Retired Austin Travelers, fondly referred to as "RATs" was formed in January of 2008 by a handful of Austin area travelers who wanted to get together to share ideas and experiences.

It was decided at that first meeting to “keep it loose” i.e. no by-laws, elected officers or dues.This worked pretty well so long as we were just a few.However, the group has quickly grown much larger so it has become necessary to get it a little more organized.

This is an evolutionary process so the exact “form” the organization will take has yet to be determined. We may ask for volunteers to act as facilitators, coordinators, or committee members.We already have a volunteer (see below) who is “building” this web site for RATs and another (also below) who has volunteered help keep it up.

More about Jim and Katie Robirds: Our fearless leaders who keep RATs running.

Katie is originally from Pennsylvania and Jim, from California.We met in Washington, DC and were married in 1960.We have two sons and three grandchildren.We moved to Austin in 1986 and retired in 2002 from the Federal Government and Texas state.

Retirement so far has been a good time in our lives.Our philosophy at present is, we will never be healthier, richer, or better looking, so we’d better do our traveling now!Some of our trips after retirement were in the US.We went from sea to shining sea; then we discovered cruising.The last three years have been spent mostly cruising.This past spring we went to Egypt, Jordan and the Holy lands. This fall, we plan on visiting the Mediterranean.Next year should be a big time for travel for us since we will celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary in July and hope to travel somewhere every month.We enjoy hearing from other travelers at the RATs meetings.

This is Phil and June Landrum.They joined our group just this last meeting, on July 8, 2009

Phil has loaned his time, talent and expertise to build our new website!

He welcomes any and all suggestions, comments, corrections or questions, you may have about this site. Just click the button below to Phil an email.

This is Pat Murphree. Pat is one of the earlier participants in RATs.

She has volunteered to help Phil with the website.

See her "Contact Pat" button below.