Heels to Hiking Boots
From Continental Notebook, May 1997

While in Fiji, Paula Grecco became acquainted with island natives. (Photo)

Imagine living for more than a year on a deserted island off the Inside Passage of Alaska, and, upon your return to civilization, you receive more than 5,000 letters from single women eager to meet you. It may sound like a fantasy, but it actually happened to Michael Modzelewski, travel writer, professional speaker and co-host of "EarthWise," a program on the Outdoor Life television channel.

Modzelewski spent more than a year in near solitude in Alaskan wilderness, researching his book "Inside Passage: Living with Killer Whales, Bald Eagles, and Kwakiuti Indians. He received so much publicity that Cosmopolitan magazine featured him as Bachelor of the Month in November 1991, and the letters poured in. On letter was from Continental flight attendant Paula Grecco, who was intrigued by Modzelewski's extensive globe-trotting.

The couple was married six months after they met, and they have been traveling the world together ever since. Grecco often accompanies her husband on trips for his cable program. During their travels, the pair has eaten water rats with ant sauce with the Pemon Indians in the Venezuelan rain forest, camped out with reindeer herders at the North Pole and stayed on a Fijian island with descendants of cannibals. They have twice appeared on "Oprah," and two movie studios are considering a romantic comedy based on their life together.

"Before I met Michael, my idea of 'roughing it' was a slow room service," Grecco says. "I've gone from high heels to hiking boots."