ABOUT ME

I’m a retired Ophthalmologist.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, and went on to Stanford Medical School. I chose Ophthalmology as a specialty and practiced in San Jose for 25 years.

The Travel Bug took its first bite out of me during my internship in 1975. I hadn’t seen much of the world up until that point – Hawaii, Mexico, New England to interview for residency – so I decided that the time had come to get a better look. My first impulse was to plan a few weeks in Europe like everybody else.

I figured that Athens would be a good place to turn around. But I kept studying the map and it wasn’t long before I noticed that Cairo was only a short flight south of Athens. Why not include Egypt? And what about East Africa – easily accessed from Cairo? And why return by the same route? What started as a three week trip to Europe, ended up being a 5 month around-the-world extravaganza.

Four years later, after my residency, we made a similar global circumnavigation – this time in the opposite direction through the Southern Hemisphere. Those trips basically set the tone for the rest of my life. I have had to dust off my passport at least 3 times a year since then and I currently still find myself on the road at least that often.

I have traveled to more than 150 countries in all parts of the world, many of them multiple times.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve become something of a specialist in long, multi-stop flying itineraries some of which I will cover in future posts. I’ve always been interested in Photography and ran a photography company for about 10 years. I still maintain a big, online photography presence.

I currently live in Santa Cruz, California with my wife, Joan and my Pug, Buddy. We decided to move here about 2 years ago to be near our daughter, Jamie, who’s husband works in the area, and our new grandson, Connor. To say that we decided to move is a bit misleading. My wife actually insisted that we move. She had never been more than a few miles from Jamie and now, with the new baby, there was simply no other option. I have no doubt that she would have abandoned me if I failed to cooperate.