Jeff Taylor and his wife Linda Lenz are avid hikers and world travelers.

The primary goal of their travels, beyond obviously having fun, is educating themselves about the world around them.

 In every trip, they take photos from every ecosystem and geological formation they come across, so that they can use them in the classroom to become more effective Science educators. 

The goal is to bring relevance and real world experiences to their students.

Jeff grew up in Tacoma, WA. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology at the University of Washington

Jeff earned a Master's degree in Zoology with a specialization in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavioral Biology from Michigan State University.

Jeff's Master's Thesis research looked at the effects of forestry practices on habitat use by bats in the Cascade mountains of Washington. For more information on the results of that research follow this link: http://www.msu.edu/~taylo110/bats.html

After completing graduate school, Jeff moved to Hawaii where, Linda Lenz was working on her Master's degree in Botany.

Linda was examining the effects of feeding by the exotic two-spotted leafhopper on both native and non-native vegetation at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

In 1998, Jeff began working at HAVO, studying populations of the endangered Hawaiian goose (Nene). For more information about the Nene, follow this link: http://www.msu.edu/~taylo110/nene.html

Jeff then moved into cataloging and preserving historic data on  rare and endangered native Hawaiian invertebrates.

Some of the work involved scanning images of the native Drosophila fly species of Hawaii

After leaving Hawaii, Linda and Jeff decided to move into the field of education. Jeff spent two years as a Resource Educator at Olympic National Park.

Later, Jeff and Linda moved to Arizona to teach Science at a primarily Navajo school in the Canyon Country.

After two years in Arizona, Jeff and Linda decided to try on a new form of adventure and moved to Tuscany to teach at Livorno American High School.

While hiking around Tuscany, this is where Jeff came up with the whole idea of writing a hiking guide to this beautiful region.