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| Experience Plus » What to Expect » Your Fellow Travelers » Customer Interviews and Stories » Interview with Deena and Jim Behnke Names: Jim and Deena Behnke
 Family members (who stayed home, or who came with you?): Just the two of us
 ...we're now happily married empty nesters! We were fortunate to have been able to take our two daughters - Erica and Heather - with us on an earlier bike trip in Italy. Now that they're married with their own busy lives and families, we really enjoy traveling on our own and meeting many interesting people, from a wide variety of backgrounds.Ages (be as vague as you wish!): Jim is 65 and Deena is 59.
Where are some of the places you’ve gone with ExperiencePlus! or with other groups? We've taken a range of wonderful biking and hiking vacations...and ExperiencePlus! is unequivocally our favorite travel company. A few highlights: Over the years we've biked in three different areas of Italy, and hiked the Cinque Terre. We did a self-guided biking/hiking trip through Provence...coupled with a week at Julia Child's cooking school in Plascassier, France. We loved biking both the South Island of New Zealand and Costa Rica, and visiting the Galapagos Islands during an El Nino year was remarkable. A three week trip with the girls through Greece a few years back was truly exceptional - sightseeing in Athens and Delphi, hiking in Vikos National Park, and sailing the islands of the Ionian Sea. We've also hiked Bryce and Zion National Parks, and backpacked the High Sierra Camps of Yosemite. For our next ExperiencePlus! trip we're debating between Argentina or the Dordogne...tough decision!
 Where is your favorite travel destination, and why? Italy, Italy, Italy!!! History, culture, scenery, people, food, food, food, and wine, wine, wine!!! Where else can you bike 40-50 miles a day and still gain weight!! What does bicycle travel give you that other trips don’t? A perfect travel pace...fast enough to cover a fair amount of ground, and slow enough to truly experience another culture. Bicycle trips engage all the senses: sight, smell, sound, touch and taste. We've always found the ExperiencePlus! itineraries beautifully designed to optimally combine physical exercise with new learning and most memorable interactions.
Describe the greatest adventure you've yet to take. The greatest adventure we've yet to take, we're about to take. Later this summer we leave for a two week, old fashioned, hiking/camping safari on the Tsavo and Galana Rivers in Southern Kenya. We've extended the trip on both ends: at the beginning we'll travel to the Maasai Mara to experience the great Wildebeest migration, and at the end we've planned time for a bit of R&R on Lamu Island in the Indian Ocean - one of the oldest Swahili settlements in coastal East Africa.
Describe the best meal (might have been setting, food, dinner guest(s)…) you have had while traveling? Our best
 meal...very tough call. It's a toss up between our welcome dinner at the Kioupia Restaurant in Athens - a 50+ course feast!!, and our farewell ExperiencePlus! dinner in Granada, following our Andalucia trip last fall...Then again there was also our dinner in Ruvo, Puglia at U.P.E.P.I.D.D.E. and also...What is something you are always sure to bring along when you travel—maybe an essential item or a good-luck charm—and why? While I'm not superstitious...I don't leave home without the Guardian Angel medallion my oldest daughter Erica gave me years ago. I'll never forget rubbing it constantly, in my pocket, on our (practically empty) flight to France only weeks after 9/11.
Tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know. We have two other "kids" - Yoko and Max - our twelve year old Siamese cats. Actually dogs disguised as cats, these two little guys are the most spoiled members of our family, and know it well! After all..."We are Siamese, if you please!"
What question do you wish we had asked, and how would you have answered?
Why is Experience Plus your favorite bicycle travel company?
 No other bike tour company has:
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