About the Author

Since he was a child, Branan Ward has always made a habit of running away from home in search of adventure.

Eight decades later, nothing has changed.

During the first half of his life, Ward was a hitchhiker, hobo, member of the US Coast Guard Auxiliary and merchant marine, World War II sailor, Alaskan pilot, tug boat skipper, and gold field worker, to name a few. Then he decided to go to college.

In 1950, he completed a master's degree in geography, with a minor in anthropology, from California State University at Los Angeles. He then spent thirty years teaching at the high school and college levels, organized an amateur ham radio club, and continued to travel the world. At age seventy-seven, he circumnavigated the world on a solo trip and realized his lifelong dream of seeing the Potala monastery in Tibet.

At ninety-one, he keeps busy painting murals and portraits.