In my favorite  business column called “The 20 things I’ve learned in 50 years of business,” three rules seem to have dominated my life over the past three years.

The first is that you sell to the customer what the customer wants to buy.

Second is that someone is looking for you as hard as you are looking for them — you just have to knock on enough doors.

Third is you make money when you travel.

Today I am focusing on the third rule — it is time for me to hit the road!

Readers of this column know that we travel a lot. What we do not write about is the fact that often, we are doing some business while we are traveling.

This past year was pretty much the year of no travel. We made a quick one-day trip to Yellowstone, a trip to the Sheridan-Buffalo area (hosted by Jim Hicks, Bob Grammens, Pat Henderson and Kim Love), and we took a longer trip  that saw us visit Las Vegas, Arizona and Colorado. The COVID was not so bad when we made these trips. Before and after, though, we were pretty much house-bound like everyone else.

As I write this, both Nancy and I have gotten our Pfizer shots, the car is warmed up, and the highways are dry — let’s roll!

My favorite places to travel are all inside this wonderful state.  We have discovered amazing things, people, and places in diverse locales like Evanston, Newcastle, Worland, Rawlins, Rock Springs, and so many others. 

Right now, I am excited to re-visit Carbon County.  Folks who blast through Rawlins at 80 mph really are missing out on all the unique things to see and do in that wonderful place. Leslie Jefferson, who heads up the Carbon County Visitor Council, has lined up a number of places for me to visit.

Vince Tomassi of Kemmerer-Diamondville is still frustrated that we have not really visited the Fossil Butte National Monument.  Vince, it’s on my list. Really it is!

Up north, Dave Peck, publisher of the Lovell Chronicle, is anxious to show us Big Horn Canyon and all the wonderful sites around it.

In southeast Wyoming, Cheyenne is a wonderful place. But there are fabulous places in Goshen, Platte, and Niobrara counties as well.

As publisher of the Cowboy State Daily, it is my plan to go to an area and mingle with some folks, visit some current and future advertisers, reconnect with our many donors and, in general, focus on all the good things about Wyoming’s amazing places.

In 2012 to 2015, I produced three of the best-selling coffee table books ever done about Wyoming.  One of the main reasons Wyoming readers loved the books so much, or so they told me, was that the books did not focus on just Jackson and Yellowstone.  In my half-century in the Cowboy State, I have been privileged to see the entire state. And this state is full of wonderful and unique places.

Each year I write a column called my Wyoming Bucket List.  It lists the places that we have still not seen.  Hopefully, we can go see a bunch of the places this year that are still on my list.

Wyoming is unique because many of our residents live in areas where they can be easily lured to neighboring states to see the unique places in those states. One of my goals all these years has been to get Wyoming people to go visit their own state — to have folks from Newcastle visit Evanston, for example. Or folks from Cody and Lovell visit Saratoga and Green River. I know some folks who still haven’t visited Yellowstone yet.

Just last week, we heard from some folks who finally got to visit Devils Tower. They were flabbergasted by the magnificence of it.

Back when my companies produced tourist magazines about Wyoming, we traveled the state learning about all these unique sites.  Then when we did the coffee table books, we worked with 54 Wyoming photographers and writers like Pat Schmidt, Jim Hicks, Phil Roberts, John Davis, Rodger McDaniel, and others who are scattered all over.  What a joy it has been to travel from one end of the state to the other — and to get paid for doing it!

Thus, my motto about making money when I travel.  Now as publisher of a statewide daily digital news service, our job is to “knit this very big state together” and that is my goal.

We will see you on the road in 2021.

Happy trails.