John’s goal was to start this past week with creating an illustration of what he saw around town everyday. Luckily we’ve been swamped with work and illustrating for clients this past week, the downside is that he’s not quite able to create a drawing a day as hoped. But here’s the first couple, let’s encourage John to keep it up!

Day 1: View From Our Office The Day After The BSC Championship

Day 2: Morning Commute Sight: Tall Bike Guy & Smart Car Lady

Day 3: Its a nice, warm January day. And sometimes the people in the hotel across the street don’t realize we can see into their windows.

On October 18th, 2011 in the city that never stops dancing, eating,  singing , and mostly drinking we’ll be hosting Meet, Plan, Go! Meet, Plan, Go! will be hosting their second annual nationwide event in 17 cities to inspire people to fulfill their career break and long-term travel dreams. The event will offer participants the opportunity to MEET inspirational speakers and like-minded travelers; get motivation, contacts and resources necessary to PLAN the trip of a lifetime; and start taking concrete steps forward to GO on that global adventure. Meet, Plan, Go! is a nationwide event created to inspire and encourage Americans to take a career break, a sabbatical, or just to go out and travel for an extended time. The idea being, that taking time in your life to explore and live in another country and culture is not a career breaker but a career and life enhancer!

Tickets are on sale now! Limited space available so reserve your tickets today!

Go check out the facebook page we’ve created for the New Orleans group, and if you’re not in the Big Easy check out an event close by!

We have some amazing panelists gathered for this event, let me introduce them to you!

Meet our Panelists!

Kelly Lewis: Founder of Go! Girl Guides, Kelly is a writer, a dreamer and an avid traveler. Originally from Hawaii, Kelly lived in New Zealand for a year before traversing through South America and the South Pacific. After a prophetic dream in late 2010, she started Go! Girl Guides, the world’s first series of travel guidebooks made just for solo female travelers. Go! Girl Guides: Thailand debuts this fall.

http://www.gogirlguides.com

Twitter: @gogirlguides

FB: facebook.com/gogirlguides

Kirsten Alana: is driven by an intense wanderlust, never feeling more at home than when boarding a plane or living out of a suitcase. She is addicted to the butterflies that occur right before an unknown, becomes known!

It wasn’t always like that, at 28 during bitter divorce proceedings, she decided she would change her life for the better and follow her wanderlust wherever the wind blew. More than a year of traveling has taken her to Mexico, France, the Bahamas, Argentina, Uruguay, western Canada and a dozen US states. A career and life break has helped her grow and sharpened her focus. Now, she plans to make a home in NYC where flights are easy to catch and the wind is very multi-cultural. She writes and shares her photographs at “Aviators and a Camera” hoping to inspire others to realize how important travel is to a well-rounded life.

http://www.aviatorsandacamera.com/
http://www.kirstenalana.com/

Twitter: @kirstenalana

FB: facebook.com/kirstenalanatravels

G+: gplus.to/kirstenalana

Charlotte Piper: Charlotte grew up in Canada, the United States and the UK. She believes international travel is an important educational experience and has prioritized it in her life. In May 2010, she left her corporate job in NYC to begin an open-ended, solo backpacking adventure. In 7 months, she made her way through 10 countries, mainly in South East Asia. Upon her return, Charlotte worked as business development manager at Wanderfly, a travel start-up based in NYC. She is currently developing a personal website of travel photos and journal entries.

Jordan Franklin: he would rather be traveling than doing anything else. With a degree in History of Latin America from Tulane University, he spent two years teaching English in Guadalajara, Mexico, is fluent in Spanish, and loves all things Latino. In 2009, while working for a law firm in New Orleans, he started a blog with a friend on politics and current events. What started as a way for them to vent their frustration at the rat race turned into a small media company focusing on digital publications. He left the law firm, and is currently studying for a masters in English at the University of New Orleans. When he graduates next spring, he plans to return to Mexico and make his way towards Chile and Argentina over the next several years, with no particular path or plan in mind.

Ryan Michael Murphy: Shortly after graduating from university, Ryan taught English in Harbin, China. He backpacked extensively through China and Europe before a foray to law school in Boston. He later returned to China as a Contributing Editor for China Economic Review magazine in Shanghai. He has settled in his birthplace, New Orleans.

Twitter: @nouveausouth

And I’ll be hosting this event:

Alyson Kilday grew up as a traveler/expat all of her life. Her parents were “corporate gypsies” and sailors, having sailed the Pacific with an infant and a toddler, ultimately ending up in Japan when she was 3. What was supposed to be a short visit turned into 10 years of living in Nagasaki. After leaving Japan they continued to travel and live in Buenos Aires, New Zealand, Philippines, and the Caribbean.

After saving up for about a year, she and John quit their “good” corporate jobs to go backpacking and hitchhiking on sailboats across the Caribbean to Colombia for nine months. They started Hop & Jaunt as both a travel blog and as a platform to showcase their designs. And freelance work allowed them to extend their trip much longer, and at a pace that they enjoyed. They now use their design and marketing background to help brand other travelers, small businesses, and non-profits locally and internationally.

Website: Hop and Jaunt  |  Twitter: @hopandjaunt  |  Facebook: Hop and Jaunt

Are you looking to change up your life and needing a little inspiration and encouragement? Then join us! Let’s start the movement towards Americans taking time to travel and learn about the world around them. If you’re in New Orleans on the 18th we’d love to meet you!

A few weeks ago Alyson and I had an unique and amazing opportunity. The chance to view our city of New Orleans from aboard the world’s largest airship.

The Farmer’s Airship

The Farmers Airship Eureka is a 246 foot Zeppelin owned and operated by Airship Ventures of California. It is the only commercial passenger airship in the United States, and one of only two Zeppelins flying in the world.

Awaiting Take off

Releasing the bow line.

Take off is as smooth as going up in an elevator.

The Airship had just arrived in New Orleans to film the Zurich Golf Classic. Its ability to hover in one place makes it ideal for filming sporting events, but also for observation and scientific research. It also allowed for some great views and amazing pictures. So here are some of the incredible sights of New Orleans from 1200 feet*.

A Beautiful Day for Flying.

The aft window offered an amazing panoramic view.

Spencer Spellman, the Traveling Philosopher was also on the guest list.

Audobon Park

The Garden District. The Pilot kindly flew over our house.

The Superdome

Canal Street

The Natchez Steamboat

Mississippi River

Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral

The French Quarter

Hotel Monteleone

The Jazz and Heritage Festival is about to begin.

The Fairgrounds

Alyson getting what the crew calls “Zep Head”.

Eureka is currently on its Covering Communities tour of North America. It may be coming to a location near you, in which case, you can grab at the chance to take a bird’s eye view of your own city. For dates and tickets, visit Farmers Airship.

*an estimate.

A couple of weeks of ago we received an interesting tweet asking if we would like to go up in an airship.

The Farmer’s Airship

We quickly thought, “YES! An airship!”

We’ve flown in airplanes to the farthest reaches of the planet.

We’ve ridden the American railway.

Why, we’ve even sailed the Spanish Main.

But a chance to ride in the world’s largest airship, one of only two zepplins in the entire world…

Eureka! This could be the ride of our lives!

We know its been over a month since Mardi Gras, but its taken us just that long to recover and work up the nerve to tackle the project of going through all our random video clips. For those of you who couldn’t make it down, here is a little peek at the parades from the historic Garden District.