I've never met anyone who doesn't like to travel. Well, except for the frequent business traveler.
When I was recruiting for jobs out of college, recruiters frequently asked if I would be willing to travel. I always responded with a hearty yes and they'd always give me a little pained smile, said something blithe like "great" and moved on. I never really understood that response until last year, when I started traveling a LOT for work (my record: 6 weeks straight of going somewhere different each week) and am reminded again now that I've just accepted a promotion into a new role that is up to 60% travel. To put that in perspective, in a given month, that basically means being on the road every Tuesday-Thursday.
Work travel sucks - you're taking first flights out, last flights in, and delays or cancellations are an inevitability. And even if you're going somewhere interesting, once you finally get to your destination, you typically only see the insides of conference rooms or hotel rooms. It takes a real effort and some planning to squeeze in some sightseeing when you're exhausted and have to prep for tomorrow's meetings. Topping it off with the toll on your body between time zone changes and self-imposed dehydration so you're not getting up every 10 minutes to pee on the plane, it can be downright unpleasant.
Potentially the worst of all, I never have enough room in my carryon + 1 personal item (and can't risk missing checked luggage) for all of the stuff I want to bring. Some of that is normal routine creature comfort stuff like my preferred face lotions and potions, but trickier is not being able to squeeze in my DSLR to try and get some shooting in.
Fortunately, a DSLR is not even close to being a requirement for photography. Most of good photography is about lighting and composition - developing your eye to see something that other people might miss. With that in mind, I'm constantly taking pictures with my iPhone and I've been able to get pretty amazing shots, especially when I shoot in RAW. It's not going to be the low light beast that my Nikon D750 is, but it will do ~85% of the time.
Active Shooting Time: 30 minutes
Editing Time: 1 hour
Hours To Date: 648
Runway lights through a frozen window at IAD. At this point, delayed 3 hours.
Built myself a nice roaring fire during our winter quarter meeting at a rustic dude ranch. Skills from my Girl Scout days definitely came in handy!
Winter in Colorado.
