Shine OnAmerican couple crowdsource where to travel next on their cross-country adventure blog
Ever dreamed about quitting your job and going on a year long cross-country road trip?
Well, that's exactly what Dallas, Texas natives John Ellis, 27, and Laura Preston, 25, have done -- and they are documenting their every move across America in their travel blog, The Democratic Travelers.
Ellis quit his job as a studio manager and assistant to a well-known photographer Jay Maisel in New York City before embarking on this adventure.
"I believe it was Mark Twain who said you always regret the things you didn't do more than the things you did," Ellis tells Dallas News. "We're doing what we want to do while we're young and have no kids."
Preston, who has a degree in art history from New York University and is a self-described food nerd, also left her job as a waitress.
“We've been talking about traveling. People always say, ‘I’m going to do it someday.’ You have to just quit saying ‘someday’ and just do it,” she tells Dallas Morning News.
The idea of 20-something year old's having the luxury and freedom to take a trip of this nature is not too surprising, but what is a bit more unusual is the fact that they are crowdsourcing the places they should travel to on their blog.
Since they started their adventure in February, they've been to about seven states and 20 cities.
Family, friends and random blog readers chime in with suggestions for places to visit. Sometimes their suggestions are as simple as a restaurant, landmark or particular food -- and other times they are entire cities. Readers can also vote on other people's suggestions by giving them a thumbs up or thumbs down. The couple then travel to the places with the most positive votes.
So far, some of their hits have included Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.
"We really liked New Orleans," says Ellis, where the couple ate po-boy sandwiches at two recommended spots. "We'd never been there and it had an awesome amount of Southern charm, funk and grit."
Their pimped out ride? A 34-foot Airstream travel trailer they call “Loretta." She is pulled by a 1996 Ford pick-up truck called “B.B.” — short for “Big and Beautiful.”
No complaints so far about the trip, except for the cost of gas, which they say can reel in over $100 each time they fill the truck's two tanks full of diesel, reports Dallas Morning News.
"There really hasn't been anything terrible yet," Ellis says. "There have been things to fix on the truck, but no catastrophe."
And another perk of their trip? While in Texas they made a new furry friend, Bulleit, a mixed breed dog they adopted from the SPCA.
