Past Destinations

Our travels began long before retirement — squeezed into school breaks, long weekends, and the narrow windows working life allowed. We started traveling in earnest in 2013, but could only truly explore during summer vacations. We started with places that felt familiar: the museums, old streets, and landscapes of Western Europe. Over time, those early trips became stepping‑stones, each journey stretching our curiosity a little farther and nudging us toward wilder, more remote places.

In 2017, something shifted. We picked up our cameras with more intention; our trips included a focus on the aurora borealis (Abisko, Sweden) and African safaris in both Kenya and Uganda.  These trips allowed us to stretch our comfort zone and challenged us to slow down and pay closer attention to the world around us. Photography became a way of seeing — a practice that taught us to notice light, texture, quiet moments, and the small details that often slip past hurried travelers. It deepened our connection to the places we visited and changed how we remembered them.

Now that we’re both recently retired, we travel with a different rhythm: longer stays, deeper experiences, and a growing desire to reach the farther edges of the planet. Past destinations is a collection of summaries from the destinations that shaped us — the cities that surprised us, the landscapes that humbled us, and the journeys that taught us how to look more closely at the world.