About Me

Hi. My name is Peter Birch, and AdventureProne.com is my personal domain. I am a 34 year old computer engineer, who is obsessed with travel, outdoor sports, and adventure in general. The name "Adventure Prone" represents how I try to live my life: as a continuous adventure. I am currently on a year+ long world journey, which will take me to Mexico, Central and South America, Africa, Europe, South East Asia, and China. Traveling has been a passion of mine for five years, and one of my life goals has been to take a year off and travel the world.

I had been working as a computer engineer at Silicon Graphics for the past ten years, working long hours trying to live the Silicon Valley lifestyle to the fullest. Over the last few years, my enthusiam for a work-centric lifestyle waned, and I started to look to travel to add insight and excitement to my life. I have traveled to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, England, Aruba, and Costa Rica.

In July 1999, while on vacation, I received a much needed push; I was layed off and given five months severance pay. I spent several months enjoying my unemployment, exploring a new relationship and thinking of future travels. By November, my girlfriend and I were ready to set off on a world journey together. Unfortunately, we broke up before we set off. After six weeks of recovery and soul-searching, I decided I was ready to consider traveling again, this time alone. The year 2000 marked the beginning of my new trip preparations. After months of postponement, I finally headed out on February 17th, 2000.

Never one to plan travel, I have left things as flexible as possible. After years of traveling, I have learned that by not making any specific plans, I leave open the possibility for all sorts of adventures to occur. Half the fun is not knowing quite what is going to happen. For a rough itinerary, check out the travel details on my travel page.

Before beginning my travel sabbatical, I worked for ten years in the computer industry, as an engineer at Silicon Graphics. Always one to try new things, I gained broad experience during my tenure there. For seven years, I did hardware design, working on board design, chip design, system architecture, and simulation on high performance graphics workstations before switching to software engineering. I spent three years in graphics library software, first managing a software project called Inventor and then working on a now defunct object-oriented 3D graphics library, known most recently as Fahrenheit. Most recently, I have been doing web design in my spare time.

My extra-curricular activities have always been important to me, none more important than being in the outdoors. I have tried most every outdoor sport imaginable, but my biggest passion is biking. I have been a bike enthusiast for my whole life, and now I find myself addicted to road biking, mountain biking, touring, and bike commuting, as well being involved in bicycle advocacy in San Francisco. I am also an avid windsurfer, rock climber, snowboarder, and hiker.

In addition to outdoor sports, I am also an avid photographer. My specialty is travel photography, but I also try to get out and shoot whenever I can back at home. I am also an environmentalist at heart, and will argue environmental policy for hours with only the slightest provoking. My other hobbies include music, cooking, and fixing just about anything I can get my hands on.

Vital Statistics