On taking trips

I used to think that road trips and adventures needed to be planned out to the last detail, that making sure that you brought everything you could possibly need along the way and sticking to your agenda were how you ensured you had a good time. My dad is a notorious "gear guy", a trait that I've definitely inherited over the course of years of crazy excursions with him to all sorts of different places, so that mindset of over-preparation for the unknown probably stemmed from all of the trips we took as a family growing up where my parents had to plan everything around my brother and I, as well as every possible mishap that could happen to us along the way. Children, and I guess other people in general, seem to change the very nature of the way we get to travel and experience new places.

It's for this reason that I like to try and take some time to travel alone whenever possible, even if it's just for a day or two, to see and do things I may not be able to when I have other people relying on me or influencing my decisions about where to go. I've learned a lot about myself through flying solo and its taught me even more about the kind of person I want to be when I travel with others.

During my freshman year of college, when I was starting to really take yoyoing seriously and travel to a lot of contests up and down the west coast, I realized that taking an awesome trip somewhere didn't always require a plan, a set destination, or a car full of expensive gear. Honestly, going somewhere cool doesn't always even require that much time - some of the best adventures I've been on have been spur-of-the-moment decisions to get out of town for a weekend, or just picking a direction and driving until I ran out of gas or hit an ocean. I'm blessed to live in one of the most beautiful, diverse places on the planet, and growing up here I think I frequently took that for granted, but it's easy to not understand how good you have it when you don't have anything to compare it to. Once I began taking trips by myself, I started to really connect with this amazing place I've spent my whole life in, but had never truly seen for its actual value.

Photography has been a huge motivator to continue to explore this beautiful place and everywhere else I'm lucky enough to go. It forces me to look at and think about things differently, to exist in the moment, and really explore my environment in search of a way to best represent my thoughts about it in a visual sense. It's been a way to ensure that I'll remember each place I've been to, and catalogue them with all of the others along the way.

That being said, I think it's important not to let oneself get so caught up in capturing a moment for later that you forget to experience it while it's actually happening. In a culture so driven by followers, likes, and false representations of self, it's difficult to break out of the mindset of over-sharing, or the fear of missing out. Some moments should be kept to yourself, or shared just with the people who are present and tangible and living it alongside you.

I've been taking my camera everywhere with me for almost three years now - one of my favorite photography professors used to say that the best way to take good pictures is simply to take a lot of pictures - and I think I let myself get too caught up in that. It's not always about the end result; the photo, the followers, or the number of people who like it. It's about the moment itself, and framing the way you want to remember it later on.

So I've been leaving my stuff at home more often when I go on these little trips, these side adventures, forcing myself to live in each moment or restricting myself to just shooting with a crappy disposable camera or my iPhone. It seems counter-intuitive as an aspiring photographer trying to make it in a competitive industry, but I think it's more important to appreciate each moment fully than it is to bring it back and show it off. In many cases I still find myself thinking visually, mentally framing scenes how I would if I had my camera with me, or wandering around in an attempt to get the light just right. Just because I don't have a camera doesn't mean I have to stop thinking like a photographer, and in many cases it frees my mind up to do so even more than when I have something in my hands to distract myself from the actual moment.

I guess the whole point of this rambling stream of thoughts is pretty simple: Some trips require a car full of stuff, a bag full of lenses, or an agenda full of things to do, but many times it's okay to leave that stuff at home and just appreciate whatever life decides to throw at you for a while. You may not bring back as many physical things, but I like to think that the intangibles, the moments you have to yourself and the untainted memories of your adventures, will stick with you longer and make it all worthwhile.