On slow travel, back roads, and the question of how you actually want to move through the world.
I know what it looks like from the air. I’ve flown over most of this country more times than I can count — production jobs, events, locations. You look down and think you understand the scale of things. You don’t.
The road teaches you something different.
It teaches you that the country is bigger than you think, and slower, and stranger, and more beautiful in the in-between places than it is at the destinations. It teaches you that the diner at exit 47 is sometimes more interesting than the national landmark forty miles ahead. And it teaches you that the person driving the truck next to you has a story you will never hear if you’re moving too fast.
Why I Drive
When I drove all 50 states in the year I turned 60, I didn’t do it to check a box. I did it because I needed to see what was actually out there. Not the brochure version. The real one.
What I found was a country that rewards slowness. That opens up when you take the exit you weren’t planning to take. That has a completely different personality at 6am than it does at noon.
I came home different. Not changed in a dramatic way — just recalibrated. Like the focus had shifted slightly and everything looked a little sharper.
And I came home with a question I haven’t been able to shake: what if I didn’t have to go home at all?
The Question I’m Currently Sitting With
I’m heading into 63 national parks over the next few years. That’s a lot of ground to cover, a lot of nights to figure out, and a lot of decisions about how you actually want to move through a landscape when you’re trying to photograph it seriously.
Do you fly in, rent a car, and stay at the lodge? Do you drive your own vehicle and book lodging as you go? Or do you do what a lot of long-haul travelers eventually consider — put everything in one vehicle, slow all the way down, and let the road itself become the home base?
I’ve been thinking hard about RVs. Not just as a travel option, but as a philosophy. The ability to wake up already there — already at the trailhead, already in the park, already watching the light change before anyone else has arrived. That’s not just convenient. For a photographer, that’s the whole game.
I’m not sure yet. I’m doing the research, running the numbers, and writing about all of it here. Because I suspect I’m not the only one who’s looked at a 63-park mission and thought — there has to be a better way to do this than booking hotels.
What You’ll Find Here
The Road category covers all of it — the philosophy of slow travel, the practical decisions about how to move through a landscape, RV life and whether it makes sense, lodging options for serious travelers, and eventually dispatches from the road itself as the journey gets underway.
If you’re someone figuring out how you want to move through the world in this chapter of your life — not just where to go, but how to actually get there and what to do when you arrive — pull up a chair.
The road has opinions. The trick is learning to listen.
Not all who wander are lost. Some of us are just figuring out which vehicle to take.
— Michael
