About

Hello, and welcome to my blog! If you’re looking at this you’re likely friend or family, but in case you just stumbled upon it my name is Ruffin Beckwith, I’m 64 and live in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and I’m retired after almost 40 years in the golf business. And now I am “on the road”.

On June 16 I left the U.S. for a year’s venture around the world: 2½ months in Africa, four months in Europe, three in Asia and the remainder to be determined. The original concept was to live in six different countries for two months each, long enough to feel more like a resident than a tourist. Each segment would have a primary objective: history, spiritual enlightenment, physical challenges, volunteerism, etc. At the same time there were a few “bucket list” items I wanted to check off: Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti, Normandy and the WWII landing sites, Istanbul and Katmandu, the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat. For a variety of reasons the clean and neat two-month segmentation approach didn’t really work, and what evolved was more of a travel stew that will hopefully contain elements of the original themes, and others.

Depending on circumstances and internet access, I hope to generate a blog entry every week or so featuring stories about interesting things I see and people I meet, and hopefully a few decent photographs. The most daunting aspect of this entire endeavor has been planning and doing it alone, so please, check in here every now and then and come along for the ride.