Welcome back,
I have a problem. Lately I’ve been addicted to traveling.
Seeing new sights. Eating with different cultures. Meeting new friends. Making unforgettable memories. Being unsure of what you’ll see and learn is all so thrilling. I can’t say I always felt this way about traveling, but since a year ago I have been bit hard by the travel-bug. These days I would rather spend my time and income investing in passive cash-flow investments and traveling the world.
Whether foreign or domestic there is something so liberating about being on the road. With that said this would not be possible without the passive cash-flow from my mobile home portfolio.
Colorado Or Bust:
With short notice my friend Jaime and I decided to drive overnight and wake-up in Colorado. I had slept-in-late the morning prior so I was able to easily drive through the night and let Jaime sleep for most of the ride from Austin, TX to Colorado. How many energy drink is too many?
Over the past few months I have taken 3 trips to brand new states I have never stayed in before. I made these trips in order to inspect 3 large mobile home parks I was negotiating to purchase at the time. These states are Illinois, Alabama, and Tennessee. All beautiful states that deserve time and attention when driving through. I was blown away at the amounts of recorded history and local-pride both large and small cities have for their home in these areas, likely all areas. These trips will be discussed in a future article. Now back to the CO mini-vacation.
Colorado Springs:
The drive always goes by fast and we arrive by 8am in Colorado Springs. The weather is cool and sunny in mid-August compared to the ridiculous Texas heat. We roll into Colorado Springs first and right before I exit the highway I snap a picture of the Welcome to Colorado Spring sign.
We check into our hotel and we’re off to enjoy some micro-breweries, local food, and of course the nature. After asking the locals what to do we set our sights on a place called the Garden of the Gods. While I was there I couldn’t stop thinking of the hundreds of generations of people that have used this location as a home. Here we are in the present century walking around these ancient people’s home.
Travel tip: Always do a little bit of research on a place that you’re going for history info, tourist reviews, and tour guide reasons. It is nice to be surprised when you get to your destination however without some preparation you may find yourself confused and/or not maximizing your fun. Example: When I knew we were going to the Garden of the Gods I immediately searched the nature park on Tripadvisor.com to read reviews. What I discovered was to arrive early in the morning to avoid the heave traffic of the afternoon.
Denver:
After a 2 days in Colorado Springs enjoying nature we decided to head north to Denver and then on to Fort Collins.
Driving up to Denver was short and beautiful to see, the Rocky Mountains to my left, flat lands to my right, and the big city right in front of me. Three years ago I spoke on stage in front of a packed-room filled with real estate investors listening to me discuss mobile home investments.
After hiking and biking in Colorado Springs I was looking for some much wanted relaxation and chill-out time. With that said everyday was a minor workday; I of course needed to make sure all emails to people are answered, I respond to sellers and buyers that have called, set appointments for next week when I arrive back in Austin, and continue building my mobile home investing machine. After the morning hours of dedicated work and setting appointments for the coming week I wanted to enjoy nature again. However this time we decided to play some disc-golf in Denver.
This is a shot of me right before losing my driver-disc on the second to last hole. I didn’t bring a spare driver so we packed our things and headed back to the condo we were renting. After losing my favorite disc I decided we should get some Voodoo donuts. I remembers seeing this donut company featured on the show No reservations with Anthony Bourdain and since then always wanted to go. The dounuts and service were amazing! I highly recommend this spot. My favorite was the maple and bacon donut.
Travel tip: In addition to staying in motels and hotels I highly recommend airbnb.com and homeaway.com for reasonable condos and houses to rent for a short-time while traveling.
Jaime booked us for a haunted ghost tour-pub-crawl in downtown Denver. Here’s Jamie playing around in a “haunted” furnace. By this time we had visited 3-4 pubs already. Glad we were in walking distance of our condo.
Travel tip: Doing things doesn’t have to be expensive. Check out Groupon.com in your “destination city” to look for discounted events and random activities to try in your local town or during a vacation. Without Groupon we would have never known about the very fun and educational ghost/pub-crawl tour. 🙂
Fort Collins:
Did you know Fort Collins does not have an active military base there? Well, I certainly didn’t.
Perhaps one of the few areas in Colorado where I saw a great deal of new home construction was Fort Collins. A few things that struck me as wonderful and unorthodox were the public pianos scattered around downtown, the love-of-bicycles the city seems to have, and the friendliness of the community. Additionally, the real estate investor inside of me noticed that there were almost no “We Buy Houses” bandit-signs hanging on power-poles or in the ground. This typically translates to this city being a very clean and strict-code-enforcement type of city. Does this make sense?
Have you ever had a Rocky Mountain Oysters? They may be called different names around the world however if you’ve had them you would likely remember. These slightly-gamey and chewy fried strips (next to the onion rings) are actually the sliced testicles of bull. I think of myself as an adventurous eater so after some internal pep-talking I dived right in and had some. 🙂
In total the trip took 6 days and less than $2,000 total. If you are able to make these trips I would encourage you and your significant other or a friend to travel somewhere you have always wanted to go. If taking spontaneous trips like this is something that you would like to start doing but do not have the financial means to right now, I encourage you to stay dedicated to your side business and continued daily effort to make a better life for your family’s future. The difference between the doers and non-doers is clarity and action.
If there is anything I can do to help provide you with clarity please don’t hesitate to ask.
Love what you do daily,
John Fedro
John@johnfedro.com
Do you ever take mini-vacations? I highly recommend them for hard working and productive investors. I say hard working and productive as mini-vacations are a great way to reward yourself. Tim Ferris writes about these small getaways and other life-changing concepts in his past book The 4 Hour Work Week. Enjoy the free digital copy.
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