The next trip 2019?? or is it a dream?
The minute I landed home from my last trip to the States I was planning my next.
I have to say though my last trip (nearly 2 months) was outstanding, I couldn’t have asked for a better photo tour. A lot of this has to do with my darling wife, Fleur and her ensuring that everything went off without a hitch. This time I am hoping that it will be a little longer, but funding will determine this duration.
I am considering going it alone without organising things through a travel agent this time. The last couple of trips have been booked through an agent as there are multiple moving parts that could stuff up for me and tbh, making sure that I do things correctly is important.
This time around, I asked some questions with the two local travel agents and was far from impressed with their lack of knowledge of the US, visa and other information. (visa situation will be different this time). Coupled with recent media reports that many will inflate pricing to pocket their own salaries Im not stoked about feeling as though Im getting ripped off. Travelling for months at a time is extremely costly and only fair that Im not wasting money through others greed.
This time around, there are some small changes to where I land, various flight carriers have decided that they no longer fly certain routes. Car hire places kindly advise that they do not permit their vehicles travelling over borders or below certain states. (though they never advised me of this the last few times??) lol.
So Im planning to land in either Seattle or LA and bunny hop into Seattle.
For those that have never landed into San Francisco, its awesome and really easy. Would love to do that again, but timing is critical this trip. Some locations will incur road closures (which happened last time) and I want to ensure I get to those locations.
Spend a few days getting over the inevitable jet lag before heading north into Canada.
Im hoping to spend a few weeks there before heading south to Montana again covering Glacier. From there, down to Yellowstone, hang a right back into Idaho Falls where I plan to meet up with a photo friend and explore Sawtooths.
South again to Ogden, Moab and Kayentta, maybe down to Flagstaff, Page and back to Vegas.
From Vegas hanging out in Death Valley before heading to Yosemite, back into SF so I can capture the Big Sur and a few other locations before heading north.
From leaving SF the plan is to head into Roseburg OR (Crater Lake), left to Bandon and follow the coast up to Astoria meeting up with my friends at Heaven and Earth Designs who licence my photography into cross stitch. HAED do an amazing job and proud that my images are used.
From Astoria, into Portland, heading to Stevenson WA or the OR side of Bridge of the Gods, maybe to Timberline OR before again heading north to Olympia NP WA for a week and back out from Seattle.
Hiking wise I’ve anticipated about 400 miles give or take a few hundred lol. I need to ensure my ankle will survive the punishment though. I will be investing in some hiking poles.
Nothing is set in concrete as yet as things situations change and can’t book flights until 2019 anyway, the time off with work has been booked.
I’ve been holding off with putting in some effort with my day job and promotion however it appears that this will not happen this year anyway 😦
The likes of social media don’t help my cause with being bombarded with beautiful shots of Canada and places I haven’t been or seen, each time I see a image, I screen shot it and google it at a later date.
Id dearly love to see Wyoming, the Dakotas and MN again as there is also a few places that I haven’t thought about before that I would like to see.
Id love to shoot in some of the swamps in the south, Id love to see Texas or even visit NY, maybe another time as the west and central US appear to have the most bang for buck I can get.
Couple of shots from Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach OR
Geoff Pritchard Photography 