Epic Bucket List Summer Road Trip

My “bucket list” – all the places I want to visit before I “kick the bucket” – is long. I’ve checked a lot off the list around the world, yet I still have destinations close to my Texas latitude and longitude. Sometimes, it's harder to make time to visit places closer to home than bucket list places halfway around the world. But, this won't be any local road trip. It will take us through seven states and deep into Mexico as we uncover secrets and share them.

I often promote solo travel, but partner travel is ideal here so I will be traveling with my girlfriend. For road trips, it only makes sense to have multiple drivers, and the extra body doesn't affect the price of gas, nor the cost of a camp site or hotel room. Sharing will be more cost-effective and experience-effective as sharing an experience increases its value! Here's a preview of the trip.

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Leg 1: Mexico

The first leg of our bucket list road-trip will be through Mexico. The Mexico border is only about 4 hours from Austin, Texas, so we will use a similar method as we did for my 2012 trip to see Jamiroquai – leave our car in Laredo, walk across the border, and rent a car in Mexico. We will drive through Mexico and go as far south as Oaxaca. Then, we will return through Mexico City for the White Tantric Yoga Ceremony, a tradition of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bahjin. I also have waterfalls and water holes in nature on my list. The Mexico road trip promises to be an experience, especially since yo no hablo español.

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Leg 2: Southwest USA

After just a night or two back home home, the second part of our bucket list road trip takes us through Southwest, where we will visit several gems, including the Grand Canyon (both rims), Four Corners, Sedona, Joshua Tree, Zion, Ojo Caliente, Taos, and some other treasures (Vegas, baby!). Along the way, we will participate in two training sessions with David Elliott, a practitioner of a pranayama breathwork I've found personally transformative. Upon completion of these sessions, we will bring the practice to others.

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Leg 3: Southeastern Florida & Grand Bahama Island

After the second leg through the Southwest, we return home for a couple of nights before heading out for the final leg of our bucket list journey to our latitude: South Florida. After flying into Ft. Lauderdale on $69 flights and either a train or an Uber to West Palm Beach, we'll take our first cruise... to visit the Bahamas… for the first time. I’ve found a “beginner” cruise to test the waters, a one-night cruise to Grand Bahama, where we will stay a few nights before a one-night cruise back to the mainland later in the week. Traveling as a pair makes sense for hotels and road trips, but also for cruises and all-inclusives, which price at double-occupancy for the room.

Finally, we will rent a car and take the final leg of our 3-part road trip through another bucket list town -- Miami -- to reach the continental USA’s southernmost point – Key West. Summer fun!

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Travel Technology and Social Networking

I'll have my smartphone to broadcast parts of the trip live and tape-delay from 4g-LTE both in Mexico and the USA. Subscribe to my feeds on Instagram, periscope, twitter, facebook, reddit, my blog, youtube, and flipagram for updates. We are ecstatic. If you have any travel tips or personal stories about these places, please comment your story or recommendation below to this blog, and we might visit your suggestion and write about it!

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