Last year—almost precisely one year ago, in fact—I visited Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic with my assistant. We got a CityPASS and stopped by the Seattle Aquarium, Space Needle, Chihuly Garden and Glass, and Woodland Park Zoo. The one other thing she wanted to do, which we didn’t be­cause we ran out of time, was go dolphin and orca watching.

Now that I am back in Seattle for a week, I decided to go on a whale watching tour to make my former assistant jealous (she is my former assistant be­cause, as of a handful of months ago, she has a full-time job being an executive assistant to a CEO at a fairly large company and makes much more mon­ey than my company could afford to pay her). … I guess you could consider this plan of making her jealous to have backfired, as you will see shortly.

The touring service I used was Puget Sound Express. I picked this one because it is apparently a family-run business, and as you might already know, I’ve been trying my best to spend my money at small businesses and family-run operations ever since the pandemic to help them out using my COVID-19 relief funding.

Prior to departing, I walked around the ship to see the various areas of the watercraft. The door to the cockpit was open, so I snapped a photo.

I wouldn’t really say that I’m a marine life or boating enthusiast, so I decided to book a half-day trip that lasted four hours (as opposed to an all-day or multi-day trip). I was joined by my friends Doug and Allie, and because our reservation was for a group of three, our booking came with a private table alongside the windows of the indoor pas­sen­ger area of the boat. Our trip departed from the Port of Edmonds.

The route of the trip was to head out through Puget Sound, travel north, go into the Rosario Strait, and travel around the San Juan Islands. The first por­tion of the trip was a fairly straight shot out and away from the Seattle Metropolitan Area, with the boat maintaining speeds of 40+ MPH (~65+ KPH). Along the way, and once we got near the Islands, there was some nice scenery.

After looking at those photos, you may be wondering, “where are the whales?” … to which I would respond, “great question.”

At various points throughout our trip, the crew would make an announcement that there was a whale sighting. To be clear, my expectation going into this tour was to see sights comparable to the photos that pop up when you search online for “whale jumping out of water.” Instead, all we saw were… their fins.

The crew would be pointing out how there were killer whales in the water, and somehow even be identifying them by code names assigned to each whale, yet all we were able to see were fins pop up above the water once in a while. The crew would even be talking about how the whales just caught a seal, and how they each need to eat one seal a day in order to keep up their fat stores to survive through the winter… but still, all we saw were fins.

Here is a photograph of a fin.

Needless to say, my disappointment was immeasurable.

So much so, in fact, that Doug told me that his favorite part of the trip was seeing how disappointed I was. The thing is, I don’t actually outwardly ex­press negative emotion; I’ll go as far as to point out objectively that seeing a few fins in the water is not what I was hoping for, but I won’t be hostile or any­thing. That made it extra funny for Doug, considering that my utter disappointment was clearly visible on my face, even though my words were try­ing to soften the situation and indicate otherwise.

I checked in with someone else who had gone on one of these tours before, and she let me know that her experience was fairly comparable to mine. Thus, I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that I absolutely do not recommend going on one of these tours. Apparently, if you’re lucky enough, you can see marine wildlife from the regular ferries that go to and from Seattle, without having to pay extra for one of these tours.

Going on a tangent, one thing I confirmed from this boat trip is that I am fairly prone to seasickness in general. I mentioned about half a year ago that I went on a boat for the first time for leisurely purposes and got savagely seasick. I thought that this whale (fin) watching ride would be better because the boat was a lot bigger, but it didn’t seem to matter much. It was definitely comparatively better than the tiny, overloaded boat I rode in before, but I still felt like I was going to vomit within half an hour.

Overall, I’m still not upset that I went. The scenery around this area was actually very nice, and it’s not something that I ever would have seen anywhere else without going out of my way to plan an aquatic event. It was also served as a pleasant trip out with friends.

After a week in Indianapolis, my time in the city is wrapping up as I prepare to go to my next destination tomorrow. It was nice seeing my childhood best friend again, and it was an interesting experience driving through downtown Indianapolis and remembering seeing some of the shops and mon­u­ments when I was last here over 13 years ago for my cousin’s law school graduation ceremony.

Apart from the tourist attractions and destinations I already blogged about, we also went to a few other restaurants, mainly trying to hit ones with good ratings or recommended by food blogs.

One of the restaurants that Ed’s mom wanted to go to for brunch was on a farm. There was a cat outside on the farm property that was a bit scared of me at first, but warmed up pretty quickly after I swooped down, blinked slowly, and held out my finger. He started headbutting my hand and legs and wouldn’t stop, but I eventually managed to snap a photo.

We also visited Canal Walk. I wasn’t really too interested in renting a gondola, but we took a stroll up and down alongside the canal.

Canal Walk had a lot of miniature waterfalls along the side, which I liked.

This was also right by White River State Park, so we visited that as well.

As a Marriott fanboy, I obviously had to take a photo of the J.W. Marriott.

My hotel of choice for this trip was the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Indianapolis Northwest.

I didn’t really use the amenities because I was particularly active during this segment of my trip (e.g., I wasn’t hungry for breakfast because I would get so much food with Ed and his mom, and I didn’t use the gym more than once because I went to Ed’s apartment’s community center or just got exercise walk­ing a lot from touring). But, from what I did see, the hotel was nice and resembled the other Fairfield Inns that are well-maintained—basic, clean, straight­for­ward, and simple.

I always skip housekeeping throughout my whole stay, so part-way through the week, I stopped by the front desk to get a refill on shampoo and con­di­tion­er. I happened to run into the manager, who got me my bath amenities, and we also had a nice chat about my voluntary homeless adventure across the country. She seemed very intrigued and impressed that I took the initiative to do something so unconventional.

Overall, I thought Indianapolis was pretty nice. It wasn’t that crazy of a city, but it still had enough special traits and characteristics (like with racing) that it had its own unique identity.

It was also nice visiting Ed for a week. We used to see each other fairly frequently when we were in high school, then went to different undergraduate universities and usually would only meet up during holidays. It was unfortunate that my trip to Indianapolis was immediately following a month and a half with my parents, because I think having a week or two of alone time as a buffer period between the two visits would have made me appreciate the social interaction a bit more. But, nonetheless, it was a pleasant experience.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be flying to Seattle for a one-week break from my road trip to visit some friends and co-workers. I’ll be spending a week on the Pacific Coast, then flying back to Indianapolis to pick up my truck and continue on my journey to the next state. More tourism blog posts to come soon…

In case you’re late to the party, I decided back in May 2021 that I would become voluntarily homeless and go on a road trip to travel the country. Since then, I’ve visited Long Beach, California; Lake Las Vegas, Nevada; St. George, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; Rawlins, Wyoming; Denver, Colorado; Wichita, Kansas; Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri; and Springfield, Illinois. You can filter my blog to just show travel posts by using the “Travel” category.

At the time that I decided to start this journey, I left things very open-ended. I knew that my first destination was going to be my parents’ house in the Chi­cagoland suburbs, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do after that—whether I would continue east, or just drive straight back home to Las Vegas and sign a new lease. Well, after almost three months of being homeless, I have decided that I want to continue my journey and extend my adventure for as long as possible.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an Adam Parkzer blog post without a breakdown and some in-depth analysis, so here are the things that I like and dislike so far about being a nomad.

 
Things I like:

• I feel an even stronger sense of freedom than I did before.

  With my job being remote (even prior to the pandemic) and having flexible scheduling with no set working hours, I already had a lot of freedom when it came to what I wanted to do with my life. But, now that I’m literally roaming the country and never staying in one location for more than a week at a time (except for visiting my parents for a month), I feel an elevated sense of freedom. I hate feeling constrained or confined, so this is probably the happiest I’ve been in a while.

  Previously, even though I’ve been able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, there wasn’t actually really that much that I wanted to do, so I would mostly just stay indoors and work. However, now that I’m surrounded by so many new things, there are a lot of things that I do actually want to do… and it is liberating knowing that I can just go and do them if I feel like it. I’ve already been very thankful of my current working ar­range­ment, but traveling like this makes me double down on the appreciation.

  Similarly, if I want to work, I know that I can get uninterrupted work done whenever I want to. I pass on daily housekeeping and keep the “do not disturb” indicator on my door at all times, so that means nobody ever bothers me in my hotel room.

• The fact that I no longer have to pay rent in an unoccupied apartment or condo during travel is very satisfying to the efficiency part of my brain.

  One thing I hated about traveling in the past is that I would be paying rent in an apartment or condo that would remain vacant while I was gone. The worst part is that I actually traveled quite a bit for work, so sometimes, I would only actually be at home half the time, yet I would still be pay­ing full price in rent.

  Now that I am no longer committed to a lease agreement, I am happy to fly to Las Vegas, Southern California, or any other location for work and spend as long as I need to in those areas. The only additional expense would be parking my pickup truck at the airport of whatever city I happen to be in at the time, but the magic of living out of hotel rooms is that I don’t have to continue paying for hotel rooms if I’m at the company team house (or, if I do pay for hotel rooms for work at those work-related locations, those are reimbursable, while my rent would not have been).

• I’m learning a lot.

  Traveling and exploring new areas obviously exposes me to many new experiences that let me learn about how other areas of the country live. But, there’s another aspect to this as well—by traveling through smaller “middle of nowhere” towns, I am learning a lot more about different cultures.

  When you get very deep in your own world, it’s sometimes easy to lose touch with the rest of reality. This is especially true in the Internet industry because of how unique the Internet ecosystem is.

  This is also especially true in the video gaming and entertainment industry, which is heavily centralized around the Greater Los Angeles met­ro­pol­i­tan area. People in big cities mind their own business and generally don’t care about other people. It’s normal for you to walk past thousands of people on a daily basis and never talk with any of them.

  I first noticed the stark difference between big city culture and small town culture when I made a trip to Oklahoma City and everyone seemed in­ter­ested to talk with me. I saw this was also the case in other smaller towns throughout my road trip. It definitely gave me a different per­spec­tive about the social aspect of human life, and how there is some merit to talking with random people on the street for “no reason,” then un­cov­er­ing something unexpected that you can learn from them.

• Hotel life is actually pretty nice.

  If you’re living out of hotel rooms and commit to a specific hospitality brand, it’s very easy to max out their loyalty program. My hotel chain of choice is the Marriott, and I am a Marriott Bonvoy Titanium Elite member.

  This comes with a wealth of perks and benefits. Based on availability, I automatically get upgraded to the best suite available, which is nice if I’m going to be living in one for a week at a time in each city. I get lounge access if one is available, which means I usually get free snacks, water, and other beverages. I get a welcome gift upon arriving at the hotel, which is usually just some extra loyalty points that I can redeem for future travel, but one hotel went as far as to give me a custom-baked cookie with my name on it. I also get guaranteed 4 PM late checkout, which is useful if I plan on leaving the hotel later in the afternoon or evening (as opposed to the normal check-out time, which is usually in the morning).

  The hotel lifestyle is also nice even without the special elite perks. If I need help with anything, even if it’s not something hotel-related, someone is always available at the front desk to assist. All the hotels have fitness centers, so a workout is always just a short walk away. If I ever run out of stuff like shampoo, toilet paper, or other bath amenities, I can call the front desk and someone will bring some for me to my door.

  Marriott also does a great job with housekeeping, so my rooms have always been clean upon arrival (except for the one hotel I stayed at in St. George, which had an air conditioning unit that smelled like moldy sneakers). In a similar vein, I personally never have to clean anything; I tidy up my room prior to departure to help out the maids a bit, but apart from that, the staff handle all the cleaning, so I never have to wipe another toilet for as long as I am living in hotels.

• I have something to blog about.

  This one is a little silly, but this nomad lifestyle gives me something to blog about. I enjoy blogging and writing in general, but some­times, I just don’t really know what to write about; always being exposed to something new makes it much easier for me to continue doing what I enjoy.

• I like driving my truck.

  This one is also a little bit silly, but I actually enjoy driving my pickup truck around to places. I still think the modern-day mid-size pickup truck is the perfect size for a dynamic person who needs versatility and capability. It is narrow enough that it can easily navigate through dense cities, it is high up enough that I get a good view of the road, and it has enough cargo space that I can carry all my essential belongings in the back seats and bed.

  I appreciated the fact that I had a pickup truck when I was driving through the Rocky Mountain states with a lot of elevation change. Even though my truck has a V6 engine instead of a V8, it is still plenty of power to blast up mountain roads. I especially appreciated the fact that I had a pickup truck when I was in Wyoming, where half the roads seemed to either be unpaved, or damaged so badly by weather that they might as well have been unpaved.

  To put things simply, it is very satisfying and liberating to know I can conquer pretty much any road situation I encounter.

 
Things I dislike:

• The Internet can sometimes be unreliable.

  Marriott has been doing a great job with improving Internet con­nec­tiv­i­ty in their properties. Surprisingly, about half of my hotel rooms had work­ing Ethernet ports so I could plug my computer di­rect­ly to a wired Internet connection. The Element Overland Park had the best Internet speed out of all the hotels I stayed at, with speeds reaching nearly parallel gigabit.

  However, there are still some hotels where the connection isn’t re­al­ly the best. Especially with wireless, my connection can drop eas­i­ly from stuff like if someone is using a microwave in a neigh­bor­ing room, or if there is too much metal in the way and the wireless signal doesn’t reach my room well.

  It doesn’t really make too much of a difference if I’m just browsing or watching buffered videos, but it can get annoying if I’m constantly editing a spreadsheet on the cloud for work, or if I’m trying to play a game. In these situations, I end up plugging my phone into my computer and using a USB tethered 4G LTE connection.

• It can get annoying unpacking and packing all my belongings every week.

  One of the things I mentioned before I started traveling was that I did not want this to affect the quality of my work at all. Being the head of cor­po­rate operations at Tempo, a lot of work I do involves large electronic documents and spreadsheets that aren’t the best to work on using a small lap­top screen. Thus, I have been traveling with my desktop computer with two full-size monitors and setting up my entire workstation at every sin­gle hotel that I’ve stayed at.

  I’ve streamlined this process pretty well so it only takes about half an hour to move all my boxes into the hotel room and get everything set up now, but after doing it over and over and over again, it starts getting a little bit annoying.

• If I’m in the East of the country, flying back to the West monthly for errands and work can still be tiring with long travel days.

  Another aspect of making sure my road trip doesn’t affect my work is making sure that I’m still able to travel to the company headquarters in Southern Cal­i­for­nia during my routine interval of around once a month. While I fly over to SoCal, I stop by Las Vegas as well to get a haircut, check my PO box, and do other errands.

  Back in 2016, one of the reasons I moved from Illinois to California was because it was getting annoying flying back and forth so much to go to esports events for work. Travel is much more comfortable now and I don’t mind planes anymore, but it can still get sort of tiring having long travel days and going back and forth the country in transcontinental flights.

• There has been a growing thought in my mind that I might suffer from lifestyle inflation.

  When it’s finally time to settle down, get married, and have chil­dren, I’m hoping that I will look back on these travels and remember them fondly, as opposed to feeling stuck in my future situation and want­ing to become a nomad again.

 
So, what’s next? My current plan is to head off to Indiana on September 1 and continue my journey east. I had previously been considering visiting some family members in the northeast, but with the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the new emerging variants, I figured I would travel on my own for now and potentially visit them later, seeing as many of them are older and classified as high-risk individuals.

After Indiana, I’m parking my truck at the airport and making another air trip to the West Coast for work purposes, then flying back to Indiana. Afterwards, I have a route planned out for driving through Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. This will land me in mid-October, at which point I will take yet again another flight to the West Coast for work, fly back, and continue my journey through Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, the route of which is currently unplanned.