Welcome to The Travel Rangers

Welcome to The Travel Rangers!

Thanks for stopping by. Please allow us to introduce ourselves and how this has all come about.

Who We Are:

Tiff & Chris

Hiking around Fitz Roy Mountains in Chile

This site has come to be over years of travel, experiences and restless nights. In 2012 we hiked the 11 day Torres del Paine circuit in Chile. If you’ve never heard of it you’ve likely seen the pictures.

Lots of people people take photos of the famous “W” feature that look like this.

Along the hike we met two other hikers from England a few days into the hike. We got along well and stuck together the remainder of the hike.

At the end of 11 days of backpacking we went back to town for beds, hot showers and creature comforts. We met for lunch and coffee and continued sharing stories of our lives. As you can read on our about page, the years have ticked by we have been so lucky to learn, grow and have many wildlife experiences around the world.

A few highlights and rough chronological time frame are:

• lived in Colorado and did a year long environmental program and built a lot of fences with the Mile High Youth Corps.
• lived in Utah and were wilderness therapy instructors. Camped in the desert and forest on eight day shifts all year long with a tarp. That was intense & where we learned a lot of our skills. Fun Fact: We can make a fire with sticks and we did so in our wedding!
• moved to New Zealand for a year. Did a lot of tramping including an 11 day hike around the remote Stewart Island. Lived out of a Subaru station wagon. Picked cherries and grapes along the way.
• moved to Vermont (our chosen state – we love Vermont and feel at home there) and ran Elmore State Park as Vermont Youth Conservation Corps Crew Leaders and Park Rangers. Won Park of the Year! Heck-yeah.
• winter trip to Costa Rica and hiked out to remote research stations to see tapirs in the wild.
• back to Vermont & ran Waterbury Center State Park & worked with Vermont Youth Conservation Corps.
• moved to Australia for two years & lived out of ’89 Mitshibishi Van. Did so much hiking, camping and backpacking. Also flew out to a small island off the Great Barrier Reef accessible only by small plane for a week of diving. Australia was one of the best times of our life.
• back to Vermont and became Inn Keepers at a very special park to us: Seyon Lodge for three seasons. It’s at the end of a three mile dirt road in a 27,000 acre forest. Our kind of place.
• a winter season to South America through Peru, Chili and Argentina.
• a winter season overlanding across ten African countries then rented a car and spent a month in South African national parks.
• traveled a year around Southeast Asia with so many wildlife memories and experiences. Notably we spent two months traveling around Borneo, Malaysia, hiked in the Himalayas of Nepal and saw tigers in the wilds of India.
• back to Vermont to our new special and small park: Townshend State Park.
• and the journey continues…

Along the way we have had many professional and individual development, training and education along the way….which brings us back to the coffee conversation in Chile. We were telling our new friends about our first website and they were like, ‘Oh no. Your story is so cool and different. You are:

The Travel Rangers.

We all agreed that was a good & catchy name.

Months went by and we were back in Vemont running the lodge. I kept thinking about the conversation in Chile but life seemed so busy. It was peak season and we were flat out. Have you ever had those times in your life, usually when you are really busy, when you need sleep so bad yet you are not sleeping?

It was one of those nights and it was 2am – literally. One of my life mantras is a quote from the movie Babe and it says, “Little ideas that tickle and nag cannot be ignored for in them lay the seeds of destiny.” So there I was at 2am finally saying, “Ok universe I’ll do it!” and I got up and bought the domains for The Travel Rangers. Having finally achieved that mission I could then go back to sleep.

Another two-ish years passed and 2am restless sleep happened again.

When the universe wants us to do something, it just must be done. At least for me that’s how it works for me. I  have to explore the ideas. Most of the time I don’t know where these ideas will lead but I must give it a try. I don’t think the universe ever asks or expects us to be perfect. It simply asks that we always try our best.

And so here we are.

I think everything we have worked on prior has prepared us for this next phase of the journey. We felt driven to create a site that could better share our interest and commitment to observing wildlife all around the world.

Our mission is:

To show anyone who would like amazing wildlife and nature photography while also educating and inspiring a greater appreciation of the natural world.

So thanks for coming along. As Mary Oliver said, “So tell me, what are you going to do with this one wild and crazy life?”

Travel for nature and wildlife.

The Travel Rangers

Tiff & Chris

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