How did we get to QM Travels?
Quincey and I have been massaging this business in our dreams for a long time. Ideas would surface as daydreams, on occasion we'd vocalize them, and then keep dreaming. Eleven months ago, though, while on a sailing charter with paying guests in the Caribbean, the dream came into focus. "We can do this! Let's do this!" We've had our sails full ever since.
St. Barths, Caribbean, 2017
Hong Kong 2014
Rewinding way back, back to the winter of 2012, we created a blog to journal our travels and adventures. Like most blogs, we were under motivated. To our defense, though, for two years we lived with less than five hours of internet each week. Email and news were the primary focus for that 45 minutes a day. The blog title? QM Travels, the Adventures of Quincey and Mitchell. See, we've been manifesting for a long time.
That blog was at www.qmtravels.com, which you'll find now redirects to this site, along with qmtravels.net and holisticadventuretravel.com. Originally we used Wordpress but I've found Square Space to be more user friendly. I seriously recommend it.
We would write blog posts when something cool happened but mostly we would write about our foreign travel. There were usually more photos than words. It also served as a proper weekly blog for our honeymoon and the following summer working in the BVI, for ActionQuest and GoBeyond adventure programs for teens. We always planned it would lead to more. Man, we were right, only this time we're going about it with full motivation and near-dangerous determination! We're going to monetize this dream and live it full time.
We're now two weeks into our public presence as QM Travels LLC, poised to buy a classic sailing yacht for $125,000—a total we've raised with our own savings, a bank loan, and a few pre booked future trips with friends and family. We've also raised another $3,500 in simple donations through our GoFundMe campaign. The positive support we've received already has been pleasantly encouraging. We've spoken very openly about our plans and trials getting to this point and not one person has had anything negative to to say about our goals. We've received some very constructive feedback in places we need help and even sought professional advice in areas we have no experience—brokers, surveyors, lawyers, CPA's, etc—we're "crossing our 't's and dotting our 'i's.
Now we're in the process of planing for two trips to Panama. The first one, on Feb. 20, is to sea-trail Esprit with the current owners. We'll be aboard for a WEEK in the San Blas islands, learning everything we can about the boat and enjoying time spent with the family that has taken her around the world for the last 17 years. If we still want the boat after the sea-trial (it'll be for an extreme reason if we don't) we'll head back down on March 15th to prep for a Panama Canal transit. Pretty cool experience we're anticipating.
We're crossing our fingers for a March 25th departure, Balboa to San Diego with a hopeful one night layover in Clipperton Island. This will be a 3,500nm offshore sail, underway for 18 to 23 days. From San Diego we'll cruise our way up the California Coast to San Francisco Bay and into our home port of Berkeley. Likely the whole trip will take 35 days. We're really excited for this trip and all the experience gained from it. We'll also be really happy to have the 'unicorn boat' for QMT.
We'll start booking charters in San Francisco Bay in May. Have a look at this demo content for planned trips. We'll develop and fine-tune these experiences for 18-24 months and then we'll head out under the Golden Gate Bridge for our longterm goal of circumnavigating with guests, There will be another blog on that later.
We haven't lost sight of the original goal though. As a reminder, we started our first blog to chronicle our travels and hoped it would build to a bigger ambition. But since we started the blog we've learned a lot. Quincey learned how to sail, garden, and cook really good food. She's also learned a lot about food and has widely recognized nutrition consulting certifications. I've honed my teaching skills, learned to how communicate with compassion and motivation, and worked at the management level multi-million dollar sailing business. We've both worked extensively outdoors, lived in uncomfortable situations for the freedom of an alternative lifestyle, and found an honest understanding of human relationships.
We want to share our knowledge and experiences with those brave enough to join us, and we want to keep learning.
Developing and building this business, this 'mobile, adventure-filled, bed n' breakfast experience' with a global ambition, has been a lot of fun. We've learned a lot and already said to each other, "if we had this to do all over again we wouldn't make that mistake!" We've shared successes, spent too much money in one place and made up for it by skimping in another, we've even asked our friends for money! We're high on energy and low on sleep. That's kind of where this comes to a T. We're over our day jobs and ready to live our adventure full time, sharing our story and lifestyle with everyone who is ready to engage. We have to much to learn from each other and from you. What will this travel blog bring next, in 6 more years, in decades to come? The trajectory is positive and headed straight out to sea, to the distant islands, the historic ports, the lonely bays, and the places dreams are fulfilled.
M.
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Windrose, Clipper Cove SF Bay, 2018