...meet Lorrin & Nyla Walsh

Nyla and Lorrin Walsh bring a wealth of varied travel and work experiences to their roles as Fantasy Ambassadors and they love to share this knowledge with Fantasy guests.

From Bremerton, Washington, Lorrin was a nuclear reactor plant inspector for the Navy for 28 years. Before he retired, he started working part time for Grey Line of Seattle, fi rst as a driver and tour guide and later as a driving instructor, gaining valuable hospitality experience. He went a few steps farther – writing two books on driving RVs and ultimately becoming an RV driving instructor.

Nyla was originally trained as a nurse, but decided to stay home to raise their two sons for a while, then went back to work as a home health care nurse. In 1988, Lorrin surprised her by taking her on a Caribbean cruise. “I had so much fun I ended up going to work for a cruise line as the Youth Activities Coordinator,” she says. That was just the beginning. Over the next eleven years, Nyla cruised to 66

diff erent countries, working for various cruise lines including Princess and Holland America. She fell in love with Alaska. “I became a tour director for Holland America, taking groups on their land tours. On board ship, I would give lectures on Alaska.”

The Walshs’ next adventure took place in Alaska, where they spent three years promoting Holland America’s land tours to cruise ship passengers.

Over the years, this love of adventure had also prompted Lorrin and Nyla to embrace the RV lifestyle. As children, Nyla would tent camp with her family, and Lorrin’s folks purchased a trailer in 1960. When they were fi rst married, their “RV” was actually a motorcycle. Later, they bought a trailer and proudly purchased their fi rst motorhome in 1975 – a 24’ brand new Pace Arrow. During Lorrin’s years working for the Navy, they used the RV to travel across the country three times with their sons. “Lorrin would have to work, but

the boys and I would go along and have fun,” says Nyla. “By the time our sons were fi ve and seven years old they’d been in 49 states.”

In 2014, Lorrin and Nyla were at an RV Rally where Lorrin was teaching an RV driving course. They visited Fantasy’s sales booth and decided that they could best share their love of travel and adventure by signing on as Ambassadors. Since joining, they’ve traveled to Baja and have worked on the Alaska Your Way caravan as both tail gunners and WagonMasters. They’ve worked the Rose Parade Rally, the Mesa Reunion Rally as well as the sales booths in Quartzsite and Indio this year. But still, their favorite is Alaska and they will defi nitely be going back.

“We really love the Alaska Your Way tour,” says Nyla. “Because the itinerary doesn’t include many guided tours and activities, we fi nd we attract self-starters, many of whom have already toured Alaska in the past and may have seen something they wanted to

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do but didn’t have time for previously. Our job is to fi nd out what they are interested in doing and then provide them with information, references and guidance so they can choose what they want to do.” On this tour, guests will often pool their money to initiate some really exciting activities – the Walshes named examples of groups renting an entire fi shing boat, chartering a plane to fl y to Katmai to see bears, helicoptering over Glacier

National Park as some of the activities. “One guest wanted to go horseback riding,” says Nyla. “We helped him set it up – four times! By the last time, he wound up with twelve others going with him.”

Still living at home in Bremerton, Lorrin and Nyla travel for Fantasy about six months of the year, often incorporating personal travel and visits to their sons and three granddaughters into

their trips. Yet another symbol of their love for Alaska is their traveling companion, an American Eskimo dog – aka the “Queen of the Tour”.

“We enjoy showing people things they would never have had a chance to see if they had gone on their own,” says Nyla. “We provide the background and history, helping them enjoy their tour in a much better way.”