About Me

Welcome to my website! 

I’m Matt, a native New Englander who lived in California for almost 40 years. I’m a retired psychology professor and self-diagnosed travel addict who’s visited 35 countries so far and have cumulatively spent close to two years in Italy across multiple trips. I’ve also made approximately 45 round-trip, coast to coast drives (I lost count somewhere after the 40th trip!). On one trip I made a slight detour and drove up to Alaska! I’ve also spent countless weeks of my life in the Hawaiian Islands.

As a professor at Dominican University of California for 28 years I taught courses like Social Psychology, Media Psychology, a specialty course about Natural Disasters, and even a workshop-style class on the Psychology of Travel. I conducted research about how people living in dangerous places view their risk from natural hazards like earthquakes and volcanoes and I also led several overseas study-abroad trips for students to destinations like Italy, Greece, Ireland, and Berlin & Prague. 

I retired from teaching in 2021, and wrote a travel memoir, At Home in the World: Reflections of a Travel Addict which contains stories and photos from my visits to 13 different countries. It’s available online at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s websites. Lately, I’ve been doing author events to support the book and also offer lectures on various travel and disaster-related topics for local libraries and councils on aging. I’m also the regularly-featured Travel Expert for Providence WJAR TV’s Studio 10 program.

I’ve been taking photos and writing about my travel experiences for many years and created this website to share my adventures with others. I hope they inspire you to follow your dreams of traveling the world and not to put things off until tomorrow. I’ve been blessed to feel “at home” no matter where I travel in the world, and I hope this website can help you to experience that feeling too.

If you’re looking for stories, photos, or travel information about a particular place, just use the Search key to find anything I’ve written about that place to date. Also, be sure to click on the photos you see in my posts, as there are often captions explaining them in more detail and I’m not sure readers know that they are there!

Check back often, as I’m always adding new stuff to the site. Or better yet, PLEASE consider following my website so you can receive updates when I post something new. It’s easy and will not clutter your inbox! Just click on the Follow Me icon on the lower right side of the screen when you visit the site, enter your e-mail address, and you’ll get an e-mail ONLY when something new gets posted. I’d love to hear your comments about the site, about particular posts, or about anything you want to share about your own travels. Thanks for visiting!