International Travelogues

For six of the last seven years that I worked for IBM I was assigned to the Information Technology Audit Group. This audit function was a 100% traveling job and had responsibility for auditing organizations that had responsibility for the security of internal systems and networks. I joined this group in February 1993 for what was to be a three year assignment. However, realizing that we would again be making a trip to Tokyo, which is one of my favorite places on the planet, I volunteered to extend my assignment for nine months to the end of 1996. I then returned to my previous department and a staff job. I never anticipated how much I would dislike sitting at a desk again after having traveled 100% for the prior four years. So I contacted the manager I worked for in Audit and asked if I could get back into the Audit organization. She went to bat for me and got me back in, although it took until April 1998 before I could rejoin the group, partly due to a loyalty I felt to the department I returned to after my first tour in Audit.

The second tour started in Germany and this time around I decided to start writing travelogues of our travels. Diane was then at a point that allowed her to travel with me very often, and eventually 100%, when I was out of the country, which was about half the year. I wrote the travelogues to share our adventures in other countries with family and some friends . The list grew over the two years that I worked in Audit prior to retiring in February 2000, which is when Diane and I implemented our longtime plan to join the full-time RV community. As we have traveled around the country over the past several years, folks who have learned that we did extensive traveling around the world showed an interest in the travelogues. I have also had requests from family and friends who wanted to reread them.  So I have decided to format them and put those travelogues up on our website for anyone who is interested in reading about travel adventures in other countries. They follow the same format as the travelogues I write for our RV travels.  However, I make no apologies  for any problems with tense or grammar, although I have spell checked them.  These travelogues were mostly written in the evenings after dinner when I was back in the hotel room and were sent out "as is".

As for the photos, we didn't own a digital camera during the time we were doing this traveling.  I was more interested in taking video of our travels and have over 45 hours of video that provide lots of good memories for us.  However, Diane always carried a small camera and took pictures that were developed the old fashioned way - on paper.  We now have a printer/scanner/copier, so the photos are scanned from these paper photos. 

International Travelogues Menu