I’ve reinvented myself about a dozen times, from motorcycle racer to Ad Man to Internet Titan to Climate Evangelist and lots of things in between. I’ve chased the Dakar Rally on a motorcycle in South America, and ridden the mountain roads of the Alps and Nepal. I’ve explored the worlds of technology, having played a played a part in three technology revolutions — personal computers, the Internet and now climate technology. I’m not one that likes to stand still and I’m becoming restless once again.
I’m wondering whether it’s time for another reinvention, not just myself, but also how I share our life’s adventures with all of you through The Restless Travelers.
As part of this reinvention, we’re creating The Restless Travelers -- SubStack Edition. I’ve been chronicling our travels in some form or another for thirty years, but finally created the Restless Travelers in 2010 when Karen and I began the second stage of riding our motorcycle around the world as we headed to South America. In midst of this trip we got called back to Los Angeles to lead the Mayor’s efforts to build a climate technology innovation hub to drive LA’s huge green economy. Thus began a ten year stint of living in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles at the moment it was becoming one of the hottest urban landscapes in the U.S. We wrote about all of this in The Restless Travelers blog (The Restless Travelers Blog)
I found myself working 24/7 again (I thought I’d been done with that), trying to bring the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) to life. It was an incredible ten years that thrust us into local government, policy, community, technology, global climate challenges, developing nations and speaking engagements.
TRT evolved beyond travel as our life melted into a combination of travel, climate technology entrepreneurship, and dealing with how to “rewire” our lives. I wrote about all of these “things,” from the new kind of combo business/fun travel that LACI and NGIN presented (before I knew it, we’d traveled to 50+ countries along the way) to my first Mr. Smith Goes to Washington lobbying trip. I took you along as we first built a palapa in the jungle of Mexico, then a home in the El Centro neighborhood of Puerto Vallarta, and finally here to the mountains between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It was gratifying that as we widened TRT’s focus beyond motorcycle adventure travel, you seemed to enjoy reading about all of these (mis) adventures as well. I was having fun writing about our life happenings and you were enjoying reading about them. It seems we have a bargain.
Sitting at a rooftop pool bar in Puerto Vallarta, I had an mini-epiphany. Looking at all the young couples splashing in the pool, with great bodies and faces void of wrinkles, I lamented how I could never go back to those fun earlier, younger times. They were history, I was pretty much done with the fun, the vibrancy and the joy of newness.
That’s when I called bullshit on myself! What the f__k? There’s no reason I have to be done at my age, beyond the norm that everyone believes we are done at this age. So, it was time to reinvent myself once again. To what? Not sure, but I intend to vigorously search for Next Great Thing.
Which brings me back to the beginning of this post, the reinvention of The Restless Travelers to coincide with the reinvention of FW. No, TRT is not going to a paid subscription model or “paywall” for premium content anytime soon. My renewed commitment is to make TRT into something better, that more people enjoy and have a closer relation with. To do that, I have to post more often, and because we don’t travel every week (damn), it has to be on a wider range of subjects.
So, here’s what we’re going to write about in coming weeks and months:
TRAVEL NEAR & FAR: We want to get out there our way. “Our way” usually ends up lacking a definitive plan or itinerary and most often it involves 2-wheels (I love motorcycles and have been racing and riding them since I was 15) — or some kind of wheels. We are not extreme adventure travelers — those folks are my heroes — but we do travel for adventure and the thrill of discovering something new, or different or life affirming. You’ll see stories about the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, most of Western Europe, the UK, IOM, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. And those are just where we’ve already been, not where we intend to go.
THE REWIRED LIFE: Living a “rewired life” means getting control of your life, setting your own agenda, not letting the work dictate your life but the other way around, about living it your way, no matter what that is. For us, it means blending work with living to the degree they’re almost indistinguishable, still burning the candle at both ends, and dealing with the issues of the time: aging, climate change, poverty, tolerance, relationships and friends (getting, having and keeping). But most of all, it means having fun and not taking stuff too seriously.
PLACES: We have a home in Mexico, a palapa in the Mexican jungle just south of Puerto Vallarta, and a home in the mountains between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. A year ago we lived in a 800 sq. ft. loft in LA, and ten years ago we lived in the Hollywood Hills, next door to actors and producers. Karen and I met in a bar in Manhattan. At times, we’ve lived at the beach, in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights, and in an RV. How does one transition from being a city-slicker to becoming a mountain man? We’ve lived in a lot of interesting place ,and we intend to find many more in the months to come.
CLIMATE: I’ve spent the past ten plus years trying to slow climate change, first at LACI and now at the Network for Global Innovation. I was late to the party, I’d been an entrepreneur most of my life and I could have cared less about anything other than trying to be successful. Then, Karen and I traveled to Lake Titicaca high up in the Andes, and saw how one tiny solar panel could change an off-the-grid family’s life. I decided then to try to do something to spread sustainable energy and slow climate change in a way that leveraged my strengths: how to harness entrepreneurship to invent the future technologies and products we will need to get to a net zero economy. My work will spill over to TRT as I can’t help it
The reinvention of The RestlessTravelers is an ongoing project, which I hope you’ll help with from time to time. First step is to subscribe to TRT here on SubStack in order to get the posts.
That’s it for now. Thanks for getting this far and I look forward to chatting in the future.
Fred & Karen
March 2023
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