How the Walleighs Found Purpose & Adventure

Rick & Wendy overlooking Lewa Downs' savannah

Boomers Rick and Wendy Walleighs’ book details their inspiring move to Swaziland and then Nairobi, Kenya for a total of 18 months. These are documented on this website and in their book titled From Silicon Valley to Swaziland: How One Couple Found Purpose & Adventure in an Encore Career. It is available on Amazon, all online book retailers, and some Bay Area bookstores. Go to Media Coverage to see all the media featuring the Walleigh’ adventures.

ALL ROYALTIES ARE DONATED TO TECHNOSERVE, the international development organization for which the Walleighs worked, to continue its “Business Solutions to Poverty” in Africa and Latin America, so please buy this book for friends and family!

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos and descriptions of our many travels to nearly 60 countries on six continents.

Western New York in Autumn

The Walleighs’ 2013 road trip was with good friends with whom they had traveled in New Zealand. In late September 2013 after traversing Quebec Province (go to Quebec or Montreal, etc. for details on the Canada portion of this trip), they crossed the border into New...

2009 Walleigh Travel Journal: Our Nomadic Life in U.S. to See Friends & Family

Rick and I only had 2 breaks of 4+ weeks in a row at home in 2009. What would you do if you lived in California but both of your adult children along with many friends and the rest of your families lived Back East? Since returning from living in Africa in 2006 and...

2008 Walleigh Travel Journal Part 2: Time in & Traveling Across the U.S.

July 2008 – Random Thoughts: Reducing our Carbon Footprint-- Since returning to the U.S. at the end of 2007, Rick has been engaged or leading some TechnoServe projects, though it hasn’t interfered with his doing a lot of skiing. Rick’s operations projects require...

Botswana: About Botswana, Bayiye Culture, Tiny Planes, & Safari Camps

Botswana Has a Unique Combination of Topology: Desert, Salt Pans, Savannah, and Okovango Delta. When most people envision safaris, what they probably are thinking of are animals on broad, open, mostly flat savannahs or grasslands, with the occasional low bushes or...

Swaziland Successes: JA Swaziland from TechnoServe Youth Program

In 2006 while living in Swaziland, Wendy and a TechnoServe colleague established a School Age Youth Entrepreneuship (SAYE) Program that was to encourage Swazi young people to become entrepreneurs rather than depend on government or large companies for employment. ...

Kenya Successes: Rachel from Korogocho Slum Started Embroidery Business with Help from YWE

Rachael, 21 years old in 2007, was the last born in a family of seven siblings. She had only attained a primary school education, due to a predicament that disrupted her entire life. At age 14, her drug-addict uncle raped her, infected her with HIV and left her...

Botswana: Big Five & Other Celebrity Animals

The "Big Five" are the African animals that are reputedly the most dangerously unpredictable: Cape Buffalo, Elephants, Rhinoceros, Lions and Leopards. However, Hippos--which are grass-eaters--kill more people annually than the Big Five combined. They are huge, very...

Rick’s Heli-Skiing in Alaska: Once in a Lifetime!

In March 2006, Rick’s friends, the Burwens, persuaded him to join them Heli-Skiing in the Chugach Range near Valdez Alaska. In essence, instead of taking a chairlift or tram to the top of a mountain to find fresh powder, 6 or 7 times per day he rode in a helicopter,...

Swaziland: Emafini and Swazi Landscape

Our home from July to December 2006 was a cute little cottage at Emafini Compound, a few miles outside of Mbabane. Swaziland had about 1.1 million people at that time, most living rurally but with two major cities of approximately 100,000 each: Mbabane, the...

Botswana: Birds Galore

Maybe the U.S. has as many different varieties of birds as Africa does but the ones typically in urban, suburban and even typical rural areas don’t seem nearly as colorful and diverse as the birds in Africa. Botswana alone has over 600 species. Below is just some of...

Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia

by Wendy | Nov 20, 2017 | Canada

Our four days in Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island AND British Columbia (BC) gave us a feel for the history—human, geological, and cultural—of the southwestern-most province of Canada. Upon our arrival into Victoria, we checked into the historic Empress Hotel....

Backpacking in Sierra

by Wendy | Nov 20, 2017 | United States

After a two-night trip in the Santa Cruz Mountains earlier this summer, in August, Rick and two friends went backpacking into the Sierras’ Desolation Wilderness for a few days. The lakes were still partially frozen and the trail was still covered quite a bit in snow....

Hiking with Friends to Glen Aulin High Sierra Camp, Yosemite

by Wendy | Nov 2, 2014 | United States

After many years of attempts by Rick’s backpacking buddy and his wife to persuade her to backpack, Wendy finally agreed to a compromise: hiking to one of Yosemite’s High Sierra camps where breakfast and dinner were included in the price and box lunches were available....

Across NY through Hudson Valley–Breathtaking Colors Everywhere

by Wendy | Jan 15, 2014 | United States

The Walleighs’ 2013 road trip was with good friends with whom they had traveled in New Zealand. In late September after traversing Quebec Province (go to Quebec or Montreal, etc. for details on the Canada portion of this trip), they crossed the border into New York...

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“If you are nearing the end of your business career and wondering what’s next, you’ll find Rick and Wendy’s experience both illuminating and inspiring.”

Debra Dunn

Consulting Associate Professor & Former Senior Vice President, Stanford University, Hewlett Packard

“Rick and Wendy Walleigh are my down-to-earth heroes. At the end of Phase 1 of very successful careers–still healthy enough to spend their retirement days skiing, golfing, lunching, traveling in style–they chose instead to take their energy and considerable skills and apply them in some of the poorest communities in the world.

Bruce McNamer

President & CEO of The Community Foundation for the Nation's Capital Region (Washington DC) & former CEO of TechnoServe

“For those seeking an encore to their professional lives, Rick Walleigh’s account of the adventure he and his wife, Wendy, began is as energizing as it is useful. This remarkable book summarizes the factors they considered before volunteering in Africa to foster economic growth through small business development. More importantly, it records their experience with cultural change, new applications for honed skills, the nature of contemporary economic development work in the face of poverty, and the sights, smells, surprises and encounters found in living and working overseas. This is not a “how-to” book for those of us wanting renewal; it is an “I did this and so can you” story that is unique, thought-provoking and encouraging.”

Ron Boring

Former Executive Vice President, Vodafone-Japan