Travel Talkers Toastmasters

Share your stories, travel tips, great adventures. We love to travel and share our trips with others.

  • SHARE YOUR STORIES

Welcome to Travel Talkers Toastmasters!

Join Travel Talkers Toastmasters on Thursday, October 8, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Pacific (-7 UTC). The meeting theme is “Wine Country Trips.” Let’s travel to the world’s most beautiful wine regions. Share your adventures at our meeting.

Toastmasters offers members opportunities to improve their public speaking and leadership skills. And at Travel Talkers Toastmasters, we also learn about new destinations and share our travel adventures.

Our meetings are for all travel enthusiasts. Engage with fellow members to share your joy of travel. Build your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive, Toastmasters-style environment. Let’s hit the road, share stories, and inspire each other to embark on new adventures. Mark your calendars for an unforgettable evening with the Travel Talkers community!

You are invited to join us and bring a friend. Thursday, October 8, 6:30-7:30 pm Pacific (-7 UTC).
Register for the meeting link: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

Join the Travel Talkers Toastmasters for a fun evening sharing your travel plans and trips.

We meet on Thursdays from 6:30 to 7:30pm Pacific Time (-7 UTC). Use the link below to register for our Zoom meetings.

Guests are always welcome at our meetings! We look forward to meeting you and hearing your travel stories.

Travel Talkers Toastmasters, club number 04670726, District 101, Division A, Santa Clara, California. We are an online club with members from all over the world.

Why Toastmasters?

https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink
https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/04670726-travel-talkers-toastmasters

Meetings 2026

Travel Talkers Meetings

Club Officers

  • Travel Talkers Toastmasters—Museums and Cultural Destinations

    Meeting highlights

    The July 30 Travel Talkers Toastmasters Club meeting theme was Museums and Cultural Destinations, and the meeting also featured the installation of new officers led by Area A4 Director Scott Bradley. The club welcomed several guests, including Elizabeth Garcia from Arizona, Shalini Suravarjjala from Santa Clara, and Mandi Judy from Jamaica. Meghan Burns, as the Destination Master, conducted a guessing game about a U.S. city with many art museums. Lisa Hamil delivered a prepared speech titled “Star Power” about cultural experiences including meeting Elizabeth Taylor at a hotel in Florence, Italy. The club also conducted travel-themed table topics where members discussed museum preferences and cultural attractions. The meeting also included evaluations of timing, grammar, and overall performance, with Elizabeth winning the travel topics contest for her response about wanting to speak with the Mona Lisa to discover why she’s smiling.

    Club Officer Installation

    Scott Bradley, the new Area A4 Director from Santa Cruz, California, conducted the officer installation ceremony for the Travel Talkers Toastmasters club. The new officers officially installed are: Helen Josephine, President; Jacqueline Maynard-Campbell, Vice President Education; Lisa Hamil, Vice President Membership; Helen Josephine, Vice President Public Relations; Avis Russell, Secretary and Treasurer; Jessica Rolle, Sergeant at Arms. Each officer agreed to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. The meeting included introductions from several guests, including Elizabeth Garcia from Arizona, who is spending a month in Irvine, California; Shalini Suravarjjala, a guest invited by Lisa Hamil; and Mandi Judy from Jamaica, who all found the club through different means, including the new directory of online Toastmasters clubs and ChatGPT. Helen Josephine took on the role of Toastmasters for the meeting since Jessica was unable to attend due to a power outage.

    Destination Master

    Meghan Burns introduced the Destination Master activity, providing clues about a U.S. city with a high concentration of art museums and inviting participants to guess the location via chat.

    • This US city has one of the highest concentrations of art museums in the world, with nearly 100 museums
    • Served as the capital of the United States until 1790
    • Home to many famous artists, including Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Georgia O’Keeffe
    • The homes and art collections of famous historic residents of this city served as the foundation of many of the art museums you can visit today

    If you guessed New York City as the location, you are correct.

    Cultural Experiences and Travel Topics

    Lisa Hamil delivered a prepared speech titled “Star Power” about her cultural experiences. She shared cultural events and celebrities, including attending and singing in a Pavarotti concert in Verona and meeting Elizabeth Taylor at a dinner in Florence during an HIV conference. She described how these cultural experiences provided relief from academic stress, particularly during a challenging statistics class.

    Museum Travel Topics

    Helen led the Travel Topics session where members shared their responses to museum-related questions. Scott proposed opening an outdoor museum featuring petroglyphs and Native American artifacts, while Elizabeth expressed interest in speaking with the Mona Lisa to discover her secrets. Avis preferred guided museum tours over exploring alone, and Mandi highlighted how museums provide deeper historical context about a country beyond just experiencing its food or beaches. Meghan shared a bizarre museum artifact involving a Civil War bullet with unusual claims about its romantic history, and Judith imagined a future AI museum where paintings could come alive and interact with visitors.

    Next Meeting

    The theme of our August 6 meeting is “Dinosaur Adventures.” Join the Travel Talkers Toastmasters Club for a fun evening sharing your adventures. Engage with fellow members as we share our stories about traveling. This is your opportunity to focus on your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive Toastmasters-style environment. The meeting is on Thursday, August 6th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm Pacific time. We want to hear about your favorite Dinosaur adventure.

    Guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. If you would like to join the club, contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

    Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

    We look forward to hearing your travel stories! Join us to be inspired to take your next trip.

  • Travel Talkers Toastmasters–Travel to Experience Migrations

    The theme of our July 11th meeting was travel adventures to experience migrations. Samantha Jamwal was our Travel Topics Master at the meeting. She asked us to share the details of trips we have taken or would like to take to experience migrations of penguin families, elephant gatherings, hummingbird flights, or Monarch butterflies.

    Our destination master, Kit Myers, also used the migration theme. She showed us photos of locations on both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and asked us to name the location where visitors would be able to experience whale migrations.

    If you guessed Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, you are correct!

    Lisa Hamil presented a speech, “Anticipating Outer Space,” to engage us in thinking about the changes we need to make in our individual inner space before we can embark on the new frontier of inhabiting or visiting outer space. She included three areas that we need to develop.

    • Adopt a mindset of expansion and adhere to a personal higher standard.
    • Grow in the management and curation of resources.
    • Develop the skill of love and internal determination of strength.

    She commented that we have one vehicle for life, our physical body, and we need to develop functional longevity and energize wellness in our own body. Going to outer space, she concludes, will challenge our inner space and now is the time to develop new ways of thinking about our physical and emotional self.

    The theme of our July 18th meeting is “Reunions.” Join the Travel Talkers group for a fun evening sharing stories of your reunions. This event is for all travel enthusiasts. Engage with fellow members as we share our stories about traveling. Focus on your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive Toastmasters-style environment. The meeting is on Thursday, July 18th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm Pacific time. We want to hear about your travel and adventure plans.

    Guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. If you would like to join the club, contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

    Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

    RSVP on MeetUp to let us know you are coming to the meeting.

    We look forward to hearing your travel stories! Join us to be inspired to take your next trip.

    Helen Josephine,

    Travel Talkers Toastmasters

  • Travel Talkers Toastmasters–State Fair

    Carnival rides, livestock exhibitions, fried foods and concerts can all be found at the State Fair. In the United States, State Fairs are held in every state in the Summer and early Fall. Similar events are held in Australia, known as Royal Shows and in Canada, known as Provincial Exhibitions. State Fairs in the United States have been held since 1841. Originally a competitive event for livestock and farm products, State Fairs have evolved over the years to include ferris wheels, corn dogs, music concerts, and other competitions–pig races, BBQ cook-offs, pie-eating contests. This year the Texas State Fair is introducing southern-fried Cornbread Sausage Bombs. These deep-fried cornbread bites are advertised as representing the four major Texas food groups: cornbread, smoked sausage, pimento cheese, and jalapeño. 

    Our Travel Topics Master, Jacqueline, asked us to share stories about our visits as children or adults to a State Fair and what we liked about the experience. Tym shared a story about his mother-in-law winning the prize Hereford calf after correctly guessing the animal’s exact weight. Kit remembered watching a movie of the musical “State Fair” projected on a screen in her living room and then begging her parents to take her to the State Fair. Meghan shared stories about both the Texas State Fair and the California State Fair.

    Toastmaster Elvira Moss was our guest speaker at the meeting. Elvira shared her speech, “Leadership Styles Unveiled,” with our club. She revealed the essence of leadership, what leadership means, and how we can empower others. She encouraged us to be empathetic, effective, and consistent leaders and challenged us to commit to continuous growth and learning. She reminded us to make leadership fun and to lead with our mind and our heart.

    The Destination Master for the meeting, Preetha Menon, provided these clues for a city:

    • This city has three UNESCO world heritage cites, one of which is Fatehpur Sikri. The city remained the power center and capital of an empire for most of its glorious period.
    • This city was the birthplace of Hindi and Urdu literature,
    • This city has the largest Sloth Bear rescue facility.
    • This city is the largest exporter of shoes after China.

    If you guessed Agra, India, you are correct!

    The theme of our July 11th meeting is “Travel to Experience Migrations.” Join the Travel Talkers group for a fun evening sharing stories of your adventures. This event is for all travel enthusiasts. Engage with fellow members as they share their stories about traveling. Focus on your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive Toastmasters-style environment. The meeting is on Thursday, July 11th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm Pacific time. We want to hear about your travel and adventure plans.

    Guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. If you would like to join the club, contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

    Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

    RSVP on MeetUp to let us know you are coming to the meeting.

    We look forward to hearing your travel stories! Join us to be inspired to take your next trip.

    Helen Josephine,

    Travel Talkers Toastmasters

  • Travel Talkers Toastmasters–Theme Parks

    Many of us love to visit Theme Parks. According to a survey conducted in the first quarter of 2024, 61 percent of respondents in the United States enjoyed amusement parks. Theme park corporations in the US, UK, and China rank in the top ten by most number of visitors worldwide. The Disney Experience theme parks worldwide hosted over 157.3 million guests, making Disney Parks the world’s most visited theme parks, with United Kingdom-based Merlin Entertainments coming in second at 67 million guests. Theme Parks was the topic of our June 20th meeting. Our members and guests shared their experiences visiting theme parks as children and then returning to that same theme park years later as adults.

    Our Travel Topics Master, Kit Myers, shared phots from Theme Parks in Europe, the US, and the Bahamas. We talked about rollercoasters, water rides and theme park food.

    Meghan Burns presented the final speech of her Level 1 project for Presentation Mastery. Her speech, “It’s the Journey and the Destination” was a revised version of the speech she had given at the May 16th meeting. She incorporated the suggestions given by her evaluator to enumerate each tip to provide structure and to enhance the Zoom background to emphasize her tips about activities during airport layovers. Everyone appreciated the enhancements Meghan added to her speech. We enjoyed hearing her tips for how to spend time while waiting in airports–explore the shops, relax in the lounges, get a massage, watch the planes takeoff, and listen to the tower instructions to the pilots.

    Our second speaker, Lisa Hamil, shared a poem with us, “The Stately Hills,” and a photograph of the view that inspired the poem. She asked us questions after reciting her poem about our reaction or feelings about the poem and the photo of the hills of this National Monument in Utah.

    The Destination Master for the meeting, Helen Josephine, provided these clues for an area somewhere in the World:

    • This area of Great Britain was designated a World Heritage site in 2017 and it is the largest National Park in Great Britain.
    • Known for England’s highest mountain Scafell Pike (3,209 ft (978m) high) and sixteen major lakes, including Windermere, the longest and largest lake in England with a length of 11 miles (18 km) and an area of 5.69 square miles (14.73 km2), and Wast Water, the deepest lake in England (259 ft (9 meters) deep).
    • This area is intimately associated with English Literature of the 18th and 19th centuries including poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge,and the children’s book author Beatrix Potter who is known for the Peter Rabbit books.
    • Tourism is this area’s major industry, with about 12 million visitors each year, mainly from the UK, China, Japan, Spain, Germany, and the US.  Hikers, trekkers, bicyclists, and mountain bikers flock to this area for its miles of open road and beauty. The Coast to Coast or Sea to Sea Cycle Route (C2C) is a 140 miles (230 km) cycle route opened in 1994.

    If you guessed the Lake District in Great Britain, you are correct!

    The theme of our June 27th meeting is “State Fair.” Join the Travel Talkers group for a fun evening sharing stories of your State Fair adventures. This event is for all travel enthusiasts. Engage with fellow members as they share their stories about traveling. Focus on your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive Toastmasters-style environment. The meeting is on Thursday, June 27th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm Pacific time. We want to hear about your travel and adventure plans.

    Guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. If you would like to join the club, contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

    Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

    RSVP on MeetUp to let us know you are coming to the meeting.

    We look forward to hearing your travel stories! Join us to be inspired to take your next trip.

    Helen Josephine,

    Travel Talkers Toastmasters

  • Travel Talkers Toastmasters–Find Joy in the Journey

    Finding joy in the journey means savoring every moment and learning from every adventure. We enjoyed exploring this theme at our June 13th meeting. Jacqueline Maynard-Campbell presented her speech, “One More Time, Israel!” about her trip to Israel in 2014. She revised the speech she had given on May 9th to include more photos and details of the journey. As she shared her story, we felt the joy she experienced. Our second speaker at the meeting, Kit Myers, gave a speech about mentoring and the influence and guidance provided by the Mother of the host family she stayed with during her high school study abroad program in Belgium.

    Our Destination Master, Vernitta Brown, provided these clues for a continent.

    • This is the world’s 2nd largest and 2nd most populous continent.
    • This continent has 1.4 billion inhabitants.
    • This continent has 54 countries.
    • The ancient name of the continent is Alkebulan, which means “mother of mankind.”

    If you guessed Africa, you are correct!

    The Travel Topics Master of the meeting, Samantha, asked us questions about what we loved about traveling and if we had any favorite traveling buddies or habits. Tym commented that even perfectly planned trips need adjustments due to weather and airport closures. Our guest Tracy Baker revealed that his best travel companion was himself. Lisa Hamil practices her speeches and recites poetry on long car trips. And David commented that his favorite way to travel is by car with his Dad and brother, Issac.

    The theme of our June 20th meeting is “Theme Parks.” Join the Travel Talkers group for a fun evening sharing stories of your theme park adventures. This event is for all travel enthusiasts. Engage with fellow members as they share their stories about traveling. Focus on your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive Toastmasters-style environment. The meeting is on Thursday, June 20th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm Pacific time. We want to hear about your travel and adventure plans.

    Guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. If you would like to join the club, contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

    Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

    RSVP on MeetUp to let us know you are coming to the meeting.

    We look forward to hearing your travel stories! Join us to be inspired to take your next trip.

    Helen Josephine,

    Travel Talkers Toastmasters

  • Travel Talkers Toastmasters–Forgettable Flights

    The theme for our June 6th meeting was forgettable flights. We’ve all had the experiences we would like to not remember–the rude passengers, the overbooked flights, the lost luggage, the 24-hour delays. Once when flying from San Francisco to Dallas for a business trip, my suitcase never arrived in Dallas. Several phone calls later, I discovered that my luggage was still in San Francisco. My presentation was the next morning at 11 am and there was no guarantee that my suitcase would arrive in time. Lucky for me, I found a Neiman Marcus near the Convention Center and I had time to go shopping before my speech. I submitted the bill for my new outfit to United Airlines for reimbursement. When my suitcase finally arrived, it was a mess of wrinkled clothes from being drenched in fog in San Francisco and then baked in the hot sun in Dallas.

    Tym Myers was our speaker at the meeting. His speech, “Drip, Drip, Drip,” was about the great Canadian Maple syrup heist in 2011-2012. Seventy precent of the world’s production of Maple syrup is from Canada. The country has a Maple syrup storage complex with a combined capacity of 133 million pounds (216,000 barrels) in three warehouses that can hold the equivalent of 53 Olympic-sized swimming pools of Maple syrup. At full capacity, it would represent a value of $400 Million. From this Canadian storage facility for Maple syrup in Quebec thieves stole nearly 3,000 tonnes of Maple syrup, valued at C$18.7 million over several months in 2011 and 2012. First they transported each barrel to an off-site location, drained the Maple syrup, replaced the syrup with water, and then return the barrel to the storage facility. Later, to speed up the process, they just drained the barrels on-site and did not refill them with water. The empty barrels were discovered during a routine inspection and then the missing syrup was discovered. The theft was featured in the Netflix documentary series Dirty Money in season 1, episode 5, “The Maple Syrup Heist.” Tym used vocal variety and body language in his speech to engage the audience.

    Our Destination Master was Samantha. She provided these clues for a country:

    • Second-most biodiverse country in the world.
    • Mandatory for radio and public television to play the national anthem at 6 am and 6 pm everyday.
    • The world’s leading source of emeralds.
    • The third largest exporter of coffee in the world
    • National throwing sport is Tejo. Heavy metal disks are thrown into clay pits covered in gunpowder and landmines. 9 points to the player that scores a hit and a bulls-eye in the same throw.

    If you guessed Columbia, you are correct!

    The theme of our June 13th meeting is “Find Joy in the Journey.” Join the Travel Talkers group for a fun evening sharing the stories of your journeys. This event is for all travel enthusiasts. Engage with fellow members as they share their stories about finding joy while traveling. Focus on your public speaking skills and get valuable feedback in a supportive Toastmasters-style environment. The meeting is on Thursday, June 13th from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm Pacific time. We want to hear about your travel and adventure plans.

    Guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. If you would like to join the club, contact Helen Josephine for an application form.

    Register for the meeting: https://tinyurl.com/TravelTalkersZoomLink

    RSVP on MeetUp to let us know you are coming to the meeting.

    We look forward to hearing your travel stories! Join us to be inspired to take your next trip.

    Helen Josephine,

    Travel Talkers Toastmasters

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Telling a great travel story is my passion, sharing that passion with others is fun.

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