Shelby’s love for travel was launched when she had the chance perform musically throughout Europe when she was 18. She was captivated by the opportunity to experience different cultures and encounter the history that had previously existed for her only in books. After that fortuitous trip, most of Shelby’s travels took place closer to home: camping trips or a short flight to Tennessee to visit family. But the passion for travel simmered inside her, and she yearned to venture beyond a 3-hour radius of home. To travel became a goal, and Shelby began to craft her life around it.

After she got married, she and her husband moved to Colorado on a whim. They lived in the mountains, then the city, and now in the country, where they reside with their two young daughters and two horses. Her horizons expanded further when in 2006, as fate would have it, she stumbled across a company called Natural Habitat Adventures, which would change her life forever. Shelby was hired as Nat Hab's reservations and billing manager. Working for Nat Hab made it possible for Shelby to truly pursue her travel dreams, as she has enthusiastically participated in several company trips.
  
Whether watching sea lions and surveying seabirds on Hebrides cliffs or nipping Scotch whisky while meeting the wonderful people, Scotland first stole Shelby’s heart. Then, she traveled halfway around the world to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, biking through rice fields, exploring temples, wandering the ruins at Angkor Wat, sailing Halong Bay, drinking tea in small Hmong villages with the locals, experiencing the tastes and smells of many different types of food, and watching a water buffalo riding on the back of a motorbike (seriously!).

Shelby’s most recent adventure took her to the Serengeti on Nat Hab’s Tanzania Migration Safari, an experience she’s had to pinch herself over to remind her it was real. Her most moving moment was flying high above the Serengeti Plains just as the sun was rising, enveloped in silence except for the snorts and hoofbeats of the wildebeest below – it looked like there were millions of them (and no doubt there were tens of thousands)! To see so many wild animals in their natural environment left Shelby speechless (which she acknowledges is difficult to do). The friendships she made with her fellow travelers, guides and local villagers made her Tanzania safari the most incredible adventure she has ever experienced – so far! Shelby is perpetually excited to explore more of our beautiful world and tell her stories for years to come.