CURRENT MISSION
After a teaching career that began in 1997, I retired on June 2, 2023! Full time travel has begun! (Gen still has to work, however, but we are always traveling together during school holidays). We will be unable to host between September 21, to early November, 2023. We will be somewhere outside of the USA (Craig is currently traveling in Europe).

**WE WILL PROBABLY NOT HOST ANYONE WHO HAS NEVER BEEN A HOST.

ABOUT ME
I've now been married for 25+ years to my best friend and travel partner, Gen. I love to travel and have been doing so since my first trip on a solo adventure as a 17 year old across the northeast of the U.S and Canada. Nowadays my trips primarily focus around birding. Gen and I have spent a total of 7 years as Peace Corps Volunteers (Philippines, Cameroon, Guinea, Zambia, Guyana, and Uganda) and we've had plenty of time to explore remote corners of West, Southern and East Africa, Guyana and the Philippines.

PHILOSOPHY
I like nice/friendly people!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING
We have hosted both couch surfers and travelers participating in Warm Showers (people traveling by bicycle). We enjoy meeting people from around the world. We travel often and like to meet locals, and Couchsurfing is a great way to do this. We hope to be guests more often, but after several attempts to find hosts, this appears MUCH more difficult than expected.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE
We have hosted several CSers from all over the world at our tiny apartment in San Francisco and we had two awesome experiences being hosted when we went to Australia in 2013!! Craig has couch-surfed in the Netherlands with the first person we ever hosted and with the Italian couple we hosted last year and our guests from Istanbul. AWESOME!!

Interests

Traveling, Hiking/Camping, Cycling, Birding, Skiing, Reading, Flying, and Wildlife Photography, birding, birdwatching, bird watching. I will be in Europe in late 2023 -2024 and hope to ski and watch several football matches.

• wildlife
• culture
• photography
• cooking
• flying
• traveling
• socializing
• hiking
• camping
• skiing
• american football
• rugby
• volunteering
• football
• birding
• birdwatching
• buffalo new york

Music, Movies, and Books

I watch A LOT of movies...but not much into sci fi or horror. Big Van Halen, AC/DC, John Mellencamp, and Huey Lewis fan! Gen reads a book a day...mostly historical romance. She also likes foreign films.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Christmas Day, 2007 outside a village 15 kilometers from where we were living as Peace Corps Volunteers in Guinea, West Africa...after 10 months of searching, Craig found his first positive evidence that wild chimpanzees lived in the area. 2 days later, he returned to camp in the area for a few days. That same day, he saw his first wild chimp!!

Teach, Learn, Share

We're interested in any local culture, whether it be language, cooking, life styles, etc.

What I Can Share with Hosts

30+ years of travel stories, filipino cooking, and laughter.

Countries I’ve Visited

Afghanistan, Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Laos, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, San Marino, Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay, Vatican City State, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Countries I’ve Lived In

Argentina, Cameroon, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Philippines, Uganda, United States, Zambia