Hello Steemit

Hello Steemit Community,

I am here to introduce myself to all of you. Thank you for welcoming me to the community and I hope you will follow me here and on my pages mentioned below.

My name is Robert. I am of Finnish ancestry and currently Finnish-American. My grandmother (father's mother) immigrated to the United States from Finland back in 1893. Today, December 6, 2017 is the 100 year anniversary of Finland's independence.

I decided to begin travel blogging recently after having my 6th surgery in 3 years time. My professional travel blogging site is The Sophisticated Travelers I decided that life is too short to keep working only in "Corporate America" where my hard work was only making other people (upper management, owners, stock shareholders, etc..) rich and wealthy and paying me an 'average' salary. Companies in America only give their employees 1 or 2 weeks of vacation a year. This really limits your ability to travel, explore the world, and spend time with family for the holidays.

My passion for creating a travel blog is to help others who want to travel. It's time for me to enjoy my life before it comes to an end.

My experience in the travel industry began when I started working for Ramada Hotels in Tampa, Florida in Room Service delivering food orders to hotel guest rooms. This is where the travel bug really bit me. Interacting with hotel guests that came to stay at our hotel from all over the world really inspired me. I knew at this point that I had a passion for people and a love for travel. This is when I began my personal travel adventures.

After a brief stay in restaurant management, accounting, and telecommunications, I was offered an opportunity to work in the hotel industry again. My professional career advanced from working as a Night Auditor when I became a Director of Front Office Operations and then became the General Manager of my first hotel. The benefits of working in hospitality allowed me to travel extensively because of the discounted room rates offered to hotel employees.

There is no greater feeling than seeing the world. Through my travels I have been blessed to work in various hotels in hotel management for more than 20 years. The hotels I have had the pleasure of working for include Ramada, Comfort Suites, Quality Suites, Holiday Inn, Hilton Hotels, Doubletree Guest Suites, Embassy Suites, Accor Hotels, and Animal Kingdom Lodge and Coronado Springs Resort at Walt Disney World.

Additionally, for about 5 years, I owned and operated a Home-based Travel Agency after I graduated from Travel School. Obviously I learned so much about all aspects of business ownership from this experience. Working as a Travel Agency Owner and Agent allowed me to gain knowledge of airline reservation systemse, hotel operations, cruise industry operations and so much more. I had the pleasure of partnering with many airline, cruise, hotel, rental car, and theme park companies and with this experience I will be able to help my blog readers make better vacation decisions.

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I call central Florida, near Orlando, my home when I am not traveling because it is close to family. There are many fine suburbs in Orlando like family-friendly Celebration, upscale Winter Park, historic Winter Garden, and of course Lake Buena Vista (home of Walt Disney World). Disney offers so much to do for travelers and working in Resort Management at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and Coronado Springs Resort was "magical." but there really is so much more to do in Orlando. Besides the excellent theme parks of Disney, Universal, and Sea World there are beautiful beaches on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Atlantic Ocean that are only about an hour away too.

I am very excited to be a Travel Blogger and to be part of the group here on Steemit. I think it is terrific that we can all appreciate each other's work in a wide arrange of blogging topics. To share my passion for travel with others and to be able to help them get the most from their vacations with stories, knowledge, and cost saving techniques is such a wonderful gift.

If I can be of any help to any of you please reach out to me. I want to thank each of you for any help you can provide me to help my blogging efforts become successful. I hope you will take a minute to visit my blog The Sophisticated Travelers

Best wishes to all of you. Safe Travels, best wishes for future success, and may you have the Happiest of Holidays.