I used to host my travel photos and videos on Flickr and Vimeo, shot on a former DSLR that was never quite hotshot enough for the job, alongside amateurish timelapse videos I pieced together of bright, vivid Aurora (northern lights) caught dancing over Iceland and a handful of accidental, unplanned shots of the Swiss Alps with faint Aurora that turned out better than anything I had actually set out to capture.

Beyond the stills and the timelapses, there are adventure moments captured across almost every mode of transport I have ever talked myself into trying, from camels, horses and felucca on slower waters to speedboats, cruise ships and desert jeeps further out, hot air balloons and desert sleeper trains for the ones that needed a bit more nerve, the Swiss Alps Grand Tour on a 180 degree train, snow-and-ice-sledging beyond 4km, carriage horses, bullet trains and slow carriage trains for the contrast between speed and scenery, tuktuks for the chaos, and driving go-kart in cosplay costume through the streets of Tokyo for the moments that needed no justification at all, and many more.

Underneath the photos and the modes of transport sits the part that matters most to me, which is the historical landmarks and cultural touchpoints I have stood in front of and tried to actually understand, not just photograph, learning about what shaped the state of these places through the eyes and the deep historical knowledge of the locals who live alongside that history every day rather than from a guidebook summary written for someone passing through. I have also come to find that the literature of a place, the novels, poetry, music and folklore that locals grew up reading, often explains
a country’s soul faster than any landmark can, so a fair amount of my travel has quietly doubled as chasing down the books that made sense of where I had just been, or the ones that sent me there in the first place.

Because of all this travel, it has given me one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had in my lifetime.