How the Walleighs Found Purpose & Adventure
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.
U.S. Snow Country–Winter 2013
National Elk Refuge in Jackson, WY. In January 2013, Rick and Wendy flew to Jackson, WY to spend a week with their son Adrian and his girlfriend Kallie. While there, Wendy and Kallie visited the National Elk Refuge via sleigh. It is truly amazing how: large the elk...
Rick’s Backpacking Adventures in California’s Sierra Nevada
Though Rick and Wendy have done two overnight backpacking trips together in about 2000, clearly Rick is the more dedicated backpacker. Luckily he has found a better match with their friends, the White Family—husband, wife, and adult daughter. They have now hiked...
Yosemite – the Walleighs Favorite Place on Earth
Starting in Summer 1972 when Rick and Wendy took their cross-U.S. trip in their red VW camper between each of their graduate schools, their first visit to Yosemite began their life-long love affair with this amazing place. On that trip, one of their first guided...
U. S. Cross-Country Road Trip
Starting May 31, 2008 in Los Altos, Calif. and ending almost 4,000 miles later on June 10, 2008 in Greenville, North Carolina, Wendy and Garner ventured across the southern U.S. to deliver Wendy's 2002 VW Beetle to Diana (so she could drive to/from her new pediatric...
“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.”
“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.
“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.”