Meet the Wandering Werths

Welcome to WerthWhile Wandering! We are Jeff & Lisa Werth – Gen-Xers with a never-ending craving to travel and a passion for helping others plan and execute the trip of a lifetime.

We reside in Des Moines, Iowa, where Jeff is a high school English teacher. Because of his schedule, most of our travels are in high season – summer, Christmas, and spring break. Lisa is at the end of a three-plus-decade career running a family real estate business.

Since Lisa has more free time, she does the bulk of the writing for this site, for now, anyway! Jeff is a budding professional photographer, and took most of the photos.

We seek out active travel (think hiking, biking, skiing, and lots of walking) and cultural experiences (think museums, historical sites, and live performances). We’re neither economy nor luxury travelers, but we do enjoy comfortable lodgings, small group or private tours, and memorable food & wine.

We were both born and bred in the Midwest and have spent decades finding adventures in our current home state of Iowa, along with Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska, and especially Colorado.

In 2013 we took our first trip to Europe and fell in love. We’ve returned four times and are always planning the next trip. We hope to explore other continents as well.

As middle-aged travelers, we, the Wandering Werths, have learned the fine balance of planning enough in advance to ensure we don’t kick ourselves for missing anything fabulous, but also leaving enough flex time to soak up the essence of the place, chat with the locals, and find gems that don’t make it into the guidebooks.

The two of us don’t always travel alone. Happily, we are often accompanied by our adult children: Tyler and Katie, and Tyler’s wife Jennifer.

Lately, we’re lucky enough to also travel with our delightful grandson Liam. (Tyler and Jennifer’s son.)

We also bring the Werthwhile Wandering Pup, Frisco (named after a town in the Colorado Rocky Mountains) with us whenever possible.