When I was a young adult, I did not travel much nor take many photos. I did not have the time or money as an assistant professor in the sciences at a major research university, The University of California, San Francisco. As a child, I had discovered some interest in travel as I moved with my parents and sisters to various parts of the USA, and later as a student, grad student, post-doc and faculty member, each at a university in a different part of the United States.
After obtaining tenure at UCSF, rather than returning home directly after scientific meetings, I would stay for a weekend or, especially with international meetings, I would take vacation days I had saved up and spend time exploring different locales. Whenever I took sabbatical leave (three months each, except for a year in Israel), I would choose to go to an interesting lab that was located in an interesting place: Rehovot, Israel; Melbourne, Australia; Cape Town, South Africa; Barcelona, Catalunya/Spain; Siena, Italy. With the passage of time, I became more critical of the very few photos I was taking, so I finally got a decent camera and periodically upgraded that. I think my technical skills also increased over the years.
I initially backpacked on the cheap. For example, I went to give a lecture at a meeting in Japan and then took vacation for the next several weeks in Asia. The cheapest price for lodging I had was $0.16 per night in Dhumpus, Nepal, sharing a room with a couple dozen Nepalis, but under $3 per night was common, often sharing rooms with other travelers. I’m glad I had those experiences, but I would not want to stay in most of those accommodations ever again.
Independent Travel or Group Travel? Generally, I have traveled either alone or subsequently with my wife, but I have usually not gone with tour groups except to places where it is required: you can’t go see mountain gorillas or visit the Galápagos, Antarctica, or much of the Arctic on your own (unless you are fabulously wealthy). This is not a condemnation of those who commonly choose to go in tour groups. There are good reasons to choose tour groups, and there are good reasons to remain independent.
As years went by, I could afford to spend more to travel. I’m glad I waited to go to the Galápagos. It is an expensive enterprise. When I was young, I’m sure I would have wanted to save money by going on a 5- or 8-day excursion. However, later I splurged on a 12-day boat trip limited to 14 guests covering more islands with different fauna; it was definitely worth the wait. My wife and I also spent 3 nights there prior to the boat trip; I went diving a couple days with my only sighting of a hammerhead shark, and diving there with playful sea lions and marine iguanas was also great, although you can see those just by snorkeling.
How can I decide where to go? Sometimes I’ve used articles in the venerable yellow-covered National Geographic to figure out where I’d like to go, since travel books will not have included these places if you want to be an early visitor (some locales in the country of Gabon, the cave of Actun Tunichil Muknal with a fast-flowing stream coming out the mouth that has interesting Mayan sacrificial remains). I learned of other places from other travelers or locals as I was on the road (Ko Samui in the Gulf of Thailand, the Amazonian village of Atuncaño in Peru but near the Ecuador border) or by going for one thing and discovering another (going to the Pacific island of Palau for diving but discovering that my wife and I could strike out for several days kayaking from island to island on our own).
At the time of constructing this website in 2020 as my COVID-19 project, I have visited 153 of the countries listed by the Travelers’ Century Club. I first started counting when my daughter pointed out the TCC and asked me some years ago how many countries I had visited.
Which are the most interesting locations in the world? I also tried to choose the five most fascinating places I’ve ever seen. I quickly came up with my top four (not in any order): Galápagos, Antarctica, Madagascar, Nepal. However, when I thought to add the fifth one to the list, I realized there were several others that were nearly as awesome as my top four: Arctic (mostly Greenland and Svalbard), Maasai Mara/Serengeti, South Africa, Patagonia and Alaska. Clearly, I’m most impressed with nature, and sometimes how humans fit into nature, e.g., in Bali, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal and parts of Africa and South America.
My photography has been pretty eclectic; I’ve been fortunate that I did not need to make a living via photography, so I did not focus (wink, wink) on a particular photographic genre. As a consequence, I took photos of whatever I found of interest.
