Ever travel to a foreign country just to meet someone from your hometown?  Last year I headed to a travel blogger’s conference in Dublin where I struck up a conversation a woman who was also there from Los Angeles. (This is when someone usually utters the requisite “what a small world” comment.) We decided to meet up not long after we got back to Los Angeles and we had to time it right because enviably this woman owns her own location independent business and makes the highly intelligent decision to live in the south of France for months at a time.  Now folks, that’s how you run a business!

During our first catch up stateside, she told me about her love for all things sports related. Basketball. Football. The other football. And Formula 1 which she’d grown to love while studying abroad in Monaco.  I mentioned that I’d never been to a Formula 1 race before and that I didn’t know the first thing about it. And with that her eyes lit up and she went into all the amazingness that is Formula 1. The sights, the sounds, the adrenaline, the competition. International locations filled with well-healed and excitement-filled race fans. The late night parties, the festive atmosphere and the hair raising roar of the car engines.  All that taking place in some of the most glamourous cities of the world? I was sold.  By the end of the evening she promised to send me a listing of the 19 F1 races to take place this year so we could figure out which one to go to.< Some locations were easy to rule out: Austin, TX is a great city but my first F1 race cannot be domestic, and though I'd love to see the Monaco Grand Prix, I gave that one a go since my friend has been to that one a few times. So going through a complicated calculation of race schedules, our schedules, cities we've not been to before and race tracks vs. street courses we ended up choosing...SINGAPORE.

So come September I’m off to my first visit to Singapore and my first Formula 1 Grand Prix. Hopefully not the last time for either of those events.  So for anyone who has any Singapore travel advice or F1 spectator advice, PLEASE give this newbie a hand and leave a comment below.