It is with great sadness that we share this news with you. During the past week we lost one of our dear friends, Travel Rob (Rob Jensen), after a half year long battle with cancer. He was only 53 years old.
Rob was a resident of Jacksonville and one of the founding partners of TravelGumbo in 2013. More importantly he was a loving father of two sons, Peter (Jacksonville) and Tommy (Japan). Rob deeply loved his Canadian fiancé, Vivie, whom he hoped to marry this summer.
From DrFumblefinger:
I first met Rob through the Frommer’s forums in which Rob was an enthusiastic participant. I remember Rob’s first contact with me when I was visiting Iceland for the first time. He recommended that I try the local Coca-Cola (made with cane sugar and Icelandic water), and one of the sheep hot dogs sold in a kiosk in Reykjavik. Both were excellent recommendations, of the type that I and the readers of our website have come to expect from TravelRob.
Our email contact became more frequent and when Google destroyed the old Frommer’s forums, several of us from the Frommer pages thought it would be a good idea to start our own travel website—”By Travelers, for Travelers.” We hoped to establish a community of like-minded people with whom we could share our travel ideas and experiences.
Rob and I stayed in touch by email, phone calls, and in person visits—in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Charleston. And of course, we worked as a team with Paul to keep TravelGumbo an interesting website to visit.
Rob never was a wealthy person but found ways to budget travel the world. His energy and enthusiasm were inspirational to us all. He was a kind-hearted man who loved traveling and loved to share travel stories and tips with others.
Good-bye Rob. You will be greatly missed.
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PHeymont’s comments
I first met Rob Jensen on the old Frommers forums, where so many travelers shared experience, advice and other travel commentary.
Rob’s voice stood out for his commitment to budget travel and to the idea that travel was good for everyone and that no one should be put down for traveling frugally.
Rob had a lot of travel knowledge and unusual experience; while some might have bragged about it, Rob wanted to share and encourage.
During the disaster when Google acquired Frommers and then a few months later prepared to shut it down, Rob led an effort, which I helped with, to quickly copy and save the wealth of travel experience built up over the years—because he considered everyone’s collected experience a real treasure.
Rob was always an optimist: He believed people traveling helped make the world better; he was sure that we would make TravelGumbo an important part of people’s travel experiences. And Rob was generous: with his time, his counsel, his resources and his friendship.
We will all miss him—and we will do our best to continue what he did.
R.I.P. to a terrific and professional traveler whose stories and WITW mysteries kept me enthralled with the world and especially Canada. He and I used to exchange thoughts and insights. I will miss him alot. Goodbye my friend.
Sad to hear. Sincere condolences to Rob’s friends and family.