Born and raised in California's Inland Empire, my interest in travel & culture started at an early age growing up in the high desert city of Barstow. I spent my primary years reading National Geographic, engaged in boy scouts, civil air patrol, model rocketry, desert campouts and the A.M.E. Church. I studied journalism at Barstow College and won a national essay contest that posed the question. Who's the most important African-American contributor of the late 20th Century?
