“Under the Sun” was the first story I wrote in my unpublished travel book/magazine/bagazine (see prior post.) It details my excursion through the touristy, but oh so fascinating, religious monument of Angkor Wat, Cambodia and the surrounding temples. Dive on in…
Yes, it’s true…and I’m not proud about it. But hey, being a perfectionist may have had a pretty large part in that hesitation. People are their own worst critics, and I critically nitpicked every caption, every photo, gosh…every word!…until I just set it aside after three years of hard work, moments before pulling the publishing trigger. That was a whole different set of questions and anxieties. Should I self publish? Should I just throw it to the Amazon gods and hope for the best quality? Do publishing companies still even exist for unknown authors like me? After countless hours of researching, I still couldn’t choose my publishing path. And so, I gave up. I let my years of hard work and creativity, my personal masterpiece, lay to “collect dust” in a laptop somewhere.
And so, years later now, I am revisiting what I never finalized. And instead of publishing a full-color, paperback, 213 page book…I am going to share it little by little in my upcoming blog posts and hope that someone, anyone, takes the time to browse. Hey, if I can get one pair of eyes on this beast…it’s better than the zero before.
You are still young, free…Do yourself a favor. Before it’s too late, without thinking about it too much first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”
Jhumpa Lahiri
I wrote and designed this collection of work as a sort of “coffee table book” of travel experiences, photographs, and helpful travel tips. So whether you are actually sitting at a coffee table reading this (doubtful), or at a local cafe browsing, or a neighborhood park…wherever you are, explore it with an open mind, yearning for a look into a different culture or place, and imagining what can be possible if we just open up our hearts and minds, and live.
Growing up in the small and conservative town of Holland, Michigan, I remember a wooden plaque my mother had up in our beloved country A-frame house. It read, “Home is Where the Heart is.” As a young child I just thought that place would always be my home, as I pranced along in my little Midwestern bubble. As the years passed by, from signing high school yearbooks to waving goodbye to my parents as I organized my first dorm room in a nearby city, I began to realize there was a bigger world out there…and I wanted to burst out of my childhood home and explore it all.
So after my college graduation, I loaded up my small coupe and headed west to Colorado. With my best friend Eileen in tow, I was about to call some place else home. At this time over a decade ago, Denver was still a hidden gem (think nearly empty parking lots at your favorite trailhead on a weekend). I immediately fell in love with my surroundings. The mountains were like an outdoor playground, and I was constantly at recess.
My desire to be in the mountains and find great trails to roam around grew stronger daily. I wondered (and still sometimes do) how people who called this beautiful Mecca home could not constantly have a happy soul with all of this mountain fresh air and fascinating land to explore right at their fingertips. I strived to find all of the alluring outdoor spots in Colorado. As successful as I feel I was at that, the new places to explore were, and continue to be, never-ending. Not just in Colorado, but also in this wonderful country, and all over this vast amazing Earth that everyone calls home. Years later now, I have developed quite an archive of amazing Colorado day hikes, peaceful camping spots, and beautiful mountain photographs.
As a frequent global traveler, I have also collected many overseas travel tips and destinations to rock your world. Think of my blog as a Pandora’s box of all of these tips and inspirations for you, as often told through many of my personal experiences. So let’s slowly open it up and explore. Hopefully it inspires you to get outside, see this beautiful world we live in, and find out more about all the places people call home.
It wasn’t until a few years after moving to Denver that I actually felt like it was home. Until then, my heart was still trying to hold on to the Midwest while fighting the obvious, which was my love for Colorado. I actually remember the exact moment it happened. I was flying back from a photography trip to Ireland, gazing out of the airplane window as we descended into Denver. I saw the mighty snow-covered Rocky Mountains jutting into the blue sky…I knew I was home. That’s also when I realized, your heart can be in many places, and you can call many places home. Sometimes a place feels like home because that is where you grew up and your family lives, other times it is where your soul is happy and friendships grow, or maybe it’s in a traveling van where four wheels on the pavement (or under an Aspen grove) is your home. No matter where you call home, be happy there. Explore it. Love it. And always follow your heart.
To say I’m an outdoor enthusiast is probably an understatement. Whether it’s trail running in the mountains of Colorado, trekking through Patagonia, or kayaking on remote lakes with my dog…I love the outdoors. I have long felt that there is no better way to clear your mind than to expose it to fresh open air (and I don’t mean in a shopping mall parking lot, unless that’s your jam). This could be as easy as sitting by a river and listening to the sounds of the water rushing, or smelling the pines in a breeze on a short hike. But sometimes it takes a little more, and that’s where I always like to challenge myself.
Recently I traveled with my friend Randi to Chile and Argentina for some exploring and trekking in Patagonia. We were surrounded by beauty everywhere we turned. As a travel photographer, I was determined to photograph one of the main attractions at sunrise, Mt. Fitz Roy, which is often not even visible considering the extreme weather conditions at that altitude. We grudgingly peeled ourselves out of bed at 2:30 am, and as over-served patrons stumbled out of the bars in the small town of El Chalten, we jostled around in our small but agile rental on a pothole ridden dirt road to the trailhead of Laguna de los Tres to see Mt. Fitz Roy up close. We would be hiking with headlamps in the night for four hours in prime puma territory. This terrified me, but I was willing to overcome that fear for the reward at the top, weather permitting.
I remember the silence of the night. There were strange noises along with creepy trees lit up by our headlamps in the dark. I began to think this was a terrible idea as we tried to find our way on the trail. But we trekked on, talking about nothing at the top of our lungs to scare off any potential curious Patagonia pumas. There was no human interaction for a few hours until we safely arrived at the Poincenot Base Camp where most trekkers were just awakening in their tents to hike the strenuous kilometer or so to the top. We already had 5 kilometers under our belt and were on a roll. So much so, that I couldn’t stop. I was hauling up that dark mountain. I had a selfish rhythm going and I was on a mission.
I decided to briefly pause to check on Randi, as I could no longer hear her poles hitting the rocks. I realized I had hiked right out of her view. As her dim headlamp came into view, I thought it would be polite to wait, but my adrenaline took over rationalization and I kept going up. And up. And up. It seemed never-ending, until it actually ended. I was the second to summit the lookout point with Randi and several others hikers joining us shortly after. Randi’s exhausted silence made me feel a bit of guilt for leaving her behind.
Mother Nature was on our side that morning. Minutes later one of the most spectacular sunrises burst over the horizon, adding so much color to the rocky towers they looked like they were on fire. Fitz Roy stood tall and powerful behind a turquoise blue lagoon. Camera shutters clicked away in the cold, windy morning, and all was right in the world. This was a moment I had dreamed of and here it was, right in front of my eyes.
After getting our fill, and nearly losing feeling in my fingertips from the cold, we began our very windy decent that almost knocked us off the trail. Not much later, I broke the silence of the trek with my apologies for leaving Randi behind in the scrambling to the summit. She replied, “To me, it’s not how fast I can get to the top, it’s about enjoying the journey. I want to stop and take it all in…smell the flowers, breathe in the fresh air, and take a look around.” My initial thought was to go on the defense and say, well I do that too, just quickly and efficiently. But her reply made me think about my continuous quests for the reward. In all of my treks I was racing to the end game, and not always stopping to smell the flowers along the way. I realized her words didn’t just pertain to these Patagonia treks, but also in everyday life. Sometimes we rush through our daily routine without taking the time to stop and enjoy the journey.
The hike down was long and gritty, but we tried to keep the adrenaline pumping through our bodies as we reached the rental car with our severe “noodle legs”. And as I sipped on a local ale at a patio in El Chalten after the long trek, I paused for a bit to look up at the beautiful land we had just immersed ourselves in, and thought…what an incredible journey this life really is.
***So my challenge to you today is simple. Take time out of your busy schedules to get out into nature just a bit, look around at this wonderful world we live in, stop and smell the flowers.
