Looking Forward To Local Travels in New Year
Looking Ahead to Where the Jaunt Will Go in 2025
The Jaunt had an exciting 2024!
To all of you who have subscribed and followed along this year — I truly appreciate it.
As the calendar turns to a new year, I wanted to briefly reflect on some of my travels and what is in store for 2025 here at The Jaunt.
I also wanted to express my gratitude for a significant moment in my wiring this year when I joined David Perrell’s final Write of Passage cohort as an O'Shaughnessy Venture Fellow.
This year, I visited every time zone in America, and swam in many bodies of water including the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and three Great Lakes — Erie, Michigan, and Mother Superior. I drove the backroads of Iowa and Nebraska after dropping my daughter off at summer camp in Northern Wisconsin.
Perhaps, the highlight was a trip from Milwaukee around Lake Michigan through Chicago and up the Western Michigan coastline to Traverse City — a place that blew me away with its azure water, friendly folks, renown cherry festival, and food scene. The spindles of land jutting north were truly special places that held fruit stands and wineries. We continued the journey to the truly off-the-radar Upper Peninsula and were further delighted by Marquette and the Keweenaw Peninsula.
Looking Forward to 2025
My participation in the Write of Passage has helped reinvigorate my passion for writing and building a community of like-minded travelers here at The Jaunt.
I have a lot in store for this upcoming year, including:
Profiling America’s Towns - I love the off-the-beaten-path towns in this country. When I say that, I mean the towns that take work to get to. Places that are off the highways and full of mom-and-pop cafes, family coffee shops, and stories to be discovered. Through the Substack Note feature, I will profile a new American small town every week of the year — 52 in total. I will also include similar long-form features about this places here.
Travel Interview Series — The people are what make these small towns so special. I will continue to interview the most interesting people who are impacting local places and hear their stories. This year, you can hear some of these stories we have in the works:
Hear from some folks who are part of the most interesting club in the country - Extra Miler Club. These are people who have visited every single county in the United States. There are a lot, well over 3,000.
I’ll take you to Idaho were a man bought and restored a vintage train car and converted it into what may be the most unique bed and breakfast.
A man is on a quest to visit every small town in the state of Illinois and along the way he photographs the local sights he sees. He has also amassed an interesting list of the state’s best coffee shops.
Stories from the Past — I love how vintage and historical books tell amazing stories about places in America’s travel past. I have collected hundreds of these books over my lifetime at estate sales, rummage sales, and bookstores. I will dip into this collection and find some of the most fascinating tales and how they relate to American travel and history.
Stringing Together Travel Recommendations for You — I love finding hidden gems and telling my family and friends where to go. I’d love to experiment with this as a premium offering to help unlock the places for you to visit on your travels. If this is of interest, send me a private message and we can chat. I will also employ the use of some new mapping and itinerary tools that I have been using that will make this even more fun.
I am so excited for the travels ahead, and I appreciate you taking the time to read and follow the journey.
Here is to an adventurous and exciting 2025!