Whiskey Tango Globetrot 2.0
Welcome to Whiskey Tango Globetrot 2.0. Also known as, “What I intended to do 3 years ago but didn’t have the means, time, experience, and resources to do.”
Psst, I've also launched a creative agency alongside the new redesign--->WTG Studios.
3 years ago this month I launched Whiskey Tango Globetrot (WTG). The name, and concept, came in the shower one day. (Because isn’t the shower where most of the world’s best ideas originate?). The original concept was that it’d be a lifestyle brand. But either I wasn’t ready or the world wasn’t ready for it. So is it too cliché to drop that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”?
Whiskey Tango Globetrot 1.0
But what I really don’t think I was prepared for was that it’d become a way of life. That is, that everything I wanted to share on the website would become an extension of my life. What began to occur was a complete immersion into travel, food, drinks, and the outdoors like I had never really experienced.
And it was all really a byproduct of a life change that happened just prior, when I stopped thinking about dreams, challenges, and activities that I had always said I wanted to do, and started actually doing them. It started on my 30th birthday, setting out to do 30 new things over the course of the year. I did 38. And then it became a challenge to do at least one new thing per month. And I’ve now done 99 all told.
Item num. 1 on the list: Paragliding over the Hawaiian island of Maui
While all of them began as a new activity, risk or challenge, many of them have become a skill I’ve worked toward mastering, or at least perform competently, such as getting down to the bottom of a mountain from the top on a snowboard without falling (more than once).
When I first launched Whiskey Tango Globetrot three years ago, I wrote that it was my hope that in those WTF moments of day-to-day life, that readers would squeeze out some WTG moments from these pages that both inform and inspire. That if nothing else, it would help contribute to a life that was better nourished (and imbibed, within reason), better traveled, and therefore, better lived. And that’s my commitment now more than ever.
A younger version of myself, marching on the capitol, ready to take on the world (or at least take on the ducks).
That’s in part because there are perhaps more WTF moments now than ever. We needn’t look any further than last year’s U.S. presidential election, and the subsequent events since, as proof. Tourism in America, for example, has been down ever since, translating to the cost of $4.6 billion and the loss of 40,000 jobs. Elsewhere, American public lands that had been designated as national monuments, like Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, are now open for mining.
Meanwhile, others may cite things like the U.K.’s Brexit, or the fact that one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Cape Town, South Africa, could become the first major city in the world to run out of water. The world as it stands, is full of beauty and blemishes.
And I’d be doing the world a disservice if I documented the beauty of the world without addressing the blemishes of those same places. As I mentioned above, I don’t want readers to just leave inspired, but to leave both inspired and informed.
So while I’ll continue to share photos from beautiful destinations both near and far, and of course sharing cocktail recipes, I’ll also be addressing broader issues that face today’s traveler and world citizen. At times that may mean giving others, especially men and women of diversity, different backgrounds, and expertise, the space to share stories from their own corner of the world. And it’ll also mean spotlighting those destinations, brands, and people helping make the world a little bit of a better place to live, enjoy, and travel around.
If you’ve made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back. Also, pour yourself a glass of whiskey (or wine, or kombucha, or however you treat yo self). In seriousness, thank you. Some people have a spouse, life partner, children, dog, or a plant that they have responsibility over. For me, it’s this. Whiskey Tango Globetrot is an extension of myself, and a derivative of everything that I’m passionate about, believe in, and love. I’m grateful to know that there are people beyond my friends and family reading my words.
All grown up, but still wearing the Chuck Taylors.
Finally, don’t hesitate to reach out. Say hello, leave a blog comment, or send an email if there’s an issue, destination, cocktail, or someone you think I should know about. If you like what you read, subscribe to get my words and photography (and special offers) in your inbox. AND, check out the new creative agency of Whiskey Tango Globetrot, WTG Studios.
