I became a travel consultant in 1973 when my family wanted to travel to the National Parks and I couldn't find anyone knowledgeable in this area. Consequently, after much research and visiting most of the national parks west of the Mississippi over a 10 year span, I became fascinated with travel and research and became a travel consultant. Since then I have traveled to all 7 continents, visiting over 100 countries, and hundreds of hotels. My very first cruise was in 1958, long before the cruise industry became what it is today, on an old wooden "cruise ship", the SS Florida. That was the start of my love of cruising and I have now been on probably 50 cruises, cruising almost every region of the world.