My career as a traveler (and travel agent) finally blossomed in 1980’s. The pivotal movement happened at the Kingston airport in April 1980 - I was preparing to leave Jamaica after a 6-week stay when I saw a poster advertising REGGAE SUNSPLASH, Jamaica’s International Music Festival. As a serious reggae enthusiast, upon returning to the San Francisco Bay area in Northern California, I decided to market a special tour package to Jamaica for this “new summer music festival”. It was in 1981, that I escorted my first tour group numbering about 80 participants to Montego Bay, Jamaica for Sunsplash. With this relatively auspicious beginning, I became the leading tour operator (and promoter) in Northern California for Sunsplash over the next 13 years or so. Every year until 1994, I traveled to Jamaica as a tour escort and supervisor for my tour groups – sometimes I would go to Jamaica twice a year. Needless to say, I developed quite a name for myself in the travel industry and in the local reggae scene.

During the Sunsplash era, my travel resume would expand as I flew to other islands in the Caribbean from Jamaica – among the islands I visited were Barbados (5), St. Lucia (2), Trinidad, St. Vincent, St. Maarten, Antigua, Bahamas and Dominican Republic. In addition, I made an exploratory trip in 1984 to Colombia in South America -visiting Bogota, Cartagena and San Andes Island - and I made numerous trips to Mexico – Ixtapa, Cancun, Cabo and more importantly five visits to the beautiful colonial city of Oaxaca and to the hip beach town of Puerto Escondido. Towards the end of 1980’s, I made my first of six trips to Costa Rica. As a traveler, I was really starting to spread my wings.

My moniker at the time was BUS STOP, and that’s the name that everybody knew me by. In September 1982, as a publicity stunt, I ran from Montego Bay to Negril on Jamaica’s North Coast (a distance of approximately 52 miles) over a period of 3 days. Many on the island shook their heads in disbelief, believing this stunt of mine was actually a hoax. But after several people sighted a wiry, bushy-haired white man running along the coastal highway in the late morning tropical heat, word spread like wildfire across this small island about the authenticity of my crazy stunt, a feat that many Jamaicans considered impossible. A legend was born….

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