John Bush and Catherine Bleish, together with their family, will drive across the US using only bitcoin.
Just like the recent experiment of Forbes editor Kashmir Hill, who spent a week living on bitcoin, now the family decided to follow suit.
John Bush and Catherine Bleish, grassroots activists, whose names are known in the bitcoin community, together with their self-called ‘Blush’ family have started a road trip across the United States.
During the journey, that began last week, they have used only bitcoin for making purchases. The family has already spent almost a week without using the fiat currency.
Called “Unconventional Living Tour”, the trip started in San Marcos in Texas and then they went to Washington to take part in the Bitcoin in the Beltway conference on Friday. Besides, the pair will visit Porcupine Freedom Festival (Porcfest) in New Hampshire and will also host a number of bitcoin meetings where they will film ‘Sovereign Living’, a five episodes documentary following the journey.
Next weekend, the Blush will come to New York City and will stay at the Holiday Inn in Brooklyn, the single hotel in the city that accepts the digital currency. The family will be interviewed by various publications including Fox News. On Monday in New York City the family will give their interviews on radio, television and other media and will tell about their unconventional journey and will discuss the benefits of the digital currency.
“This is the first time a family with children has done anything close to this,” said Bleish. “What started as a small hair-brained idea has blown up into something really exciting for our family and the Bitcoin community. We are thrilled to show the practical side of the the digital currency and encourage others to use Bitcoin in their everyday lives.”
Bleish mentioned that they used various bitcoin services such as Gyft, the leading gift card provider and eGifter. For hotels bookings they used globalhotelcard.com and Expedia, while to pay for gas they used a service called CoinFueled.
By the way, she noted that it is rather hard to plan a bitcoin-only journey: “It’s hard, it’s taken a lot of pre-planning. I had to look at every single stop along the way and see what gas stations they had to make sure that we were buying the appropriate amount of gift cards for each gas station.”
For instance, there were Exxon gas stations at each stop when they were going to the northeast of the US, but there weren’t any stations when they were driving back. Still, there were BP stations.
Bleish said: “I want the world to know that it is possible to travel the country using bitcoin only. And it’s not only possible, but you can do it comfortably and take care of a family of four along the way.”
The Blush is keeping their blog during the journey, featuring all the events and bitcoin transactions.
Polina is an undergraduate student at Belarusian State Economic University (BSEU) where she is studying at the faculty of International Business Communication for a degree specializing in Intercultural Communication. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, music and travelling.
