All posts by Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

Travel Necessities

The Luxury of a Comfy Chair (& Office) While Working as a Digital Nomad

July 31, 2012 Drew Meyers Leave a comment

Living a nomadic life certainly isn’t without tradeoffs. I remember the days when I had a comfortable office chair to sit in. I tell ya, as a digital nomad traveling the globe, those days are few and far between. Most of the chairs at Chiang Mai wifi spots I frequented consisted of wood chairs. Many without cushions. If there were cushions, they were extremely thin. Same in Spain and Greece. Worse in Africa.

I’ve been in Barcelona a little over a week, heads down working on Oh Hey World — in not so comfortable chairs. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Jonathan Hayes at Dinube (working on a digital wallet in the cloud), who responded to my message on a Meetup Group for Barcelona entrepreneurs where I asked about co-working space. His co-founder is currently in Boston, so the timing of having an extra desk available at his office worked out great. And there would be no charge.

So I spent yesterday working from an office with a real office chair in a real office with great WIFI. It was glorious.

Thanks Jonathan (and Dinube) for the Spanish hospitality.

Drew Meyers

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Travel Costs

The Costs of Clean Laundry while Traveling

July 30, 2012 Drew Meyers Leave a comment

The scent of fresh laundry is to be savored if you’re on an extended trip living out of a backpack. 4 days in the same underwear? The same tshirt 3-4 times? Leads to going a few weeks without clean clothes. Sure, its not ideal. But sometimes necessary due to the fact that laundry often takes more than 24 hours from the time you drop it off to the time you can pick it up because it usually air dried. The challenge with that, for me, is that I generally do all my clothes at once, which leaves me only what I’m wearing that day (I often try to make it a bathing suit) until I pick up my laundry and can change my clothes. Particularly when you are on the go every few days, timing of actually having a 24-48 hour window is challenging.

What does clean laundry cost while traveling?

It varies greatly depending on location. In Noordwijk, an hour outside of Amsterdam, I paid 10 Euro for one load of laundry. They didn’t even fold the laundry (shame on them). That’s the most I’ve ever paid abroad.

My unfolded travel laundry

I had to fold it myself

In Chiang Mai, that same load of Laundry would have costs about 90 Thai baht. The equivalent of about $3. It would have been folded neatly, and smelled better than the pile they returned to me in Noordwijk.

In Barcelona, my friend paid 4 Euro to run her clothes through the washing machine at a laundromat. Plus another 1 Euro for 15 minutes of dryer time.

So your range is somewhere from a few US Dollars to upwards of $10 or $15. Don’t ask me what dry cleaning abroad costs, as I’ve never done it.

PS: I still think the Scubba Wash Bag would be a great investment.

More reading on doing your laundry here.

Drew Meyers

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Oh Hey World Updates

Why Oh Hey World Will Succeed

July 30, 2012 Drew Meyers 1 Comment

I’ve met with a few potential investors for Oh Hey World over the past two months, and of course the team is the the most critical component of any startup looking to raise money. After outlining why I was the right person to undertake this opportunity and build the team to execute on it to one potential investor, he told me I should articulate my answer to the “why you” question on my blog. So, here it is.

And yes, this may sound a bit like marketing text. You’re right. It is. But I’d tell you the exact same thing if you and I were to sit down for coffee and talk one on one.

1. Understanding of the target market inside and out.

I’ve been a part of every primary market segment of travelers for at least 3 years, and understand each of their pain points. From my first trip abroad in 2005 to 2008, I was a budget backpacker scrounging every last dime I could muster to travel. From 2007-2011 I was a business traveler at Zillow, traveling on average about once a month within the US. From 2010 to today, I’ve been a long term traveler with no real home base – spending significant chunks of time in Greece, Thailand, Kenya, Ghana, and Spain among other destinations. Success online comes from emulating the real world, and I get the real world traveler scenarios in need of attention. Don’t get me wrong, there are others who understand the pain points for the various traveler market segments, but understanding how to actually execute on their idea beyond a hacked together solution to address one tiny problem is another story. Which brings me to point number 2…

2. My experience at Zillow.

I’ve seen, from the inside, how a real successful web company is built from 0 to over 13 million unique users when I left the company in 2010 (now they are over 34 million uniques). It takes massive massive efforts, both in terms of building a great product and executing on a sound business strategy, to grow a web startup from zero to millions and millions of web users. It takes an incredible focus on people, culture, and recruiting (a great article on A VC regarding culture & recruiting here). It requires winning extremely strategic partnerships. It requires a great understanding of design and user experience. It requires a devotion to listening to your users and responding to their concerns. It requires a top flight public relations team to form strategic relationships with the media. It requires responding to social media inquires in minutes, not days or months. The list goes on and on.

3. Community Building

I believe any web company that doesn’t understand and invest in community building is completely toast from the beginning, no matter how good their product is. With the volume of web startups launching and the overlap involved in products, there’s simply no other defensible strategy these days. At the end of the day, users go back to destinations where they know they’ll find familiar faces. Same as in real life. Fortunately, community building is my greatest strength and a huge chunk of my time will be spent on it. I understand what it takes to build a strong community — with the most important being to genuinely care about others and want to help them achieve their goals.

4. Networking

No one can succeed on their own. I get that. I feel fortunate to have built up an amazing network of friends and advisors to provide advice, marketing, and support. Much of that network was built while at Zillow, but a huge chunk of it has been formed over the past three years while traveling the globe. So yes, I know a thing or two about sphere building.

5. I know it’s possible.

Once you know where you want to end up in life, the rest is simple. The same is true with building a web startup. Once the vision is clear, it’s just patching the puzzle together to get there. It’s as simple as that. This vision can be realized, and will be realized.

There is no “if” involved.

Drew Meyers

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Travel Thoughts

Travel. Life’s Greatest Cure for Internal Conflicts

July 27, 2012 Drew Meyers 2 Comments

What’s the best cure for internal conflicts?

At least for the large internal conflicts involving a career, relationships, or living situation — the answer is travel. At least in my book it is.

Many travelers travel while they sort out their internal conflicts. It’s not at all uncommon. If Monica McCarthy hadn’t been traveling for this exact reason, our lives certainly would not have crossed in Chiang Mai.

Whenever someone tells me they don’t know what they want in life, my answer is always the same. Go travel. Travel is the best soul searching tool at your disposal — particularly if you go out on your own and partake in a bit of solo travel (which I’d highly recommend). It gives you time to think, gain some perspective, and figure out what you want in life. Don’t get me wrong, travel won’t SOLVE your life problems as both Steph and Jodi have mentioned. But it does help you determine priorities in life.

As it turns out, more travel was exactly what I needed for me to move beyond my lingering career conflict.

Drew Meyers

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Online Travel Annoyances

Online Travel Annoyance #1 – Dated Cost Data

July 24, 2012 Drew Meyers Leave a comment

Yes, I’m a travel addict.

Yes, I do lots of research online prior to departing.

Yes, cost of travel is a consideration when I’m planning and booking my travels.

Which brings me to the constant annoyance of dated cost data.

Why oh why is it so hard to find up to date cost data for traveling to various regions in the world?

You’re left to peruse Google in hopes of finding a somewhat recent blog post from a travel blogger who happens to be kind enough to track, and blog about, their expenditures in Chiang Mai, Beijing, Rome, or Barcelona (or wherever you are going next).

Even if you do manage to find a great resource about the specific destination, there are two likely problems. First, the information is dated the second it gets published. It could be from 9 months, 3 years, or even 5 years ago. Costs change over time, some regions more so than others as a result of inflation (like Argentina) or currency fluctuations. Second, the traveler publishing the data is unlikely to be the exact same travel profile as you. If I find cost data from a 45 year old couple, that’s largely irrelevant to me given that I’m a single 30 year old male.

There is, however, a second option for determining a budget for a specific destination. Find someone with similar travel habits who has just visited the location you’re headed towards. But short of having a massive network of travelers to tap into, and know where they’ve all been recently, this approach isn’t likely to work for many people.

Accurate travel cost data for your travel profile really shouldn’t be so hard to find.

Where do you go to research travel costs? Does it work most of the time? All the time? Do you find it accurate?

And yes, I have a pretty good idea on how to solve this travel problem — but would love feedback on what type of traveler you are and what your thoughts are on the “accurate travel costs” problem outlined here so as to incorporate your feedback into an even better product down the line.

Drew Meyers

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Oh Hey World Updates

The Vision Behind Oh Hey World – Part 1

July 23, 2012 Drew Meyers 7 Comments

Despite the enormous sums of money that have been thrown at the online travel vertical, the online travel experience still sucks.

Royally.

Literally not a single website does a great job of unifying or improving my travel experience — either the research leading up to a trip or the experience while I’m in a particular city. The social sites with potential lack my network to make them truly useful. Or, if they do exist, I haven’t heard of them. Meanwhile, the ones with scale have crappy user experiences. I’d say HostelWorld is the only site close since it has all my hostel data since my first trip in 2005 — but it really hasn’t used that data to make my travel experience better. Sure, there are some regional sites such as TravelFish that are great when you are in a particular spot in the world. But overall? Online travel is a fragmented landscape dripping with mediocrity, or worse, outright crappiness.

What is Oh Hey World setting out to do? Aside from the obvious answer of changing the world (duh, that’s a no-brainer) we’re aiming to connect you with nearby people and things that are relevant to you.

As with any startup, building a product is a gradual process. Connecting you with other locals and travelers you know is a natural step 1, since you already know these people and likely want to see them again in person. You just need a simple and intuitive way to find them. Those that have traveled know traveling with others – whether that be your spouse, significant other, best friend of 10 years, or a random backpacker you met 2 days ago – is always a better experience than traveling solo. Even a solo traveler is never truly solo — they meet others constantly, floating from group to group as they see fit. Going one step further — if local knowledge is part of that equation, travel goes from good to great. Many of the best travel experiences I’ve had have been because of local expertise. Someone living somewhere knows which bars to go to. Knows where to take you off the tourist trail. Can take you to a local party, and get you a feel for their hometown’s true culture.

As of about two weeks ago, we have a new home page up that gives you a peak into what’s we’re going after in version 1.

Inform your loved ones of your whereabouts
Track your travel history
Connect with locals and nearby travelers

If the proposition of a more social travel experience sounds appealing to you, go ahead and sign up to be in the first group to try our beta. Go ahead, I’ll let you and won’t bite.

As you can imagine, this is just the beginning of the journey for Oh Hey World. Stoked to see where it leads…

Drew Meyers

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Travel Thoughts

Rain, Rain, and More Rain – and the Biggest Umbrella You’ve Ever Seen

July 20, 2012 Drew Meyers 1 Comment

I seriously need a big, fat, heaping umbrella for all the rain I’ve experienced in Northern Europe. Luckily, I found just that in Brussels yesterday (see below).

I’m from Seattle so I know all about the rain. But I’m just a tad tired of it. After almost a month in Northern Europe (Stockholm, Amsterdam, Belgium), I was beyond excited to wake up today to see that big warm thing in the sky they call the sun shining through my window. Where? Barcelona. Don’t get me wrong, I had an unbelievable time in northern Europe even though it rained the majority of the time. But everyone needs to see the sun every once in awhile. Barcelona and a few weeks of solid sun is exactly what I need right now.

Drew Meyers

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Featured Images, Photos, Videos

Atacama In Chile

July 16, 2012 Drew Meyers Leave a comment

Wow, I really really really want to go to Chile now. It looks gorgeous.

It doesn’t hurt that I kinda like that background song either.

[Video via GoBackpacking and photo via kirikou.com]

Drew Meyers

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Local Businesses

An Example of How NOT to Build Word of Mouth for a Hostel

July 14, 2012 Drew Meyers Leave a comment

You’re lucky I didn’t throw your bag out with the trash.

Those are the words I was greeted with after the final day of Startup Weekend Amsterdam. Really? That’s how you treat your customers? Threatening to throw their bags out with the trash? Yeah, there’s a smart way to run your business. Yes, I’d say Europe needs some customer service lessons. For starters, you don’t generate positive word of mouth by threatening your customers and making them feel like crap. That seems to be a pretty simple concept, but I guess not a lesson everyone has learned.

I realize that checking out in the morning and leaving a bag until 9 pm isn’t normal. That said, I did ask the person working in the morning if I could leave my bag.

They said yes. I didn’t specifically tell him the bag would be there until the evening. The night receptionist told me that “bags can be stored for up to 3 hours after checkout” is written all over signs everywhere in the hostel. That may be true, but I never saw those signs. I’ve been to a ton of hostels all over the world, and never has someone tried to enforce a hard time limit on storing bags after checkout. I apologized for leaving my bag there longer than normal, and he proceeded to tell me that I was extremely lucky this time that the bag was still there. I would have been happy to pay a few Euros for the inconvenience — but instead they jumped straight to making me feel like an asshole. Not the way I want to be treated by the staff of a place where I’ve spent over 200 Euro.

There’s one thing I know for a fact. I will never say a good thing about Cosmos Hostel Amsterdam to anyone ever again. It’ll always be the Amsterdam hostel that I warn people against staying at. Well done, Cosmos Hostel Amsterdam. Well done. You just lost a customer — and all the WOM potential that goes with that customer — for life.

[Photo via http://www.hmtweb.com/]

Drew Meyers

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Destination Details

The Flying Pig Beach Hostel in Noordwijk: The Place You Can Never Leave

July 13, 2012 Drew Meyers 3 Comments

Today, I’m finally leaving the Flying Pig Beach Hostel. I’ve spent about 10 days here total over the course of the past 2 1/2 weeks.

If you’ve been traveling long enough, you’ve come across one of those places you just can’t bring yourself to leave. The Flying Pig Beach Hostel in Noordwijk is one of those places. It’s not just me either. Every day, I see someone wander up to the reception desk and say something to the tune of…

Can I extend my stay one more night?

Any chance I can add three days to my reservation?

One more night please?

One couple from Hungary overstayed their intended departure date by a full 7 days. Why? It’s a low key, chilled out alternative to Amsterdam — just an hour away from the strippers and coffee shops of Amsterdam. Life is just comfortable. Get up, go hang out at the beach, chill out and chat with fellow travelers, smoke, drink a few beers, cook dinner. Many that stop here have been traveling non stop every 2-3 days for a month or more and just want a few days of doing nothing and NOT traveling.

I was here for 2 nights back on my first trip to Europe in 2005. It’s still the same great hostel it was back then, maybe even better. There’s a nice bar downstairs. And of course, a smoking room and deck out back (the closest place to buy weed is a 30 minute bus ride away in Leiden). Noordwijk reminds me a bit of Ocean Park, Washington where my dad lives. Sandy dunes, always a breeze, grey overcast skies, and not-so-warm water. But I still love visiting Ocean Park — it’s just not your 90 degree, always sunny, warm water beach.

What are the “can’t bring yourself to leave” hostels/destinations for you?

Drew Meyers

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Exploring the Wild Blue Yonder