We’ve been given a handful of opportunities over the years to travel to amazing places all over the world, but what we realized was how important traveling to unique destinations really is to the success of our business. I think it’s really easy as an entrepreneur to get caught up in the fast-paced “hustle” for a while when you’re starting out, and it’s even easier to forget to take a step back every so often and give yourself a much needed break.
After a few big trips, we began to realize travel not only helps us recharge/refill our creative spirits, but it also gives us an entirely new perspective on the world which we are able to pour into every one of our projects. I think in certain major cities, this could be slightly less important, but living in Monterey makes this pretty crucial to the ongoing development of our business and our services. Monterey is such a sleepy little town most of the year, and there aren’t many innovators pushing the limit within this city – most go a little north to Silicon Valley, understandably.
We lived in LA for a few years, and we are from Seattle, so we thought we knew “big cities”, but nothing prepared us for the magic of New York. We were in New Jersey for our first Indian Wedding Ceremony (we actually spent four days shooting the ceremony, and traveled to the east coast twice for their celebration – More on that in this post HERE) and decided to extend our trip. We arrived a few days before Austin’s birthday so we knew we wanted to take a road trip from Jersey to D.C. so we could explore the museums. Then, we road tripped back up the East Coast, dropped off our rental car in Jersey, and took the train into the city.
We arrived at Penn Station in the pouring rain, and were immediately thrown into the bustling city life. After seeing that an Uber cost $50 to go less than a mile, and being a little too intimidated by the subway situations on day one, we decided to walk the mile to our hotel. Loaded down with all our gear and daypacks, we walked a mile in the rain. We ended up working for a bit in our tiny studio hotel room, and decided to venture out for some food.
Our first exciting realization was how big the vegan food scene here was. The following three days were sunny, and we decided to walk or bike nearly everywhere. We road the train a few times but preferred being above ground to take everything in.
New York is absolutely beautiful, in that unique ‘Big City’ way – We were constantly enamored by the street art, fashion, and culture around every corner. We got extremely comfortable with the City Bikes in D.C., and much to our delight, they were in NYC, too. We rented them periodically throughout the days, my favorite of which being the day we decided to bike all of Central Park. In NYC we logged over 50 miles of biking, and around 20 of walking! I think the vast majority of the biking was from our Central Park ride – we didn’t consider how massive the park actually is.
Being a larger city on the cutting edge of innovation and design, the advertising was simply amazing to absorb. We took photos of billboards, unique ads all over the streets, ads that didn’t even look like ads. Not to mention the sensory overload that is Times Square. One of our favorite things to compile from each location we travel to are unique design and art references – We save them to look back on and draw inspiration from. New York had so many that there came a point we decided there was no way we could absorb it all, and that we’d plan another trip in the near future. We said our goodbyes and hopped on the train to JFK to head back home, full of memories and inspiration.
