musings from a retired tour operator…

This site is purely a lark - a place to preserve some of my trip journals and share a few photos from our travels. I hope you enjoy this view into my world and 30 years as a tour operator!

who’s Marco

I became a tour operator almost by accident. If 21 year old me had stuck to my plan I’d have been an architect. Instead, after three years of community college, and 3 majors, I ditched California for Washington with the intention of establishing residency and studying architecture at UW. Meanwhile I worked in the photo department of a department store and thought not a wit about applying to UW. Instead I had the opportunity to travel to South America for 7 months, visiting all but 2 countries, and I never looked back!

I’m jumping ahead though. I’m told my first international trip was to Mexico when I was still in diapers! I got heat stroke. Later there were annual month-long family summer vacations, usually spent driving around the southwestern states. Then when I was 15 we spent the summer in London and I got a taste of European budget travel. At 16 I was driving a giant truck & camper around Mexico on the annual family vacation. At 21 I took my first solo trip, to New York, where I squeezed in 9 broadway shows during a 7-night stay.

Later, with my husband Mike, we would spend most of a year living in the UK. That really kick-started us on our international travels. We had more time than money so our travels were independent and on a budget. Along the way my restaurant job morphed into being an event/wedding planner. Then, at 35, the restaurant closed… so I left for Ecuador to finally learn Spanish in an intensive program. I skipped a week of classes to play hooky on a budget tour to the Galápagos Islands. Back in California it was time to find a job again, and that’s when I stumbled across a newspaper want ad (remember those?) from a company called Galapagos Travel. I had none of the requirements of the job, but I was also the only candidate who’d actually been to the Galapagos. I started 2 days later!

Right from the start I was a mixture of thorn in the side, and blessing, to the original owner. Unwilling from the start to be an office assistant I kept taking on more tasks till eventually we bought him out! Mike’s and my own travels occasionally turned into new offerings from Galapagos Travel: Cuba, Midway Atoll, Papua New Guinnea, Easter Island… Now, 30 years later we keep traveling but no longer under the banner of Galapagos Travel. Retirement is good!