Taking off on Tam’s Travels!

My first post on Travels with Tam on May 22, 2013….and, oh, the places I have been!

I love to travel.  I am an addicted scuba diver, underwater photographer, marine conservation geek, and I love to take pictures of my fishy friends.  I love my fellow land animals as well.  Our natural world is an amazing, magical place, and I want to see every inch of it!  I enjoy traveling just about anywhere, even if I cannot dive.  New places, new people, new animals, new scenery are irresistible.  I have been asked by friends and family, why don’t you write a book or post a blog about all of your trips?    I have kept journals, and even blogged on some trips, and I post my photos on Facebook, but I have thought about doing a travel blog. I love to write and to journal about everything so I can keep it fresh.  Even as a child I loved to travel, loved animals, people, nature and history.

I travel for interest, pleasure, business, and I enjoy every trip and new adventure.  I am a history buff as well, and included in this blog will be International trips, dive trips, college…any trips, really.  If it interests me, I know there are others out there who will be interested as well.  I travel alone, with my spouse, Randy, with my children (twenty-somethings), or with friends.  One of the enduring jokes about me is that I have “fallen on every continent”.  Well, that is not quite true, I have not been to Antarctica, or Australia….but I have fallen on all the others.  I have always been the type of person who cannot seem to stay out of trouble…interesting things do happen to me.  I have taken quite a few spectacular falls….I think family and friends want me to document my trips so they can have a written version to laugh at.  I am also an empty nester, and now is my time to travel, to challenge myself, and to undertake new endeavors.  This blog is one of them.  I confess I am not lamenting the fact that my children have grown up, I am happy for them and happy they are starting their adult lives.  As much as I loved that chapter of my life, it is now closed, and I am happy to start on the new chapter.  My priorities are dive, dive, travel, dive, travel and dive!

I find it very difficult to stay in one spot for long; we own a home in Cozumel, Mexico, and we are very often there.  My underwater photography serves as my Dive Log.  (We also lease our villa to vacationers, so visit us at www.vrbo.com/368692. Cozumel is one of the best dive spots in the world!).  I had to get that plug in there!

I think I will start Travels with Tam with my Photos and Journal of our first trip to Africa.  We traveled to South Africa, Sabi Sabi in Kruger Park, Victoria Falls where we did Lion Encounters, and Chobe in Botswana to see elephants and hippos.  Cape Town and environs was a special ending to our trip (especially Boulder Beach, see post photo!).  In May 2009, my daughter, Alexandra, graduated from college, and my son, Wes, graduated from high school.  And yes, I know it looks like it should be the other way around, but Wes is the younger!  My husband and I decided to take them on a “trip of a lifetime” adventure to celebrate…we have returned to Africa and certainly plan to go back, and we have continued to enjoy “trips of a lifetime” (all trips are trips of a lifetime to me!)    I hope you enjoy my adventures, trials, and (more than) occasional tribulations!