About Us, Our Travels Through the Years

... And how WE came to write a website about traveling the world.

The "Us" in about us would be Judy and Mark.

You've read about Our Travel Roots. That tells you a lot about us.

Our passion has always been travel.

Some people define themselves by their jobs or their children. We define ourselves through our travels.

We both still work, so our travel time is limited by time off from work and money. Fortunately, through the years, the airline industry paid Mark more in time off than in money. My schedule as a dental hygienist was flexible and my patients always ask where I've been since they were in last!

We keep telling you that we're not travel agents, but to make things easier for you, we've affiliated with some great partner companies that can help you search, compare and book your travel.

Trip Advisor is one of our favorites because you can read reviews from other travelers AND compare and book. 25+ Million Users Trust TripAdvisor With Their Travel Plans. Shouldn't You?

On our Travel Roots page I told you that we started our travels with a trip to Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

With a start like that there was no need to be timid about travel in the future. We traveled whenever we could carve out enough time and save up enough money. People would ask if we took a trip a year.... well, yes, we did take a trip a year, or two or three or four as time and money would allow. None of them were long, long trips because we were still working... but we traveled often!

Friends and family started telling us that they couldn't keep up with our travels... so after many years I started writing year end retrospectives about us and our travels and sending them out at New Year. I've kept them through the years, and I decided to post them for you so you can see how our travel years went. Read the last couple of years here:

• 2007 Travels:
  Australia, Hungary & Slovakia; Ohio; Berlin & Prague
  
• 2008 Travels:
  Arizona; Georgia; Jordan; Madagascar
  
• I never got a page up on our 2009 travels, so we'll skip that for now and go straight to...
  
• 2010 Travels:
  Tunisia, The Baltics & France, Iceland, and the Amazon & Easter Island
  
• 2011 Travels:
  Panama, Romania, Bulgaria, South Africa and Mozambique
  
• 2012 Travels:
  The Trans-Siberian Railway, Netherlands, Cyprus and Malta

Actually I started writing those travel summaries when we got to the computer age here in Silicon Valley... not that I was ever really computer savvy, just that people I knew worked in computers. Then came the internet... Yes, we traveled before the internet! Wow, has it gotten easier to get information now.

For years after that, friends told us we should have a website. I resisted because I AM a techo-weenie. I couldn't see learning to write "html code". Pixels meant nothing to me. But I did want to write. I had tried writing a book in the early computer years before the internet. It was an interesting little novel that never got published.

I kept thinking there had to be a way to make money and travel. I tried my hand at writing travel articles for magazines. I even got a few published. There were rounds of queries and then rushing to get the submission in... never knowing if or when it would be published. It felt like writing a last minute term paper, and I found the magazines didn't pay all that well. Never mind the ego-bruising rejections!

We still wanted to find a way to make a living at what we did. Sure Mark still works for an airline, but we want to retire and travel more.

So finally, I yielded to the badgering of my friends and decided to try my hand at a website. BUT HOW TO START?

One friend offered to teach me that dreaded "code".... then another friend told me to take a look at SBI. You can have a look at their Video Tour to get an idea of how it works. (Take the Quick Tour if you're on dial up.)

SBI is shorthand for Site Build it! This great company helps you turn your passion or hobby into a real online business. It's amazing to me that almost any topic can make money with a website! Have a look at all the different ways regular people are using SBI.... There are hundreds of successful SBI websites.

Now world travel isn't exactly a tight little niche, but it's what I wanted to write about... about us and our travels.

There are lots of BIG players in this niche.... travel books, travel magazines, tour companies and booking companies. But to my surprise I started to make a little money once I got a few pages up. People really did find my little site with the help of SBI. And believe me, if I can build a website, anyone can!

Make a living doing what you love? We're beginning to, and you can too. It's obvious that our passion is travel, but you can do what we've doing with any hobby, skill or area of expertise.

You don't need to "learn code" or programming or webdesign. You don't need to have a business or a product to sell (though SBI is perfect if you do). They teach you step by step how to build a successful website and how to use all the tools they include. You can even get free books here that will teach you everything you need to know....

I'm not saying it wasn't a lot of work getting our pages written..... but writing about us was fun, and we sure had a ball doing the "research" -- read that doing the traveling! And doing what you love doesn't really feel like work...

Like here when I was catching up on a page while we were hydrofoiling on the Danube from Budapest to Bratislava.

You can do it in your spare time at first like we have. You can set your own pace. I was so timid that it's taken us three years to get to this point. You can move as slow or as fast as you want. Why not take a tour of SBI right now and see just how easy it is to get started.

I love quoting Mark Twain. Here's one to think about...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things that you didn't do
than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover."

So that's about all I can tell you at the moment about us. Happy travels... even if you don't travel the world... just remember that life is a journey... embrace and enjoy it!   Judy and Mark

Go from About Us to Our Travel Roots Page
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Use one of the handy "share this page" buttons below. Thanks, Judy and Mark