Traveling Tad

WhO is tad?

I was born in Sidney, Nebraska and spent my first 16 years on a farm out in the middle of nowhere in Northeastern Colorado tucked away close to the Nebraska border outside of the town of Peetz, Colorado.  When I was 16 years old I moved with my Mom to Northern California to Placerville, California where I finished High School.  It was a big change for me going from school in Peetz where there were 5 people in my class to El Dorado High School in Placerville where there were over 200 people.  I ended up thriving and enjoying El Dorado High School .  Years later my Mom said after she dropped me off for the first day of school, 10th grade mind you, she sat in the car and cried (HA!).  After high school I went to Junior College at Sierra College in Rocklin, California outside of Sacramento and then went on to California State University, Sacramento and graduated with a B.A. Degree in Communication Studies.  I stayed in Sacramento for a year after graduating and then moved to San Diego for some fun in the sun.  It was in San Diego that I started in and continued to work in the software industry in a variety of rolls from Technical Support, Account Management and Project/Program Management.  I lived in San Diego for 20 years prior to moving back to Colorado because of family.  In April of 2017 I quit my job and have been traveling and exploring the world since.

How did He catch the travel bug?

I remember my Dad telling stories about being in the Army and stationed in Germany.  This was the first I think I realized there was a much bigger world out there than just Colorado.  In 4th grade we were given an assignment to get a pen pal Of course this was back when everything was handwritten and more personal.  My pen pal was Mike Johansen from Copenhagen Denmark.  We wrote consistently from 4th grade up until 12 grade and he even came for a brief visit the summer after high school graduation.  Unfortunately, we lost touch after that.  The experience of having a pen pal in a faraway land and my friend Jennifer Reinhardt being an exchange student in South Africa for a year was enough be very interested in learning more about the world.  The first time I had traveled outside of the United States was my senior year of college when my friend Paul-David and I went to Paris, France.  I'm 100% sure I had no clue as to what I was doing, but we survived the trip!  It was many years later that I took my next trip abroad to Costa Rica.  From then on I've tried to keep my travel calendar full.

Where has he been?

In no particular order other than the order the countries came into my brain:  France, Costa Rica, Argentina, Thailand, United Kingdom, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Monaco, Scotland, Wales, Serbia, Sweden, The Netherlands, The Vatican, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Belize, Canada, Mexico, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, Austria, Czech Republic, Mauritius, Australia, Switzerland.

I have a LOT more exploring to do to cover the rest of the world!