this year through the Okanagan and the Kootenays with two visits to the great facility and terrific staff at Copper Point Golf Course in Invermere. But this year a large portion of these miles were accumulated during our 6 week winter road trip. We traveled through the states of Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada with stops and hotel stays along the way.

Ferry Miles
600 – Our ferry miles seem low but it is the time it takes to make the 30 nautical mile crossing from Horseshoe Bay near West Vancouver to Departure Bay near Nanaimo that is significant. we have become very good at working offline to make the best use of our time in line and on the ferry. We even wrote a blog about making travel time productive.

Hotel Nights
102 – This one is a doozy! It stared with 42 nights away in January and February with stays in Seattle, Canyonville, Oregon, Escondido, Burbank, Carlsbad, San Diego, Monterey and Napa in California and Las Vegas. We spent two separate weeks visiting clients and potential clients in the Okanagan and Kootenay regions of BC. We visited Chemainus or Nanaimo on Vancouver Island for one or two nights six times together on business and Jeff managed another five time on his own, bringing his total hotel nights to 107. Other non-work related hotel stays included a trip to Winnipeg, three trips to Whistler, one with Mom K and our niece in which we mountain biked and ate until we could not do either any more. This last leg of our year includes two nights in Seattle, one night each in San Pedro and Manhattan Beach and seven nights aboard the Norwegian Jewel.

Location Independence
All of this travel has led us to consider becoming location independent for a while – meaning that we would not have an apartment of our own but would rent month to month or even week to week. This would actually cut down on our travel time by giving us the ability to stay in the areas we are working for an extended amount of time. Since a large portion of our business is internet based we could see new places and still get work done. We also calculated how much per day it costs us to live in Coal harbour including rent, cable/internet and hydro and then multiplied the daily number by the 102 nights that our apartment was vacant. Well, let’s just say it might actually be cheaper for us to ‘wander’ for a while!

Stay tuned for more about our location independent plans.

And since we have not yet recapped our blogs, newsletters and social posts of 2015 we may have to write one more blog to finish off the year.

We, Jeff & Tara Ciecko of CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other a Biz Blog where we comment on general business and internet marketing best practices, golf course marketing and give golf industry related opinions. We have owned CK Golf  for 8 years and provide marketing, social media and business services to the golf and other industries. Our 19th Hole Blog is about the places we visit and the things we do. When we say that we like or dislike something or have a good or bad experience this is our opinion and the truth as we see it, not something we have been paid for. If you have any questions or comments feel free to contact us anytime.