Even then, they were business trips that we would plan for a Monday or Friday meeting so the other could join and we’d have a little weekend fun in whatever city we where in. That was it. That was the extent of our vacations. We were workaholics, we loved the work we were doing and we had our little weekend getaways! We were happy! During that time, we did buy a ski condo in Beaver Creek Colorado
near Vail but we did not really go skiing much and even then for only long weekends. Our family & friends probably saw more of it then we did. In the late 90’s when we decided to buy a lake house just outside of Dallas, Texas. We had water on three sides of our property, hundreds of trees, two guest-houses, and a pool. I guess you could call it an estate, as we even had one of those gates that you had to enter a passcode in order to visit. We enjoyed the nature and animals around the property including deer, foxes, armadillos, possums, and lots and lots of different permanent and migratory birds including turkeys, roadrunners, owls and hawks. We even learned to live around snakes, spiders, scorpions, and coyotes. We loved the serenity of the lake house but even supervising the maintenance and upkeep took a lot of work.. In 1999, Deb was diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily it was caught early and she is still cancer free today. Simultaneously two dear friends who were only in their late 40s died suddenly. Deb and I looked at each other, both in our 40’s at the time, and said, “Life’s too short!” We decided to fully enjoy life and our travels began. We started with a trip to Israel and Egypt, and then England, Belgium and Holland and then a trip to Peru and Argentina. On our first trip to Belize in 2001, we made the decision to buy; with the intention of someone else doing the maintenance! We love it in Belize and in Cartagena, which we also purchased on our first visit in 2011. However, purchasing on The World in 2003 is where we really experienced the best way to travel globally. (The ship spoiled us with no maintenance pampering, so we have since sold our high maintenance lake house.) Other travel is for people that like to pack and unpack! We have since been to all seven continents as a passenger on The World, visiting almost everywhere on the planet at or near a port. We have no maintenance in Belize, Cartagena or especially on The World. Please join us somewhere! Mark & Deb Bennett
