CAPTURE A MEMORY
Seeing the World Through the Eyes of My Lens
Our Mission Statement:
Welcome to my site! I am a photographer who recently graduated from Ryerson University in Photographic Studies. My specialty is sports photography but I refuse to be boxed in. I love to travel and portrait photography also.
Our goal at Al Murray Travels is to give ideas to senior travellers, and travellers in general my insights into visiting Canada, travel to tennis tournaments around the world and occasionally, have some input from other folks like Gary about their recent adventures. So get your table up, seat in upright positions and seat belt fasten as we take flight!
More About Us:
Al – Tennis cycling photographer and owner Al Murray Enterprises
I have not written enough about myself in the past, so I have decided to expand my “About Me” to give you all more of my background.
I grew up in a rural part of Canada, forty-five miles southeast of Windsor, Ontario. This is near Point Pelee National Park, the southernmost point of mainland Canada. While living outside the nearest town, we no longer farmed the land. We stopped farming it just before my teens after my grandfather passed away.
This was the time I picked up playing tennis. I had been bugging my parents to let me play baseball like my brother or hockey like so many of my friends. But having gone through all that with my older brother, they first decided swimming would be better for me. I was a natural in the shallow end. So much so that the instructors decided to throw me in the deep end, that act ended my swimming career.
One day we had one of the local teenagers come to our school to demonstrate tennis. I knew instantly that this land-based sport was for me. The drawback was that the courts were at the high school in town and my father worked in Windsor at this time, meaning I had no known motor transportation. But I saved up my allowances and the remaining funds needed to buy equipment, for lessons and for a bike I charmed off my grandmother.
Every day during the first four years of high school, if it wasn’t raining, I was off on my bike for the 10-mile ride into town to the high school courts. There was a group of six to eight of us who would spend most of our summer days learning and playing tennis. Around 3:30 – 4:00pm, I would ride home for dinner and then after I got my driver’s license, I would head back until late in the evenings when my father was working the day shift.
There began my love of both cycling and tennis. Both of which continue to be a large part of my active life. I have played tennis tournaments across the world, from Europe to the US. I, through my 30s, 40s and 50s, rode my bike to work as much as I could.
At one point in my late teens had to make a big decision. I was asked one summer by one of our transient tennis coaches if I wanted to go with him to Arizona and try our luck on the fledgling professional tennis tour. The other alternative was to enroll in an exchange program at university, whereby I would spend half of the next school year in Barcelona.
It was a decision that was tearing me in two. Head off and play the sport I love or get out of the country. The decision was made easier when my doting grandmother stepped in and offered to cover some of the critical expenses to get me to Spain. I got nothing if I went off to play tennis. Decision made!
Living in Barcelona for six months spurred my travel bug. Our instructor guide took us all over Spain, on a 24-hour trip to Paris. A couple of us after the semester was over, went south to Malaga for a week, then for a quick trip to Morocco.
After graduating with my Bachelor’s in Spanish & Comparative Lit, I decided I didn’t want to go into international law. I really wanted to do something more physical, so I enrolled at a Toronto college and got my diploma in fitness, lifestyle and management. Again, this spurred me on more to really want to manage a fitness or recreation centre, and life developments turned me back home. I enrolled in Sport Management at the local university.
I put myself through this course by doing various things like teaching fitness classes in the basements of local churches or schools (on concrete floors). I ran in running clubs hoping to find someone to marathon run with me.
In the end, I returned to Toronto to check out the job market here. I ended up working in the financial industry for the next thirty-plus years. While not my dream, it afforded me the ability to cycle, to play tennis, to travel to play tennis across North America and Europe. I have completed the spectator Grand Slam by having attended the professional tournaments: French Open, US Open, Wimbledon, and Australian Open (in that order from 2015 – 2019).
Now in my retirement years, I am looking for more adventures. I want to share those with you and give you tips and tricks along the way. How I stay fit (or am trying to stay fit); what the places I travel to are really like; how I make my decisions on how, where and what to do while there. Also, I am looking for products and services that will make life in general easier for those of us in our pre- and post-retirement years.
But I won’t paint myself into a corner. As a photographer and videographer, I will be looking for products and services that will benefit anyone.
I would love to hear from you if there is anything specific you would like me and my expanding team to research or can give the benefit of what we might know.
Let’s get the journey together started! Should you have questions about or suggestions for content, please reach out to me at [email protected]
Contributors:
Gary Swayze – Contributor, Traveler, Bon Vivant
I am a Toronto boy through and through. I went to Jarvis Collegiate Institute, which afforded me the chance to meet people of all economic situations and backgrounds. Belonging to the French Club introduced me to the wonders of foreign parts.
During my younger years, the family and I travelled a lot by train to visit relatives, whether close by in Niagara or to the wilds of B.C. This was the start of my travel bug.
After a few post-schools start in business, retail, and banking, I finally started my lengthy career in travel with Canadian Pacific Airlines and various travel agencies.
Travel became my work, my hobby, and my release from day-to-day stresses. Seeing places that were different from where I lived and meeting many interesting people helped to make me an accepting person of all kinds of diverse cultures.
Retirement and Covid-19 have slowed down my travels a bit, but I’ll not miss an opportunity when it arises. Be as cautious when you travel as you would be at home.
Although my travel style is heavy on independent endeavours and hotel accommodation, I realize that some people like the security of group travel or travel with like-minded people and others may like the up close and personal style afforded by bed and breakfast or homestays.
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