Bill Tomicki, the editor of Travel by ENTREE blog,  honed his considerable travel bona fides (and powerful rolodex) as a Vice President for Tiffany and Sotheby’s then moved to Montecito in 1981 to launch his newsletter, ENTREE, to provide well-heeled globetrotters with insider, well-researched hotel and restaurant information. In his 32-year career as a road warrior he has managed to dance on the Great Wall of China, witness a revolution in Russia, hunt with Masai, eat piranhas with headhunters, play polo with maharajahs, box with a heavyweight champion, and, along the way, was knighted in France and Portugal and named Lord Millcombe in England. He has been nominated for a Nobel Prize and studied at both Harvard and Oxford. He once courageously cooked dinner for Julia Child and knew both Cary Grant and Salvador Dali. Today he numbers 22,000 subscribers who follow his recommendations faithfully. No wonder VOGUE Magazine called ENTREE the “Rolls Royce of travel newsletters.” Each month Tomicki skewers the mediocre and exalts excellence so that his readers do not waste their time and money doing so.

“The importance of Elsewhere is magical,” he proclaims and travel is a metaphor for the way we live our lives. He is fond of saying “tourists don’t know where they have been; travelers do not know where they are going.” Now honored as an eminence gris (and adulte terrible) after a  long career traveling,  Bill Tomicki is assured of one thing: it doesn’t matter where you go as long as you are with the person you love. And he considers one of the best rewards of travel simply the art of coming home.

Write Bill at wtomicki@gmail.com

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