Focus on the experience.
Leave the planning to me.
As the child of an airline pilot, I was navigating airports on my own for years before I could drive. At fifteen, my father set me loose on the streets of Paris, unaccompanied except by my younger brother, on my first trip to Europe — a real Gen-X latch-key kid, but with wings and a sophomore's basic understanding of French. Two years later, I was confident enough to take a month-long solo trip to Australia and New Zealand. A passion for exploring the world has been central to my being ever since. That's true even though I've spent more than thirty years building a career in graphic design — the last ten of them running my own studio, Carlton Creative.
That passion found fertile ground when I moved to Prague and then Warsaw during the years that part of Europe was reinventing itself after the Berlin Wall was breached. It got me out to villages and landscapes that most tourists never see, and into off-the-beaten-path (and often genuinely beaten-up) corners of the wider region, from Estonia down to Croatia — by bus, train, and the occasional hitched lift. Getting by on a shoestring budget when I was young taught me something I still believe: you don't need to spend a fortune to see the world well. I've never really let go of that math — a rental car will add way more to your travel experience than five-star turndown service and a welcome glass of bubbly.
The same instinct has carried me to all fifty states and six continents, including two trips circling the globe and one very memorable solo drive the length of Patagonia in a tiny Fiat with a rooftop tent. It's taken me by pedicab through Old Dhaka, on horseback through a South African game reserve, and landing in a small plane onto a glacier in Alaska — and, just ask my wife about the surprise 24-hour trip to Morocco in the middle of our first visit to Spain together.
People who know me always ask where I'm going next. Now it's your turn: where are you going next, and how can I help get you there?
My own TripAvisor travel map as of late 2026.
