Indelible Adventures: Who's counting?

Someone asked me yesterday where I’d been this past year, but it wasn't a simple or straightforward answer. I started off with my trips to Vietnam and Italy over the summer, but then had to take a step back and try to remember where else I’d been. Not such an easy task in retrospect.

I use an application called Aperture (made for Mac) to manage all of my photos, so last night I went through and looked at 2014 in its entirety to make an accurate count of the number of trips and locations that I'd been over the course of the year so far.

Even I was surprised by the variety and volume of places I've traveled to over the course of the year (number of trips to the location in parentheses) by plane. This doesn't even take into account my local drive to adventures...

United States:

Los Angeles (5)
New York (3)
Philadelphia (2)
Seattle (2)
Tampa (2)
San Diego (1)
Miami (1)
Phoenix (1)
Hilton Head Island (1)
Colorado Springs (1)

Canada

Calgary (2)
Vancouver (1)

Europe

London – UK (2)
Madrid – Spain (1)
Italy (1)

Asia

Hong Kong (2)
Vietnam (1)

Can you believe it that I've been on 28 trips so far in 2014 and I'm not done yet, with another trip to New York, Washington DC, Raleigh, Savannah, Charleston, Daytona Beach and Tampa before years end!

Interestingly, many of these trips have been multi-day affairs, for example my trip to Phoenix was for 10 days, Vietnam and Hong Kong were 16 days and so quite difficult to determine how many actual days I've actually spent traveling this past year but its probably somewhere in the vicinity of 50 or 60 days in total. Not bad to be able to be travel for 8 weeks per year, especially when it’s something that you really love to do.

And after all these years of traveling not sure how I would survive without my passport, NEXUS pass and frequent flyer miles but there you have it. Have camera will travel! J

Now you might think that it’s all about the “next thing” for me and that it’s perhaps a little unhealthy to be constantly exploring and pursuing my passion for travel so heavily. The natural conclusion may be that I'm running from something or don't want to face my life for some reason…

Interestingly, this very topic has been the center of conversation with my counselor Lisa on more than one occasion and I've come to the conclusion through our conversations that this couldn't be further from the truth. In actuality I'm a homebody by nature and love my time at home just hanging out, clearly it’s a huge bonus when Zach and Sami are with me so I can cook and be with them, but irrespective I'm comfortable in either world. Strangely, if I'm away from either one for too long I get a little antsy.

I suppose it’s my extreme sense of curiosity that drives me to see as much of the world as humanly possible, and would be happy to spend more time on the road exploring but only if Zach and Sami were with me.

The interesting thing this past year is that I've taken over 8000 photos, and kept about 3000 (so, yes a good “keep rate” J ), but viewing the world through my camera lens has made me slow down and notice the less obvious, as you've likely seen through my recent photoshoots via Facebook and Google+ and spend more time in the moment which has been a welcome outcome.

My love of photography has been only relatively new, probably the past two to three years in reality. As I reflect on my year on the road in the mid 1980's I initially had a camera with me although that one was "confiscated" by the Thai military during my detainment, and the second, which I brought on my trip was not great quality, so I have very little to show for that entire year away. You also have to remember that those were the days before digital and so you had to send the rolls away to get prints made...

OMG, I can't even imagine that now. What do you think the cost would be to get 8000 prints developed? Then, like we did in the old days have to throw away more than half cos' they were so poorly constructed, or worse - blurred! Literally, all I have to show for my entire year of touring the world is a mere handful of pages in an album that are pretty poor quality (yes, even for the 1980's). Fortunately, I've come a long way since then in terms of my photography skills and in particular my composition but feel like I missed out on all the photos from my first great adventure.

I want to leave you with a quote from one of my favorite writers and literary critics - Susan Sontag: "I haven't been everywhere but it's on my list”. Likely one of the most accurate quotes that encapsulates me and my wanderlust for travel and adventures.

Happy trails everyone!

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A collection of photos from this years adventures - enjoy!