A Life of Travel
Travel is back! At least for us it is, and we could not be happier! While traveling right now may not be popular with everyone it is right for us and we plan to carry on our travels where we left off – with slight modifications for health and safety.

We often get asked if we miss having a home base. The answer to that question is absolutely NOT. However, the life of travel is not as ‘glamourous’ as it might seem. This is by no way a complaint. We are very thankful to be able to do what we do and very happy to have crossed into the sunny state of California on January 22. However, the seven days that it took us to get here were not easy. Not all sunshine, wine and roses. 😉

A Week of Travel Days

While we love to travel – that is, to see different places, meet different people and learn about different cultures the travel itself is not glamourous.

This is a snapshot of how we manage to travel, work and sleep and get a bit of exercise. We try to leave on a Saturday or Sunday so that the emails don’t build up on the first day of driving. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not!
Sunday to Saturday:
  • Up early enough to start loading the car at 8:45.
    • Anyone who knows us knows that this is a stretch!!
  • Drive 3.5 to 4.5 hours daily stopping for gas only
    • And occasionally a Starbucks
    • Light snacks and water bottles are packed
  • Check into hotel between 1pm and 3pm daily
    • Take advantage of early checkin available from Marriott Bonvoy
  • Walk for 45 minutes to get the kinks out from sitting for 4 hours
    • One of us walks for sure (Ha!)
    • It’s so much easier when a coat and boots are not required!!
  • Work for 4 hours
  • Eat, Sleep, Repeat
The Best Laid Plans
This trip went fairly well…but we did have a road closure north of Portland that caused a 30 minute delay. For the I-5 that’s not too bad. The plan to work 4 hours per day went well at first but then the work built up and resulted in two longer days.
Tuesday and Thursday we ate subs in the room and worked until 9pm. Subway subs were actually quite good for a change!

Highlights
We re-visited the Marriott in Tacoma which we had stayed at once before and enjoyed dinner in the lounge. We stayed in Ashland, Oregon (recommended by fellow travellers) and enjoyed a walk through the downtown, working at a coffee shop/pub and dinner out. We tried a new Marriott in Bakersfield and have planned to go back to the same one on the way back to Canada.
We travelled a total of 2,500km over 7 days, spent 27 hours in the car and worked an average of 4.5 hours a day for 7 days (almost our typical work week).

The reward…Sunny Southern California! What to know where we are now? View the widget on the side of this blog.
Glamorous Travel? No. Our Life? Yes. And we love it!
We, Jeff and Tara Ciecko of CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other an Industry Blog where we comment on general business and internet marketing best practices, sales strategies and give golf industry related opinions. We have owned CK Golf  for 14+ years and provide business services to the golf and other industries. As of July 31, 2016 our life and our business became ‘location independent’. Our 19th Hole Blog is about the places we visit and the things we do. If you have any questions or comments, or happen to be in the same location as us please reach out and contact us anytime.

Related Posts