Laura spent her childhood between New York's Hudson Valley and the backwoods of Maine where most of her extended family still lives. After graduating high school, she traded her horses for a bicycle and pedaled her way around Europe for the summer. While climbing the Alps in southern France, drivers would shout out “Pourquoi!?" (Why?), and she would shout back, “Je ne sais pas!!” (I don’t know!). Eventually she made her way to Colorado in 1994 to attend the University of Colorado Boulder.  While a student, she enrolled in the Semester at Sea program and spent a term sailing around the world.  During her onboard studies, she experienced Carnival in Brazil, crazy wind in Cape Town, South Africa, "lions and elephants and cheetahs, oh my!" in Kenya, had all five senses simultaneously bombarded in India, and camped along a river in Japan. She came away realizing there's no better way to learn about the world than to be immersed in it. That experience has, to this day, helped her keep life in perspective and nurtured a positive attitude with every new adventure.

If someone were to ask Laura “Pourquoi?” today—why do we travel, what do we seek—she knows why now. It's all about novel discoveries: fresh baguettes and brie by a creek with her bike leaning up against a tree, watching the sunset over the bridges in Prague, a hot air balloon ride over the Maasai Mara in Kenya, the sound of orca whales expelling a breath.  Laura believes experiences like these are why we travel, why we're note content merely to read about the world, why we want to see it and smell it and touch it and feel it. Personally and professionally, Laura is thrilled to be a part of the Nat Hab team, part of a company that fosters exactly that kind of discovery. She was recently able to explore a new part of the world and cross off a bucket list destination on Nat Hab's Ultimate Alaska Wildlife Safari.