'Car, bike, three weeks' worth of clothes, tools, rice cooker, Scrabble board game set, pillow and "The Joy of Cooking,"' says Seth Lester, 26, of the belongings he will take on his planned coffee shop tour across the country starting in July.

Lester has worked in many Raleigh coffee shops over the past five years and now works at Morning Times. He typically visits two or three coffee shops a day to socialize and take in the atmosphere.

On Wednesday morning he was at Third Place. 'Coffee is not the reason I got into coffee,' he says. 'When I worked at Third Place I built friendships with the regulars. I discovered that you can meet a lot of folks this way.'

Connecting with people and learning an area through their eyes is the main inspiration for Lester's tour. 'I also want to build my coffee skills and compose an online coffee database,' he says.

Lester, who has always lived in Raleigh, says, 'I thought I'd dissolve my wanderlust now before I turn 30.' He expects the tour will take more than two years and has set the rule of 'not staying more than eight weeks in one place' to keep himself moving.

'I want to at least make it to Seattle,' he says.

He will start his first job at Mudhouse in Charlottesville, Va., in July.

He will write about his journey at his blog, americanotogo.com.