Tim McGuire is no stranger to travel. In fact, as you will hear in his My Travel Tales podcast, Tim was well-traveled even before college as the son of an Air Force veteran. Tim lived in England when he was younger, where he developed his love for soccer. It was that love of soccer that took him to San Diego State University to play on the team – and maybe earn a degree along the way for good measure.

While at the university, Tim decided to take an “easy” elective class, as many athletes and students sometimes do, to pad his credits and, hopefully, his GPA – the class was “Wilderness and the Outdoor Experience.” His instructor was anthropologist-adventurer-author-lecturer Jeff Salz, Ph.D., already an accomplished outdoor adventurer and traveler, who proceeded to talk about an attempt he made to climb Mt. Fitz Roy in Patagonia, Argentina – an adventure that would end up costing his friend’s life. Tim was hooked (on the adventure part, not the dying) and has never looked back.

After Tim graduated, he and I worked together for a while at an outdoor and adventure travel store, Adventure 16. In the ’80s the company had stores from San Diego up to Los Angeles. Together, we launched an adventure travel booking company as an extension of the wilderness outings program that I was directing at the time for Adventure 16.

Now the senior director of sales in North America for Eagle Creek Travel Gear, Tim has traveled all over the world – often for business, but also for pleasure and adventure. He’s reached the summit of Denali in Alaska and run the rapids of the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe.

Tim has been married to his wife, Julie, for over 30 years and they have three grown children, Kate, Riley and Sean. Always up for a good road trip, Tim and Julie in 2017 undertook numerous weekend and extended weekend driving adventures that took them to seven different national parks in the United States.

Tim McGuire is a member of the board of directors for the Pacific Crest Trail Association, and he tells us that he hopes to thru-hike all 2,650 miles of the trail in the years ahead.

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