Travel tip #114…Walk it off

Chuck said it well. “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Travel during a pandemic is…well…odd. The good news is, when the world is not in the midst of a pandemic, one of our favorite activities is hiking. So, while we find ourselves in the thick of a global pandemic,…

Travel tip #306…hike the hell outa them shoes

You don’t need new shoes. You don’t need a different backpack. You don’t need a $500 coat. And you don’t need to wait for better weather. John Muir used to put a little dry bread in his pocket, lace up some crappy boots and head into the wilderness for weeks on end. See those shoes…

Travel tip #37…Revisit the Apocalypse

Don’t start your town near an open pit mine. That’s just my opinion…but I suppose…if you work at the mine, you want to be close. Lowell, Arizona was pretty close to the old Lavender Pit, and then they figured out the copper ore was under where the city was. So the pit grew bigger and…

Travel tip #53…It’s for the Birds

They were snowbirds before humans took over the term. They head south when the weather gets cold and don’t turn back until the frozen tundra has thawed. Who can blame them? A friend mentioned it in passing…”You oughta go see the cranes,” she said. “Cranes?” “Sandhill cranes. They migrate through this time of year and…

Travel tip # 101…Find the old stuff

In my neighborhood, old things are from the 1960s. Anything more ancient than that has likely been abandoned, bulldozed, and built over. I’ve squinted over Kansas prairies to view the shallow depressions left by pioneer wagon trains. I’ve wandered New England cemeteries to find the oldest graves. I have roamed the back corners of the Badlands,…

Travel Tip #173…Eat

A guy’s gotta eat. I don’t mind traveling alone. In fact it often leads to interesting situations that wouldn’t happen if you were with a travel buddy. But every once in a while you wind up feeling like the weirdo by yourself in a restaurant while everybody else is hanging with their friends. On my…

Travel Tip #92…Look Down

How many photos of cobblestones can you take? Maybe just one more. In Cuba I was enamored with the cars. I couldn’t get enough of them, and when I thought maybe I had reached my fill, another beauty came around the corner. I don’t even like cars. When my son was 12, his friend could…

Travel Tip #64…Go Green

When I photograph nature, I like to stay close to it. If I wanted all the comforts of home, I would stay there. So when I had the choice to sleep in a big ol’ fancy lodge in Gamboa, Panama, or Mateo’s humble little B&B, it was an easy choice. Not to mention, I spent…

Travel tip # 119…Get in the Zone

How’s your history? Here’s what I understand about the Panama Canal… Sometime in the early 1900s the US wanted to connect its Atlantic and Pacific fleets. At the time, Panama was a part of Columbia. So we asked them if we could dig a canal. They said no. We said “Pretty please?” and they said…

Anatomy of a travel shoot

  Just a closer look at the gear that comes along on a travel shoot. More info is in the captions…just click on each image. This is why I like to drive places. I made one last pass and thinned out a bit before the flight…but this is the gist of it.