When Alida and Pieter Meijers first came to the United States from The Netherlands in 1968, they expected to stay only a year while Pieter completed his post-doctoral appointment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. A year later, they were in Cairo, Egypt where Pieter taught a course in archeological chemistry at the American University. It was back to New York in 1970 where for the next decade, Pieter would work as a research chemist at the Brookhaven Lab and Metropolitan Museum of Art and organized a Dixieland jazz band, the Isotope Stompers.
Alida kept busy while Pieter was immersed in his work and in 1973, was approached by a friend who had just opened a travel agency, suggesting she might enjoy the travel field because of her extensive travel experience and proficiency in foreign languages. “I knew nothing about the travel industry, but agreed to give it a try for a week at no pay,” she recalled. “I loved it! Clients would come in to book a trip to Italy, for example, and were told ‘Alida has been to Italy. Why don’t you talk to her.’”
-First Jazz Tour in 1985-
She went on to work as a travel consultant at several offices and obtained her Certified Travel Consultant diploma (CTC) in 1984. The idea of combining travel and jazz was always in the back of her mind, so that year she took two bands - Nightblooming Jazzmen and Desert City 6 from Phoen
