About Chris Ballam

Chris Ballam

I'm Chris Ballam — a husband, a father of four, and a Senior Manager of Software Engineering at Adobe who has spent more than 30 years exploring the world. I've traveled to 29 countries across 6 continents, most of them alongside my wife and our four children, and I've been sharing photos and hard-won travel advice here at ChrisBallam.com since 2001. My focus is simple: helping families and budget-minded travelers plan real trips — with kids of every age — and bring home better photos while they're at it.

Chris Ballam, founder of ChrisBallam.com, traveling with his family in China
Chris Ballam — traveler, photographer, backpacker, and dad of four.

At a Glance

Traveling the World with Four Kids

Most of my travel hasn't been solo — it's been with a spouse and four children in tow, at every age from infants and toddlers to teenagers. That's shaped everything I share here: how to plan, pack, budget, and actually enjoy international travel as a family instead of just surviving it.

The trip I'm proudest of was a 7-week, 8-country journey through Southeast Asia — Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam — that I planned entirely myself and took my wife and all four kids on during a sabbatical from Adobe. If you can plan and survive that with children, you learn a lot about what really works on the road. Those lessons are the backbone of the budget and family-travel guides on this site.

30+ Years Behind the Camera

Photography came first. My very first year at Utah State University, I studied professional photography before deciding to make computer science my career and keep photography, videography, and travel as lifelong passions. Since then I've built an archive of thousands of travel photographs from around the world, and I share both the images and the practical techniques behind them so you can capture your own trips better — whatever camera you carry.

Backpacking the American West

I'm an avid outdoorsman and backpacker. I've made numerous trips into Wyoming's Wind River Range — often covering more than 100 miles on foot, summiting peaks along the way, and (so far) never being eaten by a bear. Closer to home, Utah's canyons and trails are my backyard, and I've backpacked across Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, and Texas as well.

I also served three separate times as a Boy Scouts of America Scoutmaster, leading well over a hundred young men aged 11 to 19 on dozens of backpacking and camping trips across five states. Planning safe, well-run trips for large groups of kids in the wilderness is its own kind of expertise — and it's exactly what informs guides like my Coyote Gulch backpacking guide.

Preparing Missionaries to Serve Around the World

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I served a full-time mission in Scotland as a young man. Since then I've helped prepare and pack my own children — plus friends and extended family — for international missions of their own. That firsthand experience is why the most-used guides on this site are my country-specific missionary packing lists, including my Elder missionary packing list for Brazil and Sister missionary packing list for Argentina. A packing list for Scotland is coming soon.

My Day Job: Engineering Leadership at Adobe

By profession I've been a software engineer and leader for 30+ years. Since 2011 I've been a Senior Manager of Software Engineering at Adobe (Experience Cloud), where I've led engineering teams spanning three continents and four time zones. Before Adobe I worked at IBM on WebSphere, and I got my start at Macromedia and Sorenson.

I hold a Master of Science in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management — consistently ranked among the top two MIS graduate programs in the country — and a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Systems from Utah State University. Along the way I've won several software-engineering competitions, including one for building the best Android application in the early days of mobile app development.

Why does the day job matter on a travel site? Because I don't travel with unlimited time or an unlimited budget. Like most people, I plan ambitious trips around a demanding career and a finite number of vacation days — and I bring an engineer's discipline to making every trip efficient, affordable, and worth it. You can read the full professional details on my resume.

Why I Created ChrisBallam.com

I started this site back in 2001 to share my travel photography and the practical knowledge I was picking up along the way. More than two decades later, it's grown into a resource for families, budget travelers, photographers, backpackers, and missionaries — everything I wish I'd had when I was planning my own first big trips. Everything here comes from experiences I've actually lived.

A Few Common Questions

Do you really travel with all four kids?
Yes — nearly all of my international travel has been with my wife and our four children, at every age. Traveling with children of all ages is the specialty of this site.

How do you afford to travel so much?
By treating trip planning like a project: I travel on a budget, plan carefully around limited vacation time, and share the money-saving strategies I use in my budget travel guides.

What kind of guides will I find here?
Family and budget travel tips, destination and outdoor guides, travel photography techniques, and detailed missionary packing lists by country.

Explore My Best Guides

Follow Along

The best way to keep up with new trips, photos, and guides is on YouTube and Instagram. You can also find me on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Have a question or want to say hello? Get in touch.