About Rob and Joan


Hi!  Welcome to Travels With Robby!  We are Rob and Joan, a married couple (retired for seven years) with an unquenchable thirst for travel.   Using only our carry-on bags (no matter how long the trip), we have visited six continents and 56 countries - and our list of places still to be discovered keeps growing!
Joan and Rob on our latest adventure - an African safari in Kenya and Tanzania

Travels With Robby is a personal journal of our travels.  We started the blog as a way to preserve our own memories and to share our adventures with friends and family.  But over the years, Travels With Robby has gained readers around the world who share our love of travel.

On this blog, you will find stories and lots of photos about the places we've visited, the people we've met, the lessons we've learned along the way.  Travels With Robby won't change your life or help your relationships, but it will give you some tidbits about history, culture, geography - and some great inspiration for planning the itinerary for a great trip!

Rob's international travels started early in life!  He was born on the beautiful island of Bermuda but moved to his childhood home in New Jersey when he was four years old. Rob was a track star at Tenafly High School, being awarded the honor of All County Track and Field in the 220-yard dash by the Bergen Record.  He was inducted into the Tenafly Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001.  He attended and graduated from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ where he was co-captain of the track team and holds the school record in the 100-yard dash.  He was also inducted into the Rutgers Athletic Hall of Fame.  After college, Rob worked in the high-power, high-stress corporate world of Manhattan for a time, but after visiting California in his early twenties, the Jersey Boy became a California Dreamer.  He returned to New York, packed his bags, and moved west.  Rob worked full-time during the day and put himself through law school at night.  He retired in 2014 after a 32-year career as a real estate and business law attorney.

Joan is a fifth generation California girl.  Because of her father's career as a petroleum engineer, she moved frequently throughout her childhood, but her first international travel was with the Education Abroad Program with the University of California, Santa Barbara when she lived for a year in the spectacular country of Norway.  This opportunity sparked her wanderlust, but travel dreams were set aside for a while during Joan's working years as a busy mom, middle school English and history teacher, and curriculum specialist.   Those dreams were revived again when she and Rob met (online!) in 1998.  From 2002 to 2018, Joan served on the board of the California Association for the Gifted, and is an active member of Central Coast Writers, a chapter of the California Writers Club.

We have a "blended family" of five grown children and seven grandchildren scattered on both coasts of the U.S.  We recently lost both of our "at-home" members of Maggie, our dog who reached the grand old age of 18, and Scamper, our sweet 14 year-old kitty.  They kept us laughing every day, and we miss them terribly.  

Our mutual love of travel (and of our shared Scottish ancestry) brought us together, and we have been happily exploring the world ever since.  Our philosophy is "Life is short - Have dessert first!" so we made a vow to make travel a priority.

We would love to know about our readers!  We hope you will subscribe to Travels With Robby, follow along on our adventures, and leave your comments and questions at the end of the blog posts you enjoy.

For a more "traditional" blog, with short travel stories and tips taken from our travels, we hope you will also visit "Travels With Robby 2."  You will find this blog at Travels With Robby 2 - Our Best Adventures.












No comments: