Area Coordinator Profile: Jeff Ward, San Diego

Jeff spent most of his childhood in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. He says he was obsessed with travel from an early age. His family was not interested in travel, so he satisfied his wanderlust desires by collecting stamps of the world, subscribing to National Geographic and reading library books. In subsequent years, there were only limited opportunities to travel until he finished graduate school.

He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and his PhD from the University of Iowa. He and his family moved to San Diego after graduate school. He is currently a self-employed tax accountant.

His family enjoyed camping in units of the National Park system and he eventually visited every western state except Alaska and Hawaii. He still enjoys camping once or twice a year. His two daughters now live in Northern California.

Serious international travel began in 1995 with a three-week trip to Cameroon. He says that after that trip he was confident that he could handle anything. He visited his 50th state, Alaska, in 2003, and 7th continent, Antarctica, in 2006. He joined TCC in 2006, after visiting his 100th destination, Easter Island. Since then he has reached his 150th destination, Taiwan, and hopes to reach 200 territories by 2014.

Jeff’s favorite places are southern Utah, Death Valley, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Peru, Tanzania, Italy and Paris. He was recently married to Sandra who was also instrumental in the formation of the new TCC chapter in San Diego.