Roadtrip Images

Another year has come and gone. They go by so fast. Here’s a look at some of the highlights of 2018 as well as some 2019 plans.

We did a sizable loop around the States again this year and we ventured a bit into Canada. The map above shows our route, starting and ending in southwest Arizona. All told we did:

• 12,000 miles
• 15 States
• 2 Canadian Provinces
• 10 US & Canadian National Parks
• 55 Campgrounds

Yeah, we moved around a lot. But that’s the lifestyle. We don’t travel full time to stay in one spot. Our primary objective is to find beautiful things to photograph so we move around based on the seasons. We also have to get out of the North country before Winter hits. RV’s and Winter don’t mix well. We also made a trip out to NYC to visit family. We didn’t pull the rig there though so I didn’t include it on the map.

In addition to the travel and photography we also changed out the rig. This was a pretty big process since it was also our home. We downsized from a 43′ class A motorhome to a 37′ fifth wheel and truck. For our lifestyle, the motorhome was just too big. We talked more about that change in this post here. The motorhome we had is shown below and the new rig is below that.

We also got into solar power in a big way with the new rig. This allows us to go off the grid when we want and stay closer to the areas we want to shoot. We went into lots of detail in this post here.

In 2019 were going to continue with the theme of changes. One of the things we’ve decided to do is expand our travels beyond North America. And right out of the gate we’re making a trip to Italy. Karen and I have wanted to go to the Vatican for a long time so we’ll be in Rome for a week in January. And since we’ll be in Italy, we’ll also travel down to the Amalfi Coast and spend another week touring and photographing the small coastal towns there. I’d like to do some night time cityscapes and with January being the off season we should be able to get some great shots. As long as the weather cooperates that is.

After returning from Italy we want to do Yosemite in the winter. It’s been awhile since I’ve shot there and a return visit is long overdue. Winter is my favorite season there so we’re really looking forward to some snow storms!

That’s also about the time we celebrate two years of full time travel. It’s gone by fast.

Another big destination for 2019 is Alaska. We’re going to spend the entire summer up there. We were there in 2007 and that’s when we got the full time travel bug. We’ve wanted to return ever since. I wrote about that in this post here. We usually don’t plan out this far in advance but hauling the rig all the way up to Alaska is a big trip. It requires some planning. So we’re doing that now.

On the way up to Alaska, we’ll be making a return visit to the Canadian Rockies. We tried to photograph there this past summer but we got smoked out. Western wildfires made the visibility very poor and as a result we came back to the States after only two weeks. We’re going to pass through there again and try to redeem that trip but do it much earlier in the year.

After Alaska, our plans are much less firm. If we have time we may come down through the Pacific Northwest. It’s another bucket list location we’ll do one day. Not sure if it will be in 2019 or not. And if budget permits we’ll do another international location late in the year. That’s a long ways off though so many things could change by then.

That’s about it for 2019 plans. It’s a lot and subject to change.

So here’s wishing you a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year! Thanks for joining us on our travels and we hope you’ll come along again in 2019. We have some great destinations planned and hope to do them justice with our photographs.

So, until next time, we’ll see you on the road!