For several years after I and my family moved to the Northwest, we asked ourselves: “What should we do this weekend?” We remember only the weekend when we did something different. Something that we haven’t done before. Whether it was the sailing, or the paddle-boarding, or visiting the aquarium, or eating at a local restaurant… Those were the weekends we remember. We don’t remember the weekends where we went to the mall, or went shopping at Target, or just worked on the house.

For those of you who travel a lot I can also relate. I used to travel a lot for business in Europe. Every time I ended up in a new city I was wondering: “What should I see? Where should I eat? Where should I go?” If I had a friend there it was easier because they can show me around, although I had to rely on their taste. But if I had none, then my experience wasn’t always very thrilling. Sometimes I was lucky to see interesting things, to taste authentic local food, or to enjoy once in a lifetime views. But sometimes my days were full of stress running from one side of the city to the other, just to take a picture of this important landmark that will prove I was there. At the end of the day though I didn’t feel satisfied with my experience. And by the way, very often the picture was also not very good because I rarely knew where is the best place to take it from:) I would preferred to have just one picture from this city, but a picture that I can print and post on my wall. I would preferred to visit only one restaurant in this city, but to remember the taste of the food. I would prefer to have one experience from this city, but one that I can tell stories about till the end of my life.

I have bought the domain for TravelWaver.net in 2006 and registered the partnership with my lovely wife Polly in 2008. Initially I had different ideas for the web site – I wanted it to be THE place for finding vacation rentals. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to accomplish this goal, and few months ago when AirBnB became popular I decided that the idea is outdated. As everybody else I am excited about travel and experiencing new things, and I like the name I choose for the site. But the problem I had was how to make something that is not exact copy of something existing, but most importantly how to make something that will make people say: “This was what I was looking for!”.

And today it just came to me. I decided to completely change the goals of TravelWeaver.net and create a web site that you can load each morning, and see a suggestion for at least one fun and exciting thing to do in the Pacific Northwest. I want to make a web site that each day gives you a tip for what to do, where to eat, what event to attend, or simply how to spend your time more pleasantly. I also want this web site to give you good overview of what will you experience – either though detailed description, or high quality photos and short videos.

I know that it will require lot of work and effort to get there. I will need to create thousands or maybe tens of thousands of pages that describe every unique experience in the Pacific Northwest. I will need to take thousands of pictures and shoot know knows how many videos in order to give you preview of those experiences. But I am confident that this is a goal that can be achieved in one person’s lifetime, and I will be glad to hear your feedback.

Enjoy the site and the Pacific Northwest!

ToddySM