I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

The Amateur Traveler episode 783. Today the amateur traveler talks about wine and

cliffs, hikes and trains, beaches, and rail bikesikes as we go to the Mendocino coast of California.

Welcome to the amateur traveler. I'm your host Chris Christensen. Let's talk about

Mendocino. I'd like to welcome the show Brooke Herron, who is a digital marketing

strategist in the wine industry and she blogs at local food and drink marketing

and she's come to talk to us about Mendocino.

Brooke, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Chris.

I just want to add a note that local food and drink marketing is my business,

like my day job, and then I also have a travel blog at a different kind of

travel.com. Excellent. Which is sort of like my side passion hobby which is why I'm

here. And we talk about Mendocino. I don't think everyone who isn't my age has heard about, for instance, we used to talk about the wine area in California as Napa Sonoma and Mendocino.

I feel like Mendocino has kind of slipped off that list a bit.

We don't talk about it necessarily as much, but we are talking about Northern California

to put it on the map.

But what's your connection with Mendocino?

Okay, so a couple things.

One, you are correct.

People don't really talk about Mendocino wine or wine country,

mostly because they've done a very good job of branding and

...