I got the travel bug when I was 17 and was fortunate enough to join a group of high school students for a two-month art history and history tour of 11 countries throughout Europe. While in high school, I was also bitten by the photography bug and worked as a teacher’s assistant for two years in our school photography classes, then pursued photography through college as an elective credit, while pursuing my majors in Advertising and English Literature.

During my junior year, I attended college abroad spending a semester in Avignon, France, through the American Heritage Scholastic Program. Then following my semester studying everything French, I traveled for several months throughout Europe. This experience of living in France and traveling through Europe triggered my obsession to travel at every opportunity I could. But the challenge of developing and managing a career and working for a living–and traveling–often seemed at odds with each other. Plus, there was the reality of saving enough money to travel, not just for one or two weeks, but travel for an extended period of time to absorb as much about a place as possible. So I promised myself extended backpacking trips for up to a year or more, in every decade of my life. Well, that is, until I got married, bought a house, remodeled the house, started a business, started rescuing abandoned and homeless cats, and finally settled down.

During all four college years, I worked my way through college as a photographer working for a local photography studio in Seattle shooting photos of weddings, receptions, sorority and fraternity dances, family portraits and engagements. After graduating, I worked for four years saving enough to buy Nikon camera equipment and take a year off between jobs to backpack throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Returning to the states, I held photography exhibitions of my work in Seattle’s public spaces including the Seattle Library, the University of Washington, the Bellevue Public Library, and several large corporate office building gallery spaces.

In my late 30s/early 40s, I traveled again for 1.5 years throughout Southeast and Central Asia, Nepal, Australia, Turkey and Greece–some 12 countries. Then in my mid 50s, I started traveling again, every year for 3-4 weeks, this time revisiting and focusing on Europe.

I have always loved travel and experiencing new cultures, traditions, landscapes, and people and capturing all through the photographic lens. Each place I encounter always offers its own unique beauty, the magic that makes it different from everywhere else.

I created this site as a personal photography website to document my travels and showcase my photos, but also to hopefully inspire others to travel more, get out of comfort zones, appreciate other cultures, learn how others live, and create memories for a lifetime.