From the TravelWell family

The Founder’s Grand Tour

In 1975, at twenty-three — fresh out of the U.S. Navy, with a private pilot’s licence in his pocket — TravelWell’s founder, David, set out to see the world the only way he could afford to: by working his way across it.

1975 · Twelve countries · Seven and a half months

He earned his way around Europe

He hitchhiked to New York, bought a one-way ticket to Bruges, and hitchhiked on through a dozen countries — taking work wherever it came, sleeping where he could, and saving the fare home one job at a time.

  1. 1

    Bruges, Belgium

    A one-way ticket from NYC. Where the journey began.

  2. 2

    South of France

    Three weeks picking grapes in the vineyards.

  3. 3

    Denmark

    Working a dairy farm.

  4. 4

    Norway

    Unloading ships on the docks.

  5. 5

    Salzburg, Austria

    Six weeks helping a local gentleman, Heinze Keller, build an addition onto the back of his home.

    Visit Salzburg →

…and the grapes, the dairy, the docks and the building were only the chapters that paid — twelve countries in all, then the flight home to Texas.

The long way home

From the cockpit to the construction site

Home in Texas, David used the GI Bill to turn that private licence into a profession — earning his Commercial, Multi-Engine and Instrument ratings, and his Basic, Advanced and Instrument Ground Instructor certificates.

For 4.5 years he flew freight across the United States for Purolator Courier — night skies, tight schedules, every kind of weather.

Then his eyesight began to fail — declining to 20/200–20/400 with oblique astigmatism — until he could no longer fly commercially. So he did what he’d done in Salzburg with Heinze Keller: he built. He moved into Commercial Construction Project Management — the career that would one day direct $132 million of construction, from the $78M Scrub Island Resort & Marina in the BVI to the $54M Beaches Italian Village.

And then the sea called. From 2006 to 2011, David delivered nine catamarans and a monohull around the globe as a delivery captain — three of them down through the Panama Canal to the Galápagos and on to Tahiti — logging over 23,000 ocean miles of open water.

Travel as work. Earning your way. Building things that last. Crossing oceans. That arc — the traveler, the pilot, the builder, the sailor — is the DNA of TravelWell.

And he never stopped going

52

countries — many several times

23,000+

ocean miles logged

10

yachts delivered worldwide

24

months on his last journey (2015–2017 · 26 countries)

From a 23-year-old working his way around Europe to ocean crossings and a 24-month odyssey four decades on — TravelWell is built by someone who has actually gone.

If It’s Travel… Travel Well.