On The Road

We all have them. Those lists in the back of our heads, and there is always one list that prints out a string of places we would love to see before we die … just in case we really do only have one life :)

My list constantly changes, grows and shrinks, according to the places I’ve been and the new places that have attracted my attention. Some of the places on my list have been there since I was a teenager. Like, I’ve wanted to go to Angor Wat ever since I saw the photos of Jackie Kennedy’s trip in Life Magazine in the 60’s. Someday I’ll get there …

My List In No Particular Order:
Mexico DF/Oaxaca/Palenque/El Mirador/Tikal/Copan
Machu Picchu
Pyramids in Egypt
Angor Wat
Thailand/Chiang Mai
The Great Wall
The Siberian Railroad
Antarctica (not on a tour)
Buenos Aries
Kimberley South Africa (my nameplace)
Capetown and Soweto S.A.
Kyoto and Tokyo Japan
Ayers Rock
India (and Dharamsala)
Tibet
Bhutan
Dublin
Edinburgh
Marfa, Texas
Dakar, Senegal
Morocco
Spain (especially Barcelona but also southern)

Places I want to revisit:
Yucatan Peninsula
Florence and Rome, Italy in general
Paris and South of France, France in general
London
Prague
Desert Southwest

Have you created a Travel Bucket-List? Where are you headed next? Where are you dreaming about? If you’ve read my list then you are tagged for a meme. Post in the comments here and/or post in your own blog and link back to here!

I’m having writer’s block. There is one thing that is causing this and I know exactly what it is … time. I have none. I don’t have enough time to settle down and let the thoughts flow. I’m now on my third try of a blog post this morning. The first one was on art and ego and boxes. The second one was about my comment over on Everlast’s blog post about Paris and that he deleted it. And now, I’m just complaining that I don’t have cohesive enough thoughts about anything to write.

I need a vacation …

>компютри втора употребаI don’t think so.

Ever since I redesigned artist-at-large.com and started using the Futurosity theme for the regional sections of the site, I’ve been getting great comments about the site. I think the theme is just perfect for the way I envisioned the site to be - an online magazine that never goes out of date, where the readers can come to it and flip through the stories and find their way around the world.

It’s working so well for me, that a few people have written, asking that I send my files to them so they can use them on their own site. One guy in India assured me that he would be using it for a completely different topic! I told him how much I charged per hour for WordPress theme hacks and I haven’t heard back from him.

Yes, WordPress themes are free, but having someone hack them for you is not. It’s a lot of work. A lot of work, to get a theme to look just right for a particular project.

I found someone this morning who has copied some of my work from view page source (I think) and I’ve politely written and told him my photographs are under copyright and that he should take them off of his site immediately.

I think this is a good time to talk about what constitutes stealing on the internet or the web. If you take a photographer’s work without their permission, and post it on a public section of your own site, giving the impression that you took the photo, then you are setting yourself up for some trouble, or, if the photographer is ornery enough, a lawsuit. Always read the copyright in the footer and follow the link, if there is one, to get details of what that copyright includes. My copyrights include not reproducing or hotlinking to my work without permission and once permission is given credit as the photographer must be included. I also charge real money for the use of my photographs, so if you use them without permission, even via a hotlink, expect a hefty bill if they aren’t taken down in a timely manner.

If you want free photographs to illustrate your site, go to Flickr. It’s full of free photos and some of them are even good.

With what seems to be all the craziness in the world these days, I’ve been rethinking travel. The whole concept. The why I want or need to travel. The concept of how I move around the planet. The how can I make this easier without making it harder first aspect of travel.

I used to love to take road trips. Today I bought seven gallons and a few dribbles of gas for my car and my total in dollars was about thirty-two. It set me off to remembering the days when I lived down on the Central Coast, south of Big Sur, and I would go to San Francisco for the weekend with less than twenty bucks in my pocket. Usually something like ten. Seven of it would go in the gas tank. My how things have changed. As much as I’d like to take off next week for a cruise around the desert southwest, I can’t even consider a road trip these days.

Recently I’ve been packing my bags for a trip back down to The Yucatan. The clothes are in the bag, the medicine bag is packed. I check airline prices almost daily. I probably won’t go now until fall because of the summer heat, and hurricane season, but the idea of flying is daunting. Airlines are cutting back flights, prices are escalating … I’m considering taking off for a few months instead of a few weeks so that I can go from San Francisco to Tulum the old way - over land - just to avoid the hassles of air travel.

And then there is global warming and the carbon footprint of travel …

So, are the changes happening in the world making you rethink your travel plans? Are you packing differently? Timing your trips differently? Have you thought about just staying home? Are the changes in modes of transportation making you enjoy your trips less?

I’m just wondering …