10 Pretty Good Photos from 2023
A Year Spent Traveling
I’ve been traveling for almost a year now. I began in March and have been traveling full-time since then.
I’ve lived in five cities on two different coasts, worked from all four mainland US timezones, been in or through twenty different states, driven thousands of miles, taken countless flights and train rides, and even managed to visit two Canadian provinces.
I remember being completely exhausted by the routine I was in before I started this.
I think routine can be a positive thing in the right context, and with enough freedom to break the rules. On the other hand, it’s far too easy for me to get stuck in a “Groundhog Day” rut of doing exactly the same thing every single day.
At the beginning of the year, I found myself in that very rut, uninspired, living someplace I’d never really wanted to be in the first place.
Just making the best of things.
Everyone who lives this kind of lifestyle- van lifers, full-time travelers, digital nomads- talks about not needing ‘stuff’ to be happy. It’s a bit of a cliche, actually. We all know it’s not ‘stuff’ that makes us happy.
Leaving the physical objects behind wasn’t difficult in the least. The only thing I really ever miss as a musician is having a guitar nearby.
But seriously: It’s the easiest trade in the world.
Make do with just the things I can’t live without (okay, maybe a little extra too…)
Spend the entire year making incredible friends, taking tens of thousands of photos, seeing so many new places, revisiting old favorites, and spending weeks or even months exploring amazing cities.
Favorite Photos of 2023
That brings us to the central point of this blog–my favorite photos of the year.
I’m not going to drone on and on, but this year it’s less about the ‘best’ photos of the year and more about the ones I feel represent all that I did and saw in 2023.
I have a habit of saying that I’m not a great photographer, just very committed to going to cool places when the light is good, and I did a whole lot of that this year.
I’ve never had such a hard time choosing just 10 favorites from the year before–simply because I had a staggering amount of experiences in a staggering amount of places.
So this year, it’s just 10 pretty good photos with stories that make them memorable to me.
Here’s to taking WAY too many photos and doing it all over again in 2024.
1. Santa Monica Pier | Los Angeles
The first city I lived in when I started traveling full-time 🎢
2. Manhattan Beach | Los Angeles
A wave, because sometimes simple is plenty 🌊
3. Pacifica | Bay Area
A photo from my very first roll of film 🎞️
4. Pike Place Market | Seattle
A favorite from my time in the Pacific Northwest 🎡
5. San Francisco | California
The best (only) light I've ever had in my four visits to the Bay Area 🌇
6. Harvard Bridge | Boston
A shot I took with my partner the day we met 🚲
7. Riverside Park | Manhattan
Something from my first time photographing NYC 🌅
8. 41st or 42nd St. | Manhattan
An experiment from Midtown 🏙️
9. Adirondack Train | New York
Leaving the country by long-distance train for the first time 🚞
10. Williamsburg | Brooklyn
Favorite sunset this year(?), and one of my last walks in the city until I get back next year–when it's warm again 👀
The End
Thanks for following along this year, especially if you made it this far! I hope you all are as excited as I am about next year.