Travel Planning
How do you travel? Do you plan out an itinerary detailing places to be and sights to see or do you let inspiration take over the moment you land?
I'm a planner. I like to map out a plan of where we would be over the course of our trip and the areas we would explore during that time. Hotels would be booked as early as possible, when a skeleton of the plan is available. In saying that, I do not have an itinerary that runs like clock work down to the minute. My plan involves identifying areas to explore each day. I might have a few areas of interest saved on Google Maps to guide our exploration, a transport plan and nothing else.
The word planning can sometimes be used in the same sentence as rigid, inflexible and restrictive. However, I view planning as the way to enable flexibility and creativity by stripping away unnecessary decisions. It frees my mind up to explore what is in front of me rather than decide where to go and how to get there.
We've got two trips coming up for the second half of the year. In two weeks time, we head to New South Wales, Australia for Chris' work conference and Japan is booked for late November. I've just mapped out a plan for Sydney and I'm close to a skeleton plan for the Japan.
My plan generally revolves around identifying places we might enjoy walking around. They do not need to be traditional tourist bucket list sights like the Sydney Opera House, but rather they need to have a strong element of local flavour and of course, photographic opportunities. Touristy destinations tend to disappoint because f the hype and the overcrowding. The disappointment of Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in Kyoto is an experience deeply ingrained in our minds.
I usually scour youtube vlogs (and to a lesser extent Instagram) for inspiration. Vlogs allow me to see the streets and local scenery to get a sense of the area. While Vlogs of food review places and hip fashion outlets generally do not excite me, I use them to identify locations to research on Google Street View. Seeing street scenes online provide another way to help evaluate an area for walking and photographic interest. My rationale is that "cool" things are located in interesting places and attract like minded operations.
Unlike our local home environment, we do not always have the opportunity or time to explore and make repeated visits to the same place and make photographs and learn from our body of work. In my view, the place I'm at and the time that I arrive, is the best time and place for photography. I'll take the fuss of where to go and when to go out of the equation and live in the moment. I then let the local environment guide our path.
Here are some photos taken from our Japan Trip in 2019, built on this premise
