Mistakes on the Road make Great Stories Later

Robert Reid, a blogger on the Lonely Planet website, has an interesting list of "47 or so Dumb Things I've Done Traveling." Worth a read (check out: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelblogs/68/1256/47+or+so+Dumb+Things+I) if for no other reason than to prime the pump of your own brain storage device and remember some of your own dumb things. I'm sure I can come up with 47 or so given time and a Mai Tai or two. But for now here's a start.

1. On a day trip during a visit to Washington DC, Greyhouding it to Williamsburg, Virginia and then refusing to pay the then outlandish fee of $10 or so for a day pass to tour Colonial Williamsburg. I ended up pay $3 or so to visit each of first 2 buildings in the complex and then looking through the windows of others - all to save $4. Chuck's rule #1 - don't skip on the admissions. After paying air/bus/rail/car rental/gas/hotels/visas/meals, don't skimp on why you're actually there - seeing and experiencing the place!

2. Not going back to the festival site in rural Bhutan (OK, OK, almost all of Bhutan is rural), wanting instead to nap and get over my cold. Actually, Nevada Wier, the master travel and cultural photographer and trip leader, talked my out of napping and encouraged me to grab the camera and go back to the festival. Her logic - you're in BHUTAN, for goodness sakes, likely a once in a lifetime experience - save the nap for later - see and experience now! Good advice! (I did pass, later on in the day, on an excursion to another temple, sans monks and festivals. Consensus of the group was that I had made the right choice - both times.)

3. Not going to San Miguel Allende for Holy Week several years ago, with family in tow, and joining up with a good friend for the festivities. While it made sense on one level not to go with a 7 year old, I missed an opportunity to visit with a photographer friend who, sadly, died a year later.

4. Making a reservation at a motel in Cortez, Colorado a day or two before our arrival because the lodge in Mesa Verde National Park was full. We passed the park entrance, drove to the hotel, checked in, and then drove back to the Park only to see the sign at the entry booth - rooms available at the Lodge! #*$)# Even more so when we saw the Lodge. %$(*&%

5. Passing up a stop in Bilbao, Spain to see the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Gehry, because the weather was threatening, we were tired and didn't want to deal with the town's traffic. Over the next several weeks, the weather wherever we went was always threatening and we missed seeing one of the architectural highlights of the world.

Oh, well. Enough for now. I'm sure I'll think of others soon. And so will you.

To Photograph or Not To Photograph

A recent article on World Hum, by Doug Mack, ends with the phrase "The best travel moments, it turns out, are not the Kodak ones." As a photographer and a writer (more the former than the latter), and most of all a traveler, I carefully read the article (Doug is more a writer than a photographer, but definitely a traveler as well), I came to a more mixed conclusion. Its the circumstances, its my mood and my interests that will be involved in defining a "best travel moment." Listening to a gamelon performance in the evening on Bali sans camera is a forever memory. So were the photographs taken of stained glass in Paris that will live in my memory AND on my walls forever as well. We each bring our interests and skills and priorities and moods into each and every experience. And what comes out of the experience will be ours and only ours.

The article, entitled "The Best Travel Photo I Never Took," can be found at: http://www.worldhum.com/features/speakers-corner/the-best-photo-i-never-took-20090826/

New Photography Exhibit

An exhibit of my photographs of the stained glass of Paris has just opened at the "Art in the Parlor" at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Finch at Wyatt, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

The photographs were taken in Paris during the fall of 2008 at Sainte Chapelle, the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Church of Saint Eustache (the above photo was taken at Notre Dame). I’ve used motion to bring a sense of liveliness and, hopefully, awe to what would ordinarily appear in a photograph as just another two-dimensional sedentary object.

Art in the Parlor is open weekdays 9am - 1pm and Sundays from 8am-noon. The show will be up through New Years.

You've Got To Be Kidding

According to an article on the importance of taking vacations for your own health, 34% of American workers do not use all of their vacation time. There's a whole world out there, even if close to home!!! Rest, refresh and experience! The article, by the way, can be found at: http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/501374.

Travel Writing 101

Sicne this is a travel and photography-oriented blog, travel writing surely fits in. As with breaking into any profession, travel writing has its hurdles. A straight-to-the-point yet interesting (good writing always requires the latter) article is found on the Verge Magazine website.


http://www.vergemagazine.com/articles/40/100-6-tips-for-aspiring-travel-writers.html.


By the way, Verge magazine, a Canadian production subtitled "Travel With Purpose," is aimed at a younger (or younger-at-heart) audience looking for adventure, planning a "gap year" journey, or hoping to live and work overseas while on a longer journey. It kind of fills in for "Transitions Abroad," a magazine that I thought was a bit more well rounded but that bit the dust last year, but that still exists in cyberspace: http://www.transitionsabroad.com/.

World Hum - Travel Site of the Day ... or Week

Anyway, I recently returned from a wonderful conference in the Bay Area devoted to Travel Writing and Photography. And during the course of the 4 days I came across a number of travel websites either for the first time or was re-introduced to sites I had once perused. So, I though I would start sharing some of those sites on the blog that I find particularly useful or interesting. Hope you do to.

So, the first site is www.worldhum.com. It contains a wonderful mix of well-written features, a multi-category blog, photo slide shows, videos, etc. And the best part is the specifics of the destination is often not the story - rather its the journey itself which makes it rather refreshing!

A recently posted feature by Sophia Dembling on India is a great intro to the type of articles you;ll find on this site:
http://www.worldhum.com/features/travel-stories/the-bucket-and-the-cup-20090828/

Enjoy!