I come from a long line of travelers. My grandmother went everywhere there is to go except Antarctica and that's only because people weren't allowed to go there in her day. My parents took our whole nine-kid family on yearly summer car vacations, inspiring my life-long love of road trips. They did their share of trips as a couple, too, traveling with the Mustang Camera Club to South America, the Middle East and many European destinations. As kids began to grow up and leave home, Mom and Dad started replacing them with foreign exchange students from Mexico, Sweden and the Philippines. That led me to spend a summer in Mexico and then a year as an AFS student in Italy's Piemonte region. More recently, my travels have included a year driving the perimeter of the U.S., three trips to Turkey with excursions to various European countries, and a week-long drive from Seattle to Texas.

The little guy on the camel is my dad pictured here with the rest of his family in Egypt in 1928 during their trip around the world.

I also read. As a long-time bookseller, I felt compelled to attach lists of suggested reading to what I have written. I've worked as the travel book buyer for Elliott Bay Book Company and I've spent the last five years working at Wide World Books & Maps where I have had to learn about maps and gear as well as keep current on all the latest travel guides and literature. In these lists, I've tried to stick to books that I have used or read myself so you're getting first-hand opinions here.

Over the last five years, I've written a number of travel-related articles for Wide World Books & Maps' e-newsletter and website. I've added a few of my favorites of those articles to this site as well. There's no particular vision to these articles. It's just a miscellaneous collection of topics travelers might find interesting.

And finally, I do other stuff. These pages don't really have anything to do with travel, but this is as good a place as any to park this information until they merit sites of their own.