About Travis Monroe

I fix industrial refrigeration and HVAC control systems for a living, which puts me on the road three weeks out of four, a different plant floor, a different hotel room, a different rental car smell. I started keeping notes on what I read and played out there mostly so I'd stop forgetting which games actually survived a suitcase and which books I'd told someone I'd finished when I hadn't. A review here isn't a first impression, it's whatever I still believe about the thing a week after I packed it back into the case.

Nine years now doing field service on industrial refrigeration and HVAC controls, mostly food processing and cold storage plants across a territory that runs from Texas up through Kansas. Three weeks on the road is a normal month, one week home. A coworker named Reyes talked me into a travel-sized card game during a long layover a few years back, and that's really where this started, not some deliberate hobby decision, just two people killing four hours in an airport bar. The habit stuck harder than I expected. I keep one travel case packed at all times with whatever's small enough to survive a suitcase and quick enough to teach a stranger in a hotel lobby, and a separate shelf at home in Tulsa for the heavier stuff I only get to touch one week in four, which is part of why a long game has to really earn my patience before I'll call it worth the wait. Everything reviewed here I bought myself. No review copies, no publisher freebies. I rate a thing the same way I sign off on a repair, plainly, and only once I've actually finished it.

(2026-08-21) Packed the wrong travel case for a three-plant swing through Kansas this month and ended up rereading Chaos in a Wichita hotel lobby instead of playing anything. Could be worse.

Everything reviewed here I bought myself, no review copies and no affiliate links. If it's rated on this site, I finished it the same way anyone else would have to.

Email travis@traviswanders.com, or grab the RSS feed. I read what comes in, replies might take a while.