I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and grew up in eastern Pennsylvania. I have a BA in International Studies (focus on Latin America) from the School of International Service at American University Washington, DC. I also have a MS degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin. Claudia was born in Santa Cruz, Chile, and grew up in the capital city of Santiago. She has a degree in Public Relations and a post-title in Business Administration from Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago.

I first travelled to Chile in 1988 with my buddy Dex while we were studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a semester. I came back in 1996 after finishing my Masters to do a stint in the US Peace Corps. Claudia and I met in the town of Pichilemu, on the coast, and got married outside Santiago in February, 2000. We lived and worked in Santiago until the beginning of 2006. Among other things, I worked with NGOs doing public space and community projects in urban neighborhoods. Claudia, among other things, taught household-based economics and enterprise at elementary and high schools all across Santiago through a local foundation.

We both enjoy travel and adventure and through the years have explored many corners of Chile. We recoginzed a need for affordable, well-organized travel arrangements for people interested in visiting the country and in 2004 we started our own travel consultancy. Since then we have organized successful trips for folks and groups of people in different parts of the country. We changed our name this year from “Terraqueo”, which was a bit tough for a lot of people to figure out, to “45sur”, in reference to the 45th southern parallel, where we now live.

In 2005, we were very fortunate to be able to acquire a beautiful piece of land in the Chilean Patagonia. It has native forest, streams and over 1km of lake front in an undeveloped, picturesque setting. We recognized it as a once-in-a lifetime opportunity and decided to make it our life-project. We moved to the nearby town of Coyhaique in April, 2006 and over the next couple of years plan to go about building our house at the lake. It will be a huge undertaking on a small budget, but we plan to make use of as many locally available materials as possible and hope to generate electricity by alternative means. Any and all ideas are welcome!

Since moving to Coyhaique, we decided to set up this weblog to keep in touch with people, post photos and offer regular updates of our experience.

If you have reached this site and are interested in having us organize a trip, don’t hesitate to write. We still arrange trips all over Chile (see our “Travel in Chile” section) and are now working out some great routes in Patagonia.