Last week, Gadling launched a serious road trip series. Called Traveling the American Road, it has wasted no time in turning up some exciting material.
Meanwhile, north of the 49th parallel, Andrew Konoff is busy wandering around his home province of Saskatchewan, uncovering secrets and sharing his discoveries with the world.
This summer, Andrew is the Saskatchewanderer. We’ll let Andrew explain his exciting gig.
Q: Define your profession.
A: Normally, I’m a university student. I’m an honors major in philosophy, with a serious interest in creative writing. This summer, I get to be the Saskatchewanderer: I use social media to promote my home province and all the things to do, see, and eat here.
Q: Tell us about the Saskatchewanderer project.
A: If you’ve heard about The Best Job In The World, which was responsible for many viral videos in 2009, then you’ll get the idea for this one. Aspiring students had to submit videos that explained why they should be the Saskatchewanderer, and then a shortlist of ten candidates was voted on by the public. There were three rounds, right in the middle of finals, and I ended up with the job thanks to my enthusiasm about Saskatchewan, my great supporters, and my serious commitment to procrastination.
These days, I wander. I work with my boss to set a rough agenda for the week. I get out on the road in my sponsored Ford Focus, and then I try to fill in the rest of my outings by relying on local knowledge, whether through Facebook and Twitter or through more traditional resources like tourism offices and diner staff.
Q: What’s your background as a traveler?
A: My family has always been keen on travel, but more recently I’ve started to understand the usefulness of travel in my own life. I did the Mongol Rally last year, and I learned a lot of great life lessons along the way. It turns out that spending 14,000 km in a small hatchback with one other person is a great catalyst for personal discovery. I did a Europe trip a couple years before that too, and that’s when I realized how much I love food, and that it can intersect beautifully with travel. I had my first tasting menu experience in Prague, and have been nuts about food travel ever since. This interest has driven me to do things like drink fermented horse milk in Mongolia, which I think I featured in one of my entry videos for the Saskatchewanderer competition.
Q: And as a travel writer, blogger, and social media agent?
A: Wow, I’ve done all those things? Travel writing and blogging are sort of a package deal for me, though perhaps this job will give me the confidence to try to get articles published. As far as social media go, I’ve been fairly involved around campus, and communications is a role I fell into pretty naturally. Starting up blogs and Facebook pages helped me in fundraising for the Mongol Rally and in getting the University of Regina’s Arts Student Association back up and running. Generally, if I’m passionate about something, there’s no better and more direct way to communicate that passion than through social media.Q: Saskatchewan isn’t nearly as well known as, say, British Columbia and Alberta. What should visitors to Canada know about your home province?
A: First and foremost, Saskatchewan is not just what you’ll see on the Trans-Canada Highway. Go off the road for an hour in any direction and you’re well into adventure territory. And if you treat Saskatchewan as a destination in itself, you’ll have a ton to see and do. We have over five million acres of parks, lots of music festivals (Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, the Regina Folk Festival and Craven Country Jamboree all draw huge crowds and big names), tons of history, and a rural and urban landscape unlike anywhere else in the world. Whether you need to escape from civilization for a while or get fully immersed in it, Saskatchewan has something for you.
Q: What have been your favorite spots thus far, and where are you most excited about visiting next?
A: I have become a huge fan of our national and provincial parks. Getting out and hiking a trail through anything from forest to sand dunes to prairie is the perfect way to relax after a long drive. Over The Hill Orchards is another place that I really liked.
Coming up next month is the Saskatchewan Jazz Fest, where some huge jazz rap names are showing up, like De La Soul and Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest. It will be an amazing show. Also, The Sheepdogs are playing. They’re from Saskatoon, and they’re finalists in a social media-based competition to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Q: I fell in love with Labret last summer. Any plans to include it on your itinerary?
A: I’ve already been! Pretty unbelievable scenery, hey? Funny story: someone posted on my Facebook page that they saw me climb up the valley there. I wish they had introduced themselves! Anyway, I plan on getting back out to the Qu’Appelle Valley for some wakeboarding adventures, and I suspect that will be the right occasion to make a post about Lebret.
Q: What will you do after the Saskatchewanderer project ends?
A: I’ll be moving out to Halifax with my girlfriend, where I’ll be finishing up my degree and writing a novel. I’ve got another blog idea kicking around, too. I’ve always wanted to work in a kitchen. I think I’ll find a good restaurant where I can start off as a dishwasher and work my way up the line and blog about the whole thing.
[Image: Susan Birley]