I became aware of my wanderlust through family road trips to national parks and opportunities to see southeast Asia and Europe during my late teens. My fascination with people and cultures led me to an undergraduate degree in anthropology, and eventually a Ph.D. in geography. In the late 1980s, I accepted a faculty position at a major state university. While I value solid classroom teaching, travel taught me that there is no substitute for firsthand experience.
In 1994, I began organizing and leading field-based courses to U.S. national parks, and later, excursions to Cuba, Morocco, and more than a dozen European countries.
These experiences, coupled with research and outreach trips, have taken me to five continents and more than 80 countries. At least some of these journeys wouldn’t have happened without support from friends and others who had visited places before me. In 2024, I developed RestlessGeographer.com with the goal of encouraging others to travel to lesser known and out of the way places.
