Roadtrip: Atlanta, Savannah, and Florida Coast

I leave tomorrow on one of the coolest business trips for PCMag.com: Fastest Mobile Networks.

Here's the 30-second summary: PCMag.com does independent testing of mobile ("cellular") service providers across the continental United States by sending analysts out to drive across the country while collecting data samples.

This year, three cars are covering the east, central, and west. Nine people will take turns driving tag-team style (three people per region) so that no one person has to coverage too much ground.

My route this year starts in Atlanta, where I'll be meeting East driver no. 2, Jim. He'll have just traveled from Baltimore to Washington D.C. to Charlotte, all the way to Georgia. Lucky me, he's taking the data samples in Atlanta, so my work will be all but done by the time I arrive.

The real beauty of this trip, for me and the other food lovers who get the opportunity to participate, is I get one week of road trip eating on a $50 per diem. Last year, I had the honor of participating, too, and my food sampling ranged from Lebanese kofte at Yasmeen Bakery in Dearborn, Mich., to a solo dinner at one of Pittsburgh's hottest restaurants, Nine on Nine (order the chicken livers), to the vege/flexi-tarian Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca (an oddly outdated restaurant), to an upscale Afghani restaurant in Boston, The Helmand.

This year, I'm looking forward to eating a raw beef tartare "burger" with a fried egg on top, drinking a Cap'n'Crunch milkshake on the recommendation of a friend (thanks, Nads!), finding some roasted piggy bits on a beach off the coast of Savannah, finding some restaurant without a children's menu in Jacksonville, Fla. (I double-dog dare you to try and find one online), and feasting on a mess load of sushi in Miami.

And, being the thoroughly modern writer that I am, you can follow me and hear about where I am in real time on Twitter. Just look for the #FMNEast tag on tweets starting tomorrow evening (May 16, 2012).