Flightster

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Andi Norris

Andi Norris is the mastermind behind Dezabulous, a design and branding focused studio based out of Seattle. She moonlights as head instigator on her blog Instigationology, where she takes on a new career each month to challenge other bloggers at their own game. In her copious free time, she flits around the US on ambitious road trip adventures in search of undiscovered American treasures. Follow her day to day doings in TMI detail over on Twitter as @instigatingandi.

Seattle: Bipolar City of America

Whatever you may be for in a city, it’s in Seattle. If you can find it.

Ask any Seattelite what type of city they live in and chances are the answer isn’t ‘a big one.’ Seattle actually ranks 23 as a city by population in the US. It’s about half the size of San Francisco with less than half the amount of people per square mile. There are few cities in the US that feel so like small towns with high-rise buildings bursting out their center.

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Clothing Optional Pools, Wines on Time Out & Rare Allergies

(Choose Your Own Adventure: New Orleans Part 2)

Mojitos downed, you and your posse are liquored up, energetic and hungry. The courtyard at the hall houses the most colorful collection of garage sale and scavenged bicycles, mostly rusted over but tuned up for a tour of the town. The lot of you play musical chairs with the cycles, mixing and matching riders, bikes and locks before claiming the street the official cycle gang territory. There’s no opposition. The streets are completely bare and dimly lit; film noir lighting on dusty over-sized dollhouses.

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Boulder: A City Without A#$#holes

Boulder is a city on the up and up in the states for many reasons. Just east of the Rockies, this small metropolis thrives with a vibe more similar to the west coast than perhaps any other city in Middle America. Unbeknownst to the large coastal cities, Boulder has a growing underdog start up scene. A quick jaunt down Pearl St., the city’s pedestrian-only main thoroughfare, will have you passing around 35 new tech start ups from the just barely conceived to the recently VC funded and flourishing.

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A Choose Your Own Adventure Tour of New Orleans

The light from the sun is lapping at the concrete a mile up on the road in front. You’re inching your way over the toes of Southern Mississippi hung over from the midnight ride from Miami. Hung over is the wrong way to roll into New Orleans. This is perhaps your first mistake.

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Philadelphia: Still a City of Revolution

Looking back at the 20th Century, each generation has a group of young revolutionaries that, though not necessarily predominate in numbers, were influential enough in thoughts and actions to establish themselves as the title characters of that generation. The twenties have the whiskey sipping, fringe-clad flappers; the sixties have the peace promoting hippies; the eighties have the garage band punks. The twenty-uaghts have the indie hipsters.

The hipsters are a clash of young visionaries borne of the financial crisis. Artists, musicians and entrepreneurs flourishing with vitality in a digital age. Represented in each city, but inhabiting a different space, they are both local and global. I’d like to report that they are very much alive in Philadelphia, tucked away in Old City.

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