Your Dream Concierge's Secrets of Locating More Mansions and Estates You Can Visit

Good morning, Live Better than a Billionaire-a-Holics!

Are you feeling motivated this morning? I certainly hope so. I know that I am!

I am still waiting to hear from a mansion or estate owner who would like me to spend a few days in their home so that I can write about the experience for you. I had assumed that some estate and mansion owners were in the process of selling properties, had moved out and would be glad for a little free publicity. But so far, I've heard from no one. I guess the real estate bubble hasn't burst yet for mansions and estates. I know that in our town it takes three times as long to sell a mansion as it does to sell an ordinary home. On a ten million dollar home, the extra interest earned from selling three months sooner would be worth $100,000. That seems to be like a good incentive to have me as a guest!

Perhaps some enterprising real estate agent will contact me about this sort of an opportunity. My bags are packed and I'm ready to go!

A number of people have written to compliment me on the skill of my staff in putting together the research behind these blog entries. I take that as a personal compliment because I employ no staff to work on the blog. It's just little ole me researching and sharing these insights.

Perhaps now is a good time to pull aside the curtain being used by Your Dream Concierge to show you how easy it is to find what you are looking for. Like the Wizard of Oz, you'll find I'm just an ordinary man with some levers I can pull . . . that you can use as well.

Let me reconstruct for you how I created the research for past blog entries on mansions and estates. For the entries on May 17-18 and June 13, I simply drew on my own experience. By reading those entries, you have access to that same information.

For July 11, I started with my own experience and simply visited www.google.com and entered "Newport, Rhode Island Mansions" which led me to www.gonewport.com/.

For July 20, I used www.gonewport.com, which led me to the rest.

For July 25, I used personal experience with Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes and supplemented that with www.nationaltrust.org/.

For July 28, I started with the list of museums at www.aam-us.org/ and searched for the ones in New York City to see which ones were in mansions.

For August 1, I started with mansions I knew about and searched the web using www.google.com again.

For August 19, I did something new. I started with a theme, U.S. women authors, and did a google search to find a list of such authors. Once I had that list, I checked for homes by searching for each author by name and their home, "name of author's home". In a few cases, nothing came up, and I also did a search on the author's name which turned up that there was a museum in the author's home.

You can start with a theme, a locale, or a type of home. Your search will turn up what you're looking for from there.

You may have other ideas. I'm far from an expert on Web searches. Please share your suggestions in a comment so that others can learn from you.

In future blog entries, I'll take my search for mansions and estates you can visit outside the U.S. The methods needed to search will undoubtedly be different there. After I find out more about the best ways to proceed, I'll do another blog entry about the processes I find that work.

Please do share your own experiences about great mansions and estates you've visited. I look forward to learning from you and sharing the information with all this blog's many regular readers.

Tomorrow, I will describe how you can organize an ideal trip to the western United States to see the best sights and sites that most others miss.

Wednesday, we'll explore how you can enjoy foreign travel without spending much money.

Thursday, I'll look at providing child care for your family that's both great quality and affordable.

Friday, I will discuss ways you can use books from the library to improve the quality of your life.

Saturday, we'll take a walk together to look into the easiest, cheapest ways to enjoy healthy exercise.

Sunday, I'll look at the spiritual benefits of weight control.

Next Monday, we'll look into how teaching can make you smarter than a billionaire on five dollars extra a day.

Next Tuesday, let's consider ways to prepare for spending less on costly heating this winter now that oil prices are going through the roof.

Next Wednesday, I'll look more closely at how to prepare for the college football season.

Please let me know what else you would like to learn, and I'll do my best to help in future blog entries.

If you are new to this blog, be sure to check out the updated table of contents entry that was posted on August 17. It will help you find earlier entries that may be of interest. I'll update this table of contents every week or so for your convenience.

August 17 was the most frequently read blog entry to date. Be sure to check it out!

Thanks so much for your support of this blog. I'm delighted that so many thousands of people have made this blog part of their regular reading habit!

If you like this blog, please let others know who might also enjoy it.

Thank you to my many friends, students, clients and blog readers who are spreading the good word about this blog.

If you are visiting today because someone invited you, I'm delighted to meet you! Let's stay in touch.

May God bless you.

Donald W. Mitchell, Your Dream Concierge

Copyright 2005 Donald W. Mitchell