About Us
What happens when a lifelong experienced traveler meets a Disney Dad with a background in family travel? You get very different travel interests to say the least.
You get Global Grit and Glam!
We are so excited you found us!
We are an empty nest couple with diverse travel interests, now exploring the world together. We hope our tales and tips may ignite your wanderlust and inspire you to unforgettable journeys.
Beck - “Grit”
I’ve never really been one to stand still and watch life simply pass me by. From a young age, life has presented an opportunity for me to do things, see things, feel things – and with that came a desire to be a larger part of this amazing, magical world in which we find ourselves, lapping it up like a thirsty camel, always wanting more. Chasing the dragon, I believe is the term to which some people refer?
I left my home country of Australia in June 1999, and headed to the U.S. to pursue my dream of coaching basketball at an elite level. Whilst that part of my journey didn’t quite pan out as planned, the people I met on that initial 3-month journey completely changed my life … and over the following 10 years, I chose to learn as much as I could about other people, other cultures. In December 2011 I visited my 100th country and didn’t plan to stop there. I’ve now visited over 140 countries and lived and worked in nine of those. Today I call the U.S. home and am excited to share many of my once-solo adventures with my life partner by my side.
This desire to see as much of the world as possible (and in doing so to live life to the fullest) has always sparked a passion within me to encourage others to do much the same: an eagerness to share with those around me what I’ve had the fortune to discover, and in turn hope they too find the passion and excitement that keeps them getting out of bed every day.
Welcome to Global Grit and Glam, fellow wanderers! I hope you find a small piece of your journey – and an immense amount of passion and excitement along the way – right here in these wee pages of ours.
Mike - “Glam”
Yea, that’s right. I’m “Glam”. Perhaps it’s more like glam-wannabe. Truth be told, it’s a process of elimination because I certainly don’t qualify as grit when it comes to travel.
Courage and resolve; strength of character - the definition of grit - applies to Beck, without question. She is a tough act to follow, but follow I will!
My passion for travel emanates from a completely different perspective. My childhood was from a lower middle class manufacturing town jokingly referred to as “the center of the universe". The opportunity to visit family across the same country for a summer was a life changing experience. The thought of traveling to the other side of the globe was mere fantasy.
As an adult, my travel experience centered around raising my two children. A recent Travel & Leisure article “The 15 Best US Resorts for Families” provides a hint to our preferences. Six of the 15 resorts belong to the Disney Vacation Club family. Needless to say we became members and I still belong today. While my children are now adults themselves, we still enjoy family time together at these resorts - just with a different focus.
You never know when the people you meet and the places you go will fuel a passion that changes your life forever. My visits to family across the country instilled a desire within this small town sheltered kid to see as many states as possible within the beautiful U.S. And that I did. Meeting Beck years later did much the same for my passion to see the rest of the world!
Welcome to Global Grit and Glam. I hope you too find inspiration within our pages that may motivate you to take a trip that you may not have considered prior to visiting us here.
Who knows. Maybe it will change your life too.
