The Traveling IT Director

Meet Your City Employee

World Traveler
by Bill Chambers, IT Director

While growing up in remote logging camps in Southeast Alaska in the 1960s and 1970s, I learned to read and rely on maps at a young age. Maps were essential for finding the best fishing spots, and for finding the way home! With no radio, TV, phones, or gadgets to distract, I learned to love exploring the world through the one ragged atlas we owned.

Other than driving through two Canadian provinces to get into and out of Alaska, I had not traveled outside of the US until I was in my mid-twenties. The first trip was to Cozumel, Mexico with my partner. We had recently earned our SCUBA certifications in the cold waters of Prince William Sound and had read that the Yucatan Peninsula was a great place to dive (and much warmer in January).

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Bill in his "dry suit" just before the first open water dive in Prince William Sound, November 1987

We spent months saving up for the airfare from Anchorage and planned to spend frugally once we arrived. Compared to Alaska, the lodging and transportation costs were very affordable. To make our dollar go even further, we rented our diving gear and did shore dives instead of boat excursions.

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Coincidentally, we bumped into old Alaska friends at the plaza in Cozumel. The four of us rented a bug for the day to check out the rest of the island. It started to rain in torrents! The soft top leaked buckets everywhere, and we had a flat in the middle of nowhere. There was a spare, but the lug nuts were rusted so bad we had to hammer them with a rock to free the flat tire. The best memories are when things don't work out exactly as planned!  January 1988

By staying at a hostel in the central plaza and walking to most places, we saved money, encountered more locals, and used our limited Spanish more often. It’s amazing how positive an interaction can be if you try to speak the language. It’s also a much richer experience to stay at small hotels or versus gated resort hotels.

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Wet suits hang out to dry at our cheap dive hostel, January 1988

This was such a positive experience that we immediately started planning our next adventure. By shopping for air and lodging deals, we were able to go on many more great trips to Mexico, and to places like Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands, Belize, and Costa Rica. It’s amazing what you can do by sharing expenses with a travel buddy!

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Bill (right) and partner Dan at the Mayan ruins of Tulum, January 1988

These trips exposed us to different languages and cultures, providing new perspectives on people and places, and on ourselves. We’ve made lifelong friends in the process, and learned to appreciate many things about our country, and to consider areas where we can improve. Travel can be the best form of education.

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Bill boarding the flight home from Cancun, January 1988