Since I am already where I want to be, my dream trip, money no object, would be to do nothing but shoot and write, shoot and write for two or three years straight. All Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, all the time.
I would rent a vehicle, recruit my CA NPN buds and then head off on a USA road trip to shoot with NPN friends I haven't yet met. That would be soooo cool!
-PB
Posted by David Senesac on June 24, 2007 at 12:11 PM
Your question assumes that all of we photographers dream of visiting exotic locations that we may occasionally read about. There are certainly many well known photographers that once they established a solid reputation and their personal wealth increased, expanded the realm of what and where they worked beyond the local areas they built their earlier body of work on. I would suspect most working or armchair photographers in fact do have such dreams with some stepping up to serious investigation like buying region focused guidebooks and checking travel methods and costs. Of course we thrive on our dreams that provide drive to our life goals and excitement. Thus there is a rather well oiled circuit servicing wealthy travel photographers of the world. And many of them probably think they are living the life that the rest of us envy.
Personally I don't have the above photography orientation or dreams. I could certainly use your "unlimited funds" for a month travelling somewhere in a sense but that would not be to visit new exotic locales in the way I'm sure you are expecting us to relate. That is because I'm currently in a financial squeeze that limits what I can even do locally and as a result will probably have to go back to my hi tech career work for a period. But if I could go wherever with your unlimited funds it would simply be something like being able to rent for a month a large SUV with gasoline paid for. Period! And I'd simply do another of my familiar month long swings next May through some Southwest like Utah that I already have done the exploration and research to know where the "goods" are and when they are optimal. Just like in my favorite California areas that include much of the more remote backcountry areas, where my long years experience and natural science knowledge are golden. Areas I am already working with high levels of increasing a coherent body of large format image work. Thus I would be far more productive continuing to work areas I've built years of natural science and location research and exploration becoming knowledgeable about than some exotic seashore I would be but another here there gone next week dabbler.
Now if someone bankrolled me for a year or two like this, I would at some point begin to visit other Western areas I've already done some level of serious topographic map investigation on but never actually visited like Mount Ranier. ...David
I would say that I have a couple ideas on this one. First, I am actually going on what I would consider my dream shoot in a few days. I leave for AK for 11 days. Five of those days are being spent in McNeil River Bear Sanctuary since I was selected in the lottery. I have entered for 6 years and have finally been chosen. I will also be shooting a good part of the Kenai Peninsula and the Kenai Fjords National Park during the trip.
My second option would be a month in Africa and hit all the major parks and preserves while I was there.
Kinda depends on the season. If I could leave tomorrow I'd probably drive up to Alaska through Canada and spend a few days hiking and backpacking in each park along the way.
I'm with Pete D. Give me the time and I'll find a way to live cheaply.
In my mind, you don't need unlimited funds for a dream trip. If you can get the time, a dream trip can easily turn into reality. If you camp, sleep in your car, backpack, and cook your own food, and drive a car with decent mileage, it would be reasonable to spend a month or two on the backroads of North America. Or Asia or South America. It's just a really hard thing to do with a mortgage, kids in school and a job that limits you to 2-3 weeks vacation a year. But I look at it this way. Eventually the kids will be out of the house, the mortgage will be paid (or with the kids out a downsize will be a possibility), and at some point you may be able to retire or find yourself between jobs without a daily commitment. Then you can go. And sometimes it's not the trip itself, but the carrot that means more in our daily lives.
I'm fortunate enough to have a shift job, no children and a wife who can live in the dirt if she has to. I put a little money aside each month into a travel/photography account and keep the money invested. Once a year, I withdraw some of the fund and plan a trip based on how the yield turned out. I also put everything I buy onto a credit card that accumulates air miles for travel. With this strategy, I've been able to do two trips to South America over the last 10 years and last year was able to fly to Asia and the Himalayas on miles. Airfare to Lima was $480 RT off season when I went. I pick cheap but beautiful destinations and travel by bus, stay in hostels or camp and can usually get by on $20 a day. That's $600 for a month trip. When I was in China last year, a 12 hour bus ride was $12. A place to stay was between $3 and $8 a night and noodles are cheap in China. Camping was free. I just needed the time and the airfare and the rest fell into place.
Here are two future dream trip possibilities with those same budget requirements:
Asia: Fly to Shanghai, China. Take a bus to the Huangshan Mountains and then to Guilin and the Li River. Spend a week or two trekking and hitching on local boats through those gorgeous landscapes. Then head into Sichuan province and backpack in the four girls mountains, Yading and the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Then take a bus into Tibet, and then get a group of people together to rent a truck or hitch on the roof of a commercial truck along the Friendship highway into Nepal. Trek through the Rolwaling Himalaya to Everest and then down the other side to the bottom of the highway and catch a bus to Kathmandu. Take a bus to Chitwan park to see the Terai wildlife. Fly home via Thailand and check out the amazing coastline there.
South America:
Fly to Lima, Peru. Take a bus to Huarez and trek through the Andes. Bus back to Lima and then fly to Cuzco ($120 pp). Avoid the tour agencies and enquire about the cheap locals route to Machu Picchu that avoids the train. Explore Machu Picchu, then head back to Cuzco. Take a bus across the Andes and down to the Amazon. Or splurge for a river trip down the Tambopata to the Amazon. Take local boats along the river with side trips along the way to Manaus. Take a bus from there across the border into Venezuela. Climb Roraima Tepui and take the river trip through the Gran Sabana to the base of Angel Falls. Trek through the park for a week. Fly home via Caracas.
There is some tough traveling involved in these trips and you would have to watch your gear really closely. You would end up living through some amazing adventures and it could be pretty scary at times but the experience would be priceless. If you can find a way to get the time, these trips really could be turned from a dream into reality. And even if you never go, it sure is nice to keep the possibility of a trip like this as a carrot in front of you during those long days at work.
-Mike
Check out these links to get you drooling...
Venezuela:
http://www.lagransabana.com/video.htm Check out the video called 'Experiencas de Vida La Gran Sabana'. The scenery and video will absolutely BLOW YOU AWAY! This looks like the ULTIMATE destination for a landscape photographer. Some of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world, thick jungle, weird rock formations, cloud shrouded table mountains, exotic plants and birds, endless grasslands, caves and slot canyons, it's all there. Make sure you watch the whole video-some of the best stuff is at the end. You've GOT to check it out! I'm definitely going here someday so let me know if there's anybody out there that wants to do a trip like this.
Posted by Kent Staubus on June 24, 2007 at 11:49 PM
Antarctica is on my wife & I's list. Dream trip would be to be left with two kayaks and supplies for a month by ourselves. My other dream trip is to photo the new China/Tibet railroad. Not sure how well I'd do at that high altitude though. The cold I can handle.
Posted by Nate Chappell on June 27, 2007 at 12:04 AM
Back to Namibia, with some time around Capetown, South Africa as well. Etosha National Park is the best place I've been to to shoot big animals from your own (rented) vehicle. Actually, I'm working on trying to arrange it right now.
Catherine. Can I come too? Actually Ireland is on my list, but so is Africa, Alaska, Austria, Switzerland, Galopogos, Oregon, and on and on and on... I'm afraid I'm running out of time and never did have the money. Oh well, in my next life.
Maybe I just don't think big enough, but some of my favorite places are fairly close to me. I could easily spend a month (a year) exploring the Colorado Plateau. With all of the hidden canyons and stunning formations, I would be in heaven. I really want to do a photo essay of the Colorado River, from the headwaters in RMNP all the way to the Gulf of California.
Of course, a month in Glacier would be wonderful as well. Or the lower Rio Grande: Santa Ana, Laguna Atascosa, or even Big Bend (not really lower, but Rio Grande all the same!) And then there is always Alaska...
Of course, getting a little further out, I've always wanted to go to Machu Picchu or the Amazon...
Discussion
28 repliesDanny.
-PB
Personally I don't have the above photography orientation or dreams. I could certainly use your "unlimited funds" for a month travelling somewhere in a sense but that would not be to visit new exotic locales in the way I'm sure you are expecting us to relate. That is because I'm currently in a financial squeeze that limits what I can even do locally and as a result will probably have to go back to my hi tech career work for a period. But if I could go wherever with your unlimited funds it would simply be something like being able to rent for a month a large SUV with gasoline paid for. Period! And I'd simply do another of my familiar month long swings next May through some Southwest like Utah that I already have done the exploration and research to know where the "goods" are and when they are optimal. Just like in my favorite California areas that include much of the more remote backcountry areas, where my long years experience and natural science knowledge are golden. Areas I am already working with high levels of increasing a coherent body of large format image work. Thus I would be far more productive continuing to work areas I've built years of natural science and location research and exploration becoming knowledgeable about than some exotic seashore I would be but another here there gone next week dabbler.
Now if someone bankrolled me for a year or two like this, I would at some point begin to visit other Western areas I've already done some level of serious topographic map investigation on but never actually visited like Mount Ranier. ...David
My second option would be a month in Africa and hit all the major parks and preserves while I was there.
What fun.
Where's the closest lottery?
Carol
Pete D. stubbornly refusing to dream
Guy
In my mind, you don't need unlimited funds for a dream trip. If you can get the time, a dream trip can easily turn into reality. If you camp, sleep in your car, backpack, and cook your own food, and drive a car with decent mileage, it would be reasonable to spend a month or two on the backroads of North America. Or Asia or South America. It's just a really hard thing to do with a mortgage, kids in school and a job that limits you to 2-3 weeks vacation a year. But I look at it this way. Eventually the kids will be out of the house, the mortgage will be paid (or with the kids out a downsize will be a possibility), and at some point you may be able to retire or find yourself between jobs without a daily commitment. Then you can go. And sometimes it's not the trip itself, but the carrot that means more in our daily lives.
I'm fortunate enough to have a shift job, no children and a wife who can live in the dirt if she has to. I put a little money aside each month into a travel/photography account and keep the money invested. Once a year, I withdraw some of the fund and plan a trip based on how the yield turned out. I also put everything I buy onto a credit card that accumulates air miles for travel. With this strategy, I've been able to do two trips to South America over the last 10 years and last year was able to fly to Asia and the Himalayas on miles. Airfare to Lima was $480 RT off season when I went. I pick cheap but beautiful destinations and travel by bus, stay in hostels or camp and can usually get by on $20 a day. That's $600 for a month trip. When I was in China last year, a 12 hour bus ride was $12. A place to stay was between $3 and $8 a night and noodles are cheap in China. Camping was free. I just needed the time and the airfare and the rest fell into place.
Here are two future dream trip possibilities with those same budget requirements:
Asia: Fly to Shanghai, China. Take a bus to the Huangshan Mountains and then to Guilin and the Li River. Spend a week or two trekking and hitching on local boats through those gorgeous landscapes. Then head into Sichuan province and backpack in the four girls mountains, Yading and the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Then take a bus into Tibet, and then get a group of people together to rent a truck or hitch on the roof of a commercial truck along the Friendship highway into Nepal. Trek through the Rolwaling Himalaya to Everest and then down the other side to the bottom of the highway and catch a bus to Kathmandu. Take a bus to Chitwan park to see the Terai wildlife. Fly home via Thailand and check out the amazing coastline there.
South America:
Fly to Lima, Peru. Take a bus to Huarez and trek through the Andes. Bus back to Lima and then fly to Cuzco ($120 pp). Avoid the tour agencies and enquire about the cheap locals route to Machu Picchu that avoids the train. Explore Machu Picchu, then head back to Cuzco. Take a bus across the Andes and down to the Amazon. Or splurge for a river trip down the Tambopata to the Amazon. Take local boats along the river with side trips along the way to Manaus. Take a bus from there across the border into Venezuela. Climb Roraima Tepui and take the river trip through the Gran Sabana to the base of Angel Falls. Trek through the park for a week. Fly home via Caracas.
There is some tough traveling involved in these trips and you would have to watch your gear really closely. You would end up living through some amazing adventures and it could be pretty scary at times but the experience would be priceless. If you can find a way to get the time, these trips really could be turned from a dream into reality. And even if you never go, it sure is nice to keep the possibility of a trip like this as a carrot in front of you during those long days at work.
-Mike
Check out these links to get you drooling...
Venezuela:
http://www.lagransabana.com/video.htm Check out the video called 'Experiencas de Vida La Gran Sabana'. The scenery and video will absolutely BLOW YOU AWAY! This looks like the ULTIMATE destination for a landscape photographer. Some of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world, thick jungle, weird rock formations, cloud shrouded table mountains, exotic plants and birds, endless grasslands, caves and slot canyons, it's all there. Make sure you watch the whole video-some of the best stuff is at the end. You've GOT to check it out! I'm definitely going here someday so let me know if there's anybody out there that wants to do a trip like this.
Link to photos from Guilin, China:
http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=2305667&include=all
Link to photos from the Huangshan mountains, China:
http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=142208
The Four Girls Mountains in Sichuan, China:
http://www.sgns.gov.cn/scholaweb/conts.htm
Kent in SD
SandyR
Of course, a month in Glacier would be wonderful as well. Or the lower Rio Grande: Santa Ana, Laguna Atascosa, or even Big Bend (not really lower, but Rio Grande all the same!) And then there is always Alaska...
Of course, getting a little further out, I've always wanted to go to Machu Picchu or the Amazon...
Can I get more than a month...