Quest Network Blue Zones - Nick Buettner, Executive Producer

Blue Zones - Quest for the true fountain of youth

Nick Buettner, Executive Producer

Co-creater of the Quests
Produced 15 Quests around the world
Led educational expeditions for two Minnesota governors
Developed videoconference series for the Minnesota Shubert Performing Arts Center
President, Flying Pencil Productions
Distinguished Alumni from Mounds View High School
Dolly Buettner's (Dan's Mother) favorite son. At least I think so.

Some of my best memories as a kid are of hiking in Wyoming and camping in the Boundary Waters with my father and three brothers. It was the beginning of my lifelong love for travel.

I started my first job at age ten, selling newspaper subscriptions door to door through the streets of Minneapolis. This allowed me to take more trips. If I sold enough subscriptions, I would receive a free trip to such places as Hawaii, Florida, and Arizona. It was a great way to see things that I could never have otherwise seen such as volcanoes, deserts, and Disney World. I kept that job all through high school.

After I graduated from college in 1995, I immediately helped co-create MayaQuest with my brothers Dan and Steve. In Central America my role on the trip was, I believe, the most exciting. While everyone had specific tasks, I got to do a little of everything. My jobs included helping with video, photography, and technology, fixing bikes, editing updates, and meeting with government officials.

My favorite memory is from Honduras, where we watched an archaeologist unearth a corpse that had died over 1000 years ago! We were told that the corpse was a guard who died as a gesture to his god. I can still picture the jewelry and treasures around him as the archaeologist unearthed his corpse.

Blue Zones Central America will be my 14th expedition, and I will focus on the production of the Expedition as well as being responsible for getting the live reports, videos, and photography back to the Web site from a remote location in Central America. That is always a challenge!

What excites me about these trips is the opportunity to learn about other cultures. Everywhere I've traveled has been different---the foods, the size of the cities, the houses where people live, their workdays, their schools, and much more. These experiences have helped me to learn a little more about myself and about the world we live in.

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