Travis grew up in Charlotte, Vermont. He attended the University of Wyoming, earning a mechanical engineering degree. During college, he started working for the National Park Service building backcountry trail crews in Yellowstone. After graduating and briefly pursuing some engineering-related work, he returned to Yellowstone for six seasons (2004–2009).

 

Travis then worked at Rocky Mountain National Park running trail crews for four seasons while his wife, Rebecca, completed a medical fellowship in Denver. After Rocky, he worked at North Cascades National Park as a climbing ranger for the National Park Service (2013–2015). He and his wife moved to Anchorage, AK in 2016 where he guided on Denali before becoming a seasonal climbing ranger for Denali National Park in 2017. He and his wife were based in Anchorage (and Talkeetna, AK) for 9 years.

 

He began mountain guiding in 2014, and has spent the last eight summers with Exum Mountain Guides after the Denali climbing season ends. He is now based in Jackson, WY and splits the year between avalanche forecasting with the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center, patrolling Denali as a climbing ranger with the National Park Service and guiding for Exum Mountain Guides in the Tetons.