Fall Travel Post....

Fall ' 10 - Connecticut

Fall ' 11 - St John

Last September (2010) after a trip to the Outer Banks fell through I decided to take my first trip to the Caribbean, alone.  After about 8 months of researching and already planning on visiting the US Virgin Island of St John in December, I bumped the trip up a few months earlier.  I booked my trip to a new place with the hopes of finding a job, a place to live, and hopefully meeting some cool people along the way in this quick 5 day adventure.  I was able set up about a dozen ‘meetings’ these included interviews, meet and greets, etc.  I emailed countless business owners, bloggers, and anyone who had an email address that was associated to what I saw as my next chapter in life and new home, St John.  Even though I did not get everyone willing to help me, I heard back from nearly 75% of them, wishing me the best of luck and some help or other people to contact.  I was shocked by the number of responses people sent to a random person from Connecticut who had emailed them about giving up his comfortable corporate job and moving to give island life a try. 

After 5 days I had met people for coffee, drinks, lunch, basically everything there is to do here.  I walked in and out of nearly every business on the island to try and get a feel for what the place was all about.  In 5 days, I had visited the beach just twice, one time with some people I met (later became a coworker) to Trunk Bay, and another afternoon I hitched over to Hawksnest and hitched back with a local woman who had been living on St John for about 20 years in a hut up in the woods with no running water and no electricity. 

I stayed in a tiny room at the islands only true hostel type accommodation for $75/night.  It was a small room with a twin bed, a cooler as my ‘mini-fridge’, a few hangers on a wooden pole in the corner, a small TV and an air conditioning unit taking up the only window.

Upon my return to work in northeast, many of my coworkers could not understand how I was in the Caribbean for almost a week and came back with little to no tan.  At this time, few coworkers knew why, but less than a month later they realized what I had been up to. 

-Mike