Alumni Gazette

The Places He Goes . . .

The interest in travel started out innocently enough for Gerry Itkin ’70, with the usual cross-country drive during a summer between terms at American University, where he was studying law. But that drive spawned a second, which in turn led to more trips out west, then around the globe, and even to the tops of mountains.

Soon Gerry Itkin, attorney, was also Gerry Itkin, adventure traveler.

His fascination with new places has even shaped his career. He fell in love with Colorado and moved there to practice law—and ski often—for eight years. After another eight years running the public defender’s office in Key West, Florida, he became enchanted with the Pacific Northwest while tracking down a criminal. He and his wife, Joan Sears, moved to Oregon five years ago, where he took up Alpine mountaineering in the Cascades.

Drawn to other mountains, he took friends along to scale several of the major peaks around the world, including Mt. Kilimanjaro, and a new hobby was born—organizing small travel groups for adventures like mountain climbing or relatively tame journeys like leading biking trips through Ireland, England’s Cotswolds region, and the Loire Valley. But conquering such exotic landscapes, whether he’s alone or with friends, turns out not to be the focus of his travels.

“When I went to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro—a stunning undertaking and my first time in a third-world country—what surprised me was the people,” he says. “They were warm, open, and eager to meet us. They didn’t have a lot—they were to me what I am to Bill Gates. Yet if a slew of Bill Gates types came to my hometown, I don’t think I’d be as willing to spend time with them as they were with me.

“The lesson I learned was this: Terrain is the reason you go; people are the reason you want to be there.”

Itkin plans to return to Africa and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro again, but he says that’s just an excuse to get to see more of the continent and its people. His “wish list” is long, but the political situation prevents him from getting to as many countries as he would like to visit.

His advice for those dreaming of adventure travel is not about exercising caution; it’s about involvement.

“A luxury hotel is like a maximum security prison,” he says. “The more luxuriously you travel, the less you experience the place. And hold off on the cruises until you’re older and less mobile.”