Bob Gaston – Travel Consultant

The places I’ve visited:

Canada, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, Asia, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Panama, Costa Rica, Antarctica, Caribbean, Argentina, Ecuador, Galapagos, Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Seychelles, India and Turkey

The year I started in the business:

1981

The year I joined Travel Beyond:

1991

The things I enjoy most about consulting:

Helping someone realize a dream. It is really great when someone says my life’s dream has been to see the Great Wall of China, for example, and you get them on a trip going there.

The most interesting trip I’ve designed:

I have some clients who travel for 6 to 8 weeks on one trip each year. They are extremely easy to work with and usually rely on me to fill their time. Last year they traveled to India, Nepal and the Maldives. It sounds like a dream but do you know how difficult it becomes to fill this amount of time? Luckily it always works out and it is a great way to travel. Time to see everything and still have days to rest or wander on your own.

My favorite travel destinations:

London – I could never run out of things to do in London. Every time you turn a corner there is something new and wonderful. The sense of history is amazing.

Antarctica – I never believed there could be such incredible beauty in snow and ice.

Myanmar – It is so foreign. Not a McDonalds in sight. Unfortunately the government is oppressive but the local people were open and wonderful. I saw more stupas than I ever thought existed.

My most memorable travel moment:

I am not real adventurous when it comes to doing highly physical activities. That’s why I thought whitewater rafting down the Zambezi would be fun and adventurous and relatively easy – you sit in a boat. I had been rafting in Alaska and it was more like a nice float, they told me these were class 3 rapids. So how bad could class 5 rapids be? I have the video to show you how bad class 5 rapids are. You know when people who have been in tornados say it sounded like a freight train? Well, this is nothing compared to what class 5 rapids sound like. At least you can hide from a tornado. With the rapids you just have to go through them. At least there were no hippos or crocs in the water. They are smart enough to avoid the rapids. We ran eighteen different class 5 rapids that fateful day. I was torn from the boat on the last rapid (rapid 18 is named Oblivion) and ran the rapid without a boat. What did I get out of this? A free beer at the end of the day and a $70.00 video.

My most embarrassing travel moment:

Very off color but true. I visited one of Bangkok’s notorious night spots. I got hit in the head with ping pong balls. Enough said.

My favorite meal while traveling:

The Indian food was great! I think that the setting made the meal one of the best I have ever had. We had an Indian barbecue on a boat while being rowed around Lake Pichola in Udaipur. The host that night was the Maharana of Udaipur.