People often ask why I have a hyphen in my name and although my parents didn't do drugs the real truth is a friend gave it to me as a nickname back in high school. By birth, my name is Troy Floyd but for reasons of wanting to be unique, I kept the hyphen.
I come from a small town in heartland USA located in Licking, Missouri with a population of only 1,500 people and that's counting the prisoners. I've heard all the jokes and used to just tell people I'm from Lincoln, as it saved me 10 min of introduction time on having to explain my hometown's weird name (and no, the school's mascot is not the beavers!).
Growing up, I wanted to travel but always thought you had to have rich parents or be old or retired. When I was younger, my top 3 places to go to were Brazil, Italy, and Germany.
I made it to Germany when I was 21 and drank beer at the Oktoberfest, courtesy of Uncle Sam and the US Army.
I finally got to travel on my own for the first time in Italy in the summer of 2005. I spent two weeks there with my cousin and we went to as many places as we could in that small amount of time.
After that, I knew I was hooked...I needed more travel. I finally got out of the military and took a job that gave me a free ticket to travel anywhere in the world for 2 weeks, every 4 months. The only drawback to this job was that I had to work 12hr days, 7 days a week!
After the first year, the money was good but it was the travel that I loved. Spinning the globe and throwing my finger down, thinking to myself "Huh, Bali, Indonesia. Never been there, why not!" was a great feeling. I stayed with the job for another 2 more years and in that time I got to travel to almost 20+ different countries.
It wasn't until I went to Australia that I realized that the job wasn't giving me enough of what I wanted. I mean how does one see Oz in 2 weeks? It was then that I realized to be happy I needed to quit and travel as much as I could.
Of course, this is a catch-22 because the more I travel, the longer my list grows. The more I talk with other backpackers, the more I find out about new, secret places I haven't been to.
I quit my job in April 2009 and moved to Thailand for 3 months. I used Bangkok as my hub and traveled as much of Asia as I could.
I then moved to Quito, Ecuador and have been doing nothing that relates to anything responsible but loving life. Still, haven't made it to Brazil yet...but I see that changing soon in the future!
I started my own website/blog to track the people I met, to show the world the things I see and to keep me busy since I don't have a job. I use a Canon DSLR 5D camera for all my photos and travel with about 5 lenses and my handy Mac book for editing. ½ my luggage weight is due to photography gear, but I think it's worth it, and love showing my readers the beauty of the world.
If anyone has a camera-related question, I'd be more than happy to answer questions but do admit I'm no expert.
To keep up with me more, check me out at my website, or on Twitter and Facebook:
