FOUNDER

Hailing from Colombia, the country with the most bird species in the world, Eliana has an unrelenting passion for birds, butterflies and biology. You’ll almost always see her smiling; she has a contagious zest for life, a vibrant personality and a deep love of the natural world. She’s hooked on traveling; no matter how long her trips are, when they near their end it’s inevitable she’ll remark “If only we had two more days.” Her ornithological endeavors have taken her from her home in South Florida to many remote corners of the planet. Among her many memorable experiences, she’s served as a bird bander with the Cape Florida Banding Station, tromped through vast expanses of Alaskan tundra tracking Steller’s Eiders and Emperor Geese, and managed a misty cloud forest nature reserve in Ecuador. Moreover, she set out on a big year birding adventure with her husband Marc, road-tripping across the entire U.S. & Canada in a '78 VW Bus! Following that life-changing experience, she was determined to share her love of birds and travel — and she now leads birding tours worldwide through her company, Birding by Bus.

With over 125,000 miles clocked across North America, Valentina is the mascot and core to the inspiration behind Birding by Bus. Powered by her 2000cc air-cooled engine, she’s our 1978 Volkswagen Campmobile Bus. While she’s the symbol for our company, she is not the vehicle we use for our tours (although we wish we could!). We utilize modern tour vans for our group birding trips.

Entering our lives on Valentine’s Day in 2008, she’s taken us all the way from Florida to Alaska and back — not just once, but TWICE now… without a single flat tire. She’s of a ripe old age now, but with regular maintenance and continual restoration efforts, we’ve kept her happily chugging along. Let’s just say that a lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into our little Valentina. But we wouldn’t change her for anything.

Our VW Bus has legendary status that everybody, both young and old, can connect with. We can’t even keep track of the hundreds — maybe thousands — of peace signs, thumbs-up’s, and waves we receive everywhere we go thanks to Valentina. She is definitely the star of the show!

FOUNDER

From rattling off the names of every dinosaur at the age of 2, Marc’s beginnings as a birder began in the early 90’s as a student at Cornell University. Mesmerized by the work of his ornithology professors, he embraced the opportunity to conduct avian field work on a remote seabird island in Alaska, in the neotropical rainforests of Panama, and on a wetland refuge for shorebirds in Northern California. Those formative days set into motion an unrelenting enthusiasm for birds and he never looked back. A plethora of life birds later, he steered his professional career towards birds but with a unique twist. He became a veterinarian and specializes in the medical care of birds, wildlife, and unusual pets.

Over the past 30 years he has made birds his passion in life, both for work and recreationally, traveling across the globe in a perpetual birding quest. Through Birding by Bus’s evolution into a birding tour company, Marc was able to follow his aspirations of fusing his avian veterinary work with the dream of leading birding and nature excursions worldwide.