General Info:
The Blue Water Traveler and Festival Fanatics came about in December of 2010 after I had spent several summers traveling the back roads, meeting interesting people, seeing unique landmarks and attending festivals all over Michigan. With inspiration coming from friends and family to create a travel log detailing my adventures, the Festival Fanatics Blog was born. From there, it soon developed into this website and business idea. Setting out in the summer of 2010, I recruited Tim Thornsberry, long time friend and business associate, to join me and ride along. After just a few camping trips, festivals and side road distractions under our belt, it became obvious that there was a definate need and in terest to promote businesses and artisans in the midst of our failing Michigan economy. Tim and I love this state and together we decided to form a business dedicated to promoting Michigan. While Festival Fanatics and The Blue Water Traveler is not a non-profit organization, it is also not a company founded on the traditional principles of business which emphasizes the need to make great profits. Our company's number one goal is to link Michigan businessmen, craftsman, and producers to an expanded market while jointly promoting and advertising Michigan attractions and unique events. The way we make this possible is with your help. With the economic crunch, businesses are looking for more unique, less traditional ways to keep advertising costs down. Everyone today is asking you to advertise with their “Marketing Strategy”, and simply put so are we. However, we feel our strategy is a little bit different. Traditional advertising offers you a 5 second radio ad that can be heard on your local station, a costly square inch newspaper add or even a full-page flier that doubles as floor mats for your car. Our ads are seen across the country on the web and you are represented by Tim and Josh in person as we travel and on our traveling bill board "Mary Jane", our vintage Volkswagen Van. Tim and I also include short stories on unique businesses that we discover along the way. Just mentioning your Michigan-based business in our articles as we travel from place to place will give you exposure that you can't get in a newspaper. Tim and I have over 30 years of sales and marketing experience and we are doing what we love, so revenue is not our motivating factor. We travel like they did in the old days before the interstate highway system was invented. The trip to us is more important than the destination and we stop and visit Mom and Pop businesses all over the state promoting tourism and doing what we love to do. With our co-operative advertising approach we are able to promote hundreds of businesses that we personally visit along the way and if you have anyT- shirts or ball caps displaying your logo, we'll wear them proudly as we travel all over the state.