Photo Credit: www.michigan.org

The top MUST SEE sites in Detroit! If you are here for a quick trip or a couple of days these are our recommendations! Detroit boasts wonderful history, architecture, music, art, a vibrant biking scene and of course some awesome food! Taste your way through the city and experience the culture, places and people that make Detroit so special! There’s never been a better time to visit!

RECAP OF TOP SITES:
Eastern Market
Dequindre Cut
Art Deco Building: Guardian Building
Art Deco Building: The Fisher Building
DIA: Detroit Institute of Arts
Belle Isle
Michigan Central Station
Packard Plant
Heidelberg Project
Slow Roll (Community Bike Ride)
Motown Museum
Ford Museum & Rouge Factory Tour

Time Stamp:

00:33 – Growing up, where the adventure begins
07:27 – Almost burned his home town and what he has learnt from it
24:42 – Met Jenny in Germany during an AIESEC internship but went our separate ways
40:08 – Met Jenny again for a roadtrip in Spain 6 years later
49:58 – Fired 50% of clients, live in Germany & Hong Kong with Jenny
56:52 – The entrepreneurial spirit: Just do it, Search-Test-Learn, Rinse & Repeat
1:02:25 – First Taste of Airbnb
1:04:20 – The First and Last Piña Colada in Phuket
1:06:19 – Why move to the US… and Detroit?
1:13:20 – The First impression of the city. How he learns about the city his way
1:25:04 – Jefferson Chalmers
1:27:09 – Our First House!
1:37:08 – OH SHIT! We have a house!
1:41:08-  First winter with no heat
1:42:53 – Looking Back… Surprise? Regret? Should others move here?

Are you planning a visit or maybe considering a move to Detroit? You should be! Or maybe you just want to see what insanity looks like. Our mission in this podcast is to have fun, keep it real, and make a few friends along the way while uncovering useful and entertaining things in our everyday lives. Expect a wide-range of topics from exploring Detroit to interviews with fascinating people to random conversations on topics we’re passionate about.

If you have ideas for future episodes, know of people we should interview, or have any feedback or question, please let us know. We are excited to hear from you and bring you along this rollercoaster ride of life!

At one point though, I can’t stop asking myself:

• Am I really always engaged in all these hours-long meetings?
• Do I deep down share the same excitement my sales manager seems to have, reaching our year end target?
• Do I learn new things that is relevant to me everyday (bare in mind one can always ‘learn’ something but relevance is the key), feeling energized and cannot wait to go back to work?

I guess the bottomline is this: Work takes up more than 10 of my waking hours a day (easily!), is what I am doing everyday worth my while? Do I love my life?

After much consideration and experimentation, And I traded my “bright-future” job for an ADVENTURE!

Being here in Detroit, I am living in a completely different universe: out of my comfort zone and away from my family & friends; a different world of social dynamics, culture & language; and I often find myself doing things that I’ve never thought of doing before. I’ve never even mowed a lawn before coming to the US and now I am doing renovation work here! There have been days that we needed clean up shit all day long after a sewer malfunction (no kidding!), our walls have literally melted down on us while repairing the plaster, our vacant property was broken into on multiple occasions (luckily not much was taken), and so many nights we have come home past midnight after being so focused on our work that we’ve forgotten to eat all day! Exhausted and hungry, there were moments when I thought – WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?

Fast forward a few months… 2 weeks ago we were part of a pilot shoot for a potential TV show. From our brief encounter with the tv host and renovation expert, we’ve learned so much more about our house! Our admiration grows every day for those who put their hearts, efforts and resources together to build this beautiful home that we are now the stewards of. And this time, I know we are doing something that’s worthwhile, not only on a personal level but also as part of something much bigger. It gets me really excited to bring a piece of history back to life and through which contributes to the rebirth of our beautiful neighborhood and the once great city of Detroit that is becoming great again.

In between juggling all our projects and renovation work, sometimes it’s easy to forget the bigger picture, seeing the setbacks more than the progress. But while I am writing this at our ‘branch office‘ (aka backyard office under a tree branch) under a beautiful blue sky, reaffirming what we are doing, I can say I am absolutely loving my life and living in the moment.

It has taken a lot of time and hard work to get here, but it all began with a leap of faith.