Meet the founders of MyCollegeRoadTrip.com! Florian met with them in the tripwolf office just recently, and got to pick their brains about starting a travel website.
What was the real reason you decided to start your project?
The final reason to start MCRT was the combination of my work experience in silicon valley and meeting someone that could take care of the technology aspect of the website. This happened to coincide with the first week of my MBA program at Vanderbilt university which made it more difficult, but also gave me access to tons of resources that I would have never had. The other reason to start the site when I did was that I couldn’t find any other sites that had travel information from the perspective of the college student. I had traveled a ton and talked to hundreds of other students who agreed there was no quality website out there for this unique set of travelers. Also, entrepreneurship has always been in my blood so I knew that this would be a unique challenge that I would really enjoy and would test everything that I had learned through my previous experiences.
What does a college student find on mycollegeroadtrip.com?
College students can find reviews of college towns, travel destinations, and spring break hot spots including the best places to stay, things to do, best restaurants, and most fun bars. In addition to that, they can look up the best events that college students are attending and read travel stories from all over the world. Each user also has the ability to log in and add content of their own from a review of a restaurant to their best story.
Can you share with us a travel story from your site you really like?
My favorite story from MCRT is the islands, jungles, hammocks, and Machetes a rare Puerto Rico adventure. it is the blog from three friends and mine’s trip hammock camping in Vieques and Culebra off the coast of Puerto Rico. it was an amazing trip that cost less that $600 including everything so I would recommend it to any college student.
A college trip you would recommend the tripwolf community?
A great college trip for the tripwolf community would be to head south to Key West, Florida. It has a laid back vibe that can’t be found anywhere else in the U.S and during spring break or summer is packed with college students. The ideal day would be to snorkel or relax on Smathers beach in the morning, rent mopeds in the afternoon, watch dominiqe and the cats at the Mallory Square sunset festival, grab a frozen drink at the lazy gecko, and finish off the night with a bucket of pirate punch at Captain Tony’s on world famous Duval St.
You love traveling – have you had any recent adventures to share?
One of the most fun stories I have was from a recent trip to Thailand. My best friend and I were on Phra Nang beach in Railay, Thailand which is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. We climbing up bamboo ladders in princess cave, dodging bats and looking out a hole in the cave towards the amazing beaches when I realized we only had 30 minutes until our fairy left. We sprinted out of the cave, across the beach, saying good by to our British friends along the way, to our $5 a night hostel, grabbed our bags, and made it to the long boat just in time. The best part is that we got almost all of it on camera!
Tell us something about you. Study, Interests…
I have always had a job since I was 16 when I started a lawncare, landcape company. After making 5 times what my friends were and loving dealing with all aspects of the business I was hooked on being an entrepreneur. I went to The University of Tennessee where I studied Finance and Marketing. During college I worked for several start-up companies doing Internet marketing. I used this variety of experiences to land an internship in Silicon Valley and get into Vanderbilt’s MBA program. Now, besides studying finance/entrepreneurship and running MyCollegeRoadTrip I spend almost all of my free time traveling myself. The intersection of travel and business is where my passions lie, so I hope to continue to pursue that after I finish my MBA in May 2010.
