Have you noticed an increase in the number of people who decide to travel the world and at the same time write it off? Take a look at The Traveling Guys web site for a brief moment. Ok? Did you see the sponsors section? No? Well, they have more than a hundred individual sponsors and a good dozen companies sponsoring their trip. Here is a writeup about this site.
Why didn’t I think about that? I want to travel, too!
10 mph is another one where three guys are riding across America on a Segway. They’ve been sponsored by some big companies. They’re doing a movie, too. There’s a good idea. Get a movie done at the same time and sell the rights to it.
The Fat Man Walking is another one that has sponsors. Not as exciting as he’s only walking from San Diego to New York and his web site is ugly, but it’s amazing! He has sponsors. By the way, he’s all the way to New Mexico.
Another guy who hiked across America and has a ton of sponsors. Andrew Skurka. Insane.
Here’s what it takes to make this a success… Of course, I have zero experience with this, so it is just my take.
- Story. You have to have a great story. I think the Fat Man site is perfect for story. You feel sorry for the guy because his life is in the pits and he decided to do something about it. So you wish him success.
- Frequent Updates. If you want any following, and sponsors to sponsor you, you have to have some following. All of these sites get a lot of traffic.
- Pictures. Everyone wants to see what you are doing and hear stories about what happened to them today.
7 responses to “I’m willing to hike, bike, run, jog, walk, fly, boat, drive my way wherever you want if you sponsor me”
As soon as I get time I am thinking about doing something like this, they’re a dime a dozen now like you said but there are so many people who are willing to sponsor these things it will be a long time before it goes belly up although if someone trys to scam people with something like this and it ends up in the media I think the number of willing sponsors will suddenly drop.
Hey Oscar, that’s really cool. Go for it! I’m sure that you could get some sponsors. It’s still new enough to be considered a guerilla marketing idea. Either way, you’d learn something and probably get free stuff if you got a good sponsor that makes some sort of travel related equipment.
Chris,
Thanks for pointing those out. I should’ve included something like this in my “Promoting Yourself – 15 Do’s and Don’ts” article.
It’s fascinating how they’re able to get sponsorship and do something really invigorating personally. Sweet stuff.
Ryan, that’s a really good article (the one on your BD4D site). Nice work. Thanks for stopping by!
Chris, loved looking at your company’s work.
I found this post amusing and used it as the basis of my own humorous post about my own “travel blog” concept. Hope you don’t mind. Thanks for the inspiration.
http://www.citizenofthemonth.com/2005/09/07/citizen-of-the-month-world-tour/
Hi Neil,
Hahahaha, you did a fabulous job taking the idea to a new level. Very funny. Glad you found it inspiring.
Chris
I am willing to hike across America living on the land as i go, but i need a sponser….please help me out. I have a military background with the Marines as an infantryman and I am eagerly ready to go. Also I want to do this for some sort of charity. Please contact me on how to get stated with my future goal.
mjzones@hotmail.com