About Us

Trails and Travel is an independent travel publication authored by Sandra Friend and John Keatley. Between us, we've written a couple dozen travel and outdoor guides. Now retired from that hectic line of work, we're taking travel at a far more relaxing pace.

Our archives on this site stretch back to when we first met in 2011, but Sandra started traveling and writing about her experiences for newspapers and magazines in the mid-1990s. Members of the Society of American Travel Writers, we've visited over a dozen countries beyond our own.

Believe it or not, we met while hiking around Lake Okeechobee, the second largest lake within the borders of the United States, and took off on the adventure of a lifetime, a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, soon after. While we didn't make it all the way, we learned to work as a team and we've been inseparable since. John's a lifelong cyclist and paddler who spent a full career working on the Space Shuttle program. A hiker since she was a toddler, Sandra escaped the rat race of corporate IT to pursue her lifelong love of writing.

Journey On!

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