How do you prepare for a journey?

[David R Munson]

It's 4:10 AM and I'm up, wide awake and fully dressed. I am leaving on a trip in an hour and never bothered to go to bed tonight because I can never sleep before things like this. I'm just too excited.

But, being up all night, I've had plenty of time to think about something. When I travel for my own reasons, it's not just a trip, but it's a journey. Journey in the sense of there being an internal, emotional/intellectual component to the whole thing that manifests in various ways like in photographs, writing, and even just the evolution of my thoughts.

As such, I find myself doing certain things preparing my mind before I hit the road. Tonight I've been looking at books (Sam Abel's "The Photographic Life"), watching Arakimentari, reading good literature (Nabokov!), and so on. I can't be the only person who does stuff like this to prepare.

How do you prepare for a journey?

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Passport, camera, book.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I always aim for a good night's sleep before I leave. I don't change my reading habits, though I prefer something meaty as I read quite quickly. Currently reading Le Monde Selon Monsanto and Packenham's The Scramble for Africa.

At best, everything is packed, ready to go, the previous day. I use checklists to make sure I don't forget anything in the morning.

But then, I travel quite a lot. In the last 10 weeks: 3000 miles (as far as Krakow) on a motorcycle; Arles, again on a motorcycle (1000 mile round trip); Carcassonne and the Pyrenees by Land Rover.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

It depends.

Most of my travel these days seems to be compressed into annual holidays. As we like to go somewhere exotic (last year Maldives, year before Kenya, this year Costa Rica....) I try to carry as little as possible but always end up taking an extra couple of lenses - just in case....

However, the process starts usually about a week before the big day when I charge my batteries for the D300 and make sure I've got enough CF cards / portable hard drive. Things were simpler with film (other than the ever-present fear that the X-ray machines would screw the film stock.

I'm seriously considering dropping the digital kit for one trip and seeing how I get on with just my M6, a few lenses and some film. Somehow it sounds very risky but I know that's only the dependency culture that digital photography creates; I was always fine when I just had my Olympus OM1 and a selection of lenses - so why should it be any different...?

Very occasionally, I'll just throw the camera into my rucksack and head off with just one lens - but that's more in hope than any expectation of getting something worthwhile. I'm aiming to go to the Lake District or Peak District in the UK in autumn and the only camera will be the M6 - so we shall see.

 

[Pablito]

I travel a lot and recently discovered, with the help of my doctor, the wonders of a little pill than can slow your brain down and let you sleep the night before an early departure.

 

[zuikologist]

Passport, camera, book.

Yes, yes but which camera....

 

[zuikologist]

It depends.

Most of my travel these days seems to be compressed into annual holidays. As we like to go somewhere exotic (last year Maldives, year before Kenya, this year Costa Rica....) I try to carry as little as possible but always end up taking an extra couple of lenses - just in case....

However, the process starts usually about a week before the big day when I charge my batteries for the D300 and make sure I've got enough CF cards / portable hard drive. Things were simpler with film (other than the ever-present fear that the X-ray machines would screw the film stock.

I'm seriously considering dropping the digital kit for one trip and seeing how I get on with just my M6, a few lenses and some film. Somehow it sounds very risky but I know that's only the dependency culture that digital photography creates; I was always fine when I just had my Olympus OM1 and a selection of lenses - so why should it be any different...?

Very occasionally, I'll just throw the camera into my rucksack and head off with just one lens - but that's more in hope than any expectation of getting something worthwhile. I'm aiming to go to the Lake District or Peak District in the UK in autumn and the only camera will be the M6 - so we shall see.

For anual holidays i try to take only a digicam, a fixed lens RF and a Vivitar ultra wide. It suits me well, but YMMV.

 

[FrankS]

I try to find reading material relevant to where I'm going. I read Shogun while in Japan, and Pillars of the Earth and The Last Templar just before (and during) my holiday to England and France.

A good night's sleep, and everything packed and ready to go well before its time. I hate flying evenings and night time because I just can't sleep on a plane.

 

[jky]

Like yourself I don't get much sleep the night before - just too excited. I don't read novels or watch films and the like, but I look at tons of photos. Photos shot in the places I'll be visiting - whether the source is a novice or professional - gives me an appetizer (if I must say) of the meal to come! Now the photo browsing begins from the moment I plan a trip, which can be upwards to 8-10 months prior. In addition to this, I research the destinations via travel forums on the net such as tripadvisor and slowtrav for little things like cheap eats and cozy cafes found on the unbeaten path...

Gear-wise I just make sure things are charged and cards are emptied. Nothing different from a typical outing. I do try to locate a photo store (if possible) at the destination just in case something arises.

 

[35mmdelux]

for me life is a journey. Going on a trip I don't sleep the previous night either, generally because I am a last minute packer. These days its a small suitcase and a small backpack for my two cameras, docs, whatnot.

 

[pfoto]

I plan my camera bag much more than my clothes bag. I always take my two MP bodies and either 24/35/75 or 24/35/50/90 lens kits, depending on the type of places I'll be in. B&W film bought well in advance (100, 400, 1600 are the choices) in clear ziplock bags for inspection, incident light meter and spare batteries for both meter and cams. My trusty old Domke F-2 bag holds everything nicely, although I've had to buy a new strap for it recently. Throw a few clothes into a suitcase, passport & e-ticket and I'm set.

 

[Sonny Boy Havidson]

I used to take my Rollei 35 and an Agfa Isolette but has the Rollei is more and more getting age, I am comong back to compact rangefinders. At the moment, I carry a Vivitar 35 ES in my bag just for a test roll afer a long relationship with an Olympus 35 RC.

 

[georgef]

I usually find myself scrambling the last minute to get things together; such is my hectic life these days
The only rule I keep is "...take only what I can carry on me...", which used to mean lean-packing; these days it means bigger backpacks LOL
...I do try to remember to charge my batteries though...

 

[Timothy]

Unless its a very big trip I'll pack the night before beforeI go to bed. Generally speaking i wont take any books with me, there is nothing worse than coming home and realizing that you missed a beautiful train journey because your head was stuck in a book.

By the way whats the deal with film and X-rays, i heard people mention it before but i haven't encountered any problems when ive been forced to put my camera through security.

 

[aniMal]

Spent hours spread over a few days deciding last time... Now I have to choose between film/digital, DSLR or DRF, small or medium format... I got 5 different sets that make a lot of combinations!

Remember going to India and Nepal years ago, spent a looooong time packing and deciding. Ended up with 12 kgs and 1 M2 with 1 50mm, and loads of film. Was just perfect to have no choice after arriving - I always seem to do the best when going for something with as little gear as possible...

 

[planetjoe]

for me life is a journey.

I'm pretty much an adherent to this precept. Not only that, but to this day I simply cannot sleep before a journey; which is to say, never. And I'd also like to thank, wholeheartedly, the OP for reminding me that I once thought exactly as he does; for reminding me, in fact, that I still think - and live! - this way. You speak well, sir.

It's somewhat bittersweet that I'd forgotten, though, how things used to be. Pulling out one of many pocket journals, I found a passage written after a road trip up and down America's East Coast with friends in 1994:

And now, at least, this trip is over. Two thousand miles to my home again, a straight line in the soul - not there and back, but there and there, and still onward; as Fitzgerald once said, "as boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past".

Pardon the overwrought prose; I had been reading Kerouac. Thanks for a great thread.


Cheers,
--joe.