Exploits of a Vegan Wannabe

Will Travel for Vegan Food.  If you have not heard about this cool vegan project before, it is likely going to pique your sense of culinary and travel adventure as it did mine.  It is a brilliant idea and the person behind the whole concept hopped in to share with Exploits today in this guest post.

First,  a little background.  When Kristin from the blog, Will Travel for Vegan Food was approaching her five year vegan-iversary she decided to be amazing, be daring and be her own vegan hero. She hatched a plan to embark on a year-long  journey dining at every 100% vegan restaurant from coast to coast.  Starting at the end of August, 2011 she began her vegan food focused road trip across the country in Portland, Maine. She plans to conclude the trip on October 28th, 2012, marking her 30th birthday.

Throughout her journey Kristin will be  reviewing restaurants,  interviewing veg cool people and eating with new friends along the way. I have invited her to dine with us in Michigan at an amazing new vegan raw restaurant in Detroit when she comes to our fair state.   If she is able to take us up on the offer, we’ll be sure to share with you.

Kristin took a few minutes with us while exploring and dining in New York:

It’d be so much easier to say that I had a single “ah-ha” moment that led me to this wild adventure I’ve just begun. But to be honest it was a combination of things that all culminated into a single decision: to create a lifestyle around my personal interests and desires while simultaneously helping to spread the word about veganism.

I didn’t come to the decision lightly. It was at least a year in the making and all began with two books. Over the course of one week I devoured The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and Crush It! By Gary Vaynerchuk. I like to say that reading these two books back to back was like a one-two punch to the gut; a wake up call to stop day dreaming and to start acting.  To take tangible steps in the direction that would lead me down my customized lifestyle path, versus one that had been designed by society. Then I began researching how to work from my computer and create passive income.

During all of this life changing literature I had been thinking about things that had been on my inactive “bucket list.” One of which was to travel. A lot. All over the country and the world. So I began to toss around ideas of how to combine my interest in travel with my need to spread the vegan word.

One day I jokingly wrote on my Facebook wall something like, “I’d love to eat at all of the vegan restaurants in the country.” The positive responses just flooded in and it was then that I realized I could do this. Thanks to the encouragement and resources provided by Ferriss and Vaynerchuk, I could create a lifestyle that would allow me to work from my computer. Which would then allow me to be almost anywhere in the world so long as I had an Internet connection, including the back of a van! Will Travel For Vegan Food was born and the plan to slowly move out of my 9-5 job and into my personalized lifestyle began.

I see this entire journey as a shift in my lifestyle. It is not at all a vacation or taking a break from “the real world.” It is simply shifting priorities and making what once was a dream a reality.

I’m not going to lie; it’s been a lot of work to get to this starting point. Planning the route, scheduling meetings and interviews, editing video footage, writing blog posts, and managing the social media pages, to name a few things. It could definitely be a full time job in itself. But so far it has been so worth it and I have a feeling that it’s only going to continue to get better.  I can’t imagine doing anything else right now. I’m deeply committed to this project and know that it is going to change my life, and hopefully the lives of others as well.

Follow Kristin’s journey on wtfveganfood.com.

Thank you Kristin! Safe travels and we hope to see you in Michigan soon.

Have a delicious day.

Tags: 30 day challenge, compassionate eating, going veg, vegan anniversary, vegan experience, vegan travel, vegan wannabe, Will Travel For Vegan Food