The History of My Travel Wish List

Brazil is one of the candidates for my 2013 Travel Wish List.  I'd love to go
and visit Jennifer and Beatriz in Jardim Redentor near Rio de Janeiro.
I'd also like to visit Belem, Fortalezza, Salvador and Florianopolis.

A couple decades or more ago during the work-lull between Christmas and New Year's Day I began making up a travel wish list. It was most often scribbled on a scrap of paper that I tucked in my desk drawer. In most years I never looked at it again until the next year when it was time make up a new wish list. It was my adult version of a letter to Santa Claus, dutifully filled out but never mailed. Even so, in most years, I'd always get to cross at least one destination off my wish list.

Then one year Sally McKinney, a writer I worked with as a photographer, casually asked me where I'd like go on assignment in the coming year. I did a mental review of the travel wish list tucked in my desk drawer and came up with Hawaii, Montana, Russia, Brazil and half dozen other places that consistently fascinated me. The reasons the locations made my list were varied and random. Montana was the only state in West I hadn't visited and Hawaii was a placed I'd been many times but knew it had much more to offer than I'd so far discovered.  I'd been drawn to Russia since my childhood because my brother had studied Russian in college and Russia's featured prominently in my childhood consciousness as our Cold War nemesis. Brazil was a new fascination, though the Amazon River caught my attention during a movie titled "The Pirates of Blood River" that featured prominently in my nightmares well into my adult life.

My #TravelWishList posts:

                    Part one - The History of My Travel Wish List and The Candidates 
                    Part two - 13-4-’13 - Thirteen Places To See
                    Part three - Six Islands I’d Swim To
                    Part four - Six Places In The US That Are Calling My Name 
                    Part Five - Six Places I’ve Been But want to Go To Again
                    Part Six  - My Favorite Places in Colorado And The Neighboring States

I noticed that something amazing happened over the next 2-3 years. First Sally called to ask me if I''d like me to photograph for her in Hawaii for a food & wine article. Then 6 months later the annual trips Montana for newspaper articles began, the first about the Robert Redford movie "A River Runs Through It." Soon she asked me to collaborate on whitewater rafting story in Costa Rica. Costa Rica wasn't even on my wish list but I an not dogmatic about these things, I am pretty flexible about my list which is good because the company I worked with in Costa Rica hired me the next year to go Russia for them and another company saw my images from Russia and hired me to photograph their river cruise in Ukraine.  

Of course there were several assignments that weren't on my wish list but they should have been, places like Finland and South Beach, Florida that should have been on that list and return visits Alaska and New Mexico. There were many minor successes along the way. I crossed off all but 3 US states from my travel list and got the opportunity photograph the Sandhill Crane migration in my home state of Nebraska and to take a llama tour in my adopted home state of Colorado.

A couple years later Sally called with a 10-day assignment in Brazil. In one of the saddest, most regretted decisions if my travel life I turned this job over to an associate because I already had a better paying gig in Colorado. Be forewarned: don't mess with the TravelWishList gods because it took me nearly 10 years to get another opportunity to travel to Brazil. 

You might have thought I'd be bright enough to see the connection between sharing my wish list with Sally and higher incidence of hits in my list but I guess I am a liiiitttllle sssslllooooow. I put it down to Sally simply being aware of my preferences and nothing more. 

The Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia along
with Tahiti and Bora Bora are candidates for my
Travel Wish List.

I pretty much went back to putting my wish list in the desk drawer, keeping my travel dreams to myself. That was until Twitter caught my attention in 2009. For some unknown reason I began sharing snippets of my desk drawer list in tweets. But this time I saw the global significance of casting my #TravelWishList to the winds and waiting for the travel gods to hear my travel prayers. 

Now this year I am codifying it and sharing it far and wide. I am breaking it down into 13-4-'13 top travel destinations for this year. I'm also listing 6 islands and 6 places in the US that I have never visited. So that makes 25 places. As a bonus I'm listing 6 places I have already visited but long to visit again. Plus  a list of a few places in Colorado and neighboring states that are my favorites and one place in Colorado, that 35 years after moving here, I have yet to visit.  

Here is the list of candidates (in alphabetical order) that I came up with from which my Travel Wish List is selected. 

Are your favorites on the list? 

Alaska Antarctica Argentina Austria Azores Bali Bhutan Bora Bora Botswana Brazil British Virgin Islands Canada Canary Islands Chile Cuba Costa Rica Easter Island Egypt England Estonia France Fiji Islands  Galapagos Islands Greece Guam Iceland India Ireland Italy Jordan Kamchatka Peninsula Kenya Kyrgyzstan Madagascar Maldives Marquesas Islands Mauritius Mexico Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Nepal New Zealand Norway Panama Papua New Guinea Peru Portugal Romania Russia Seychelles Islands South Africa Spain Sumatra Sweden Switzerland Tahiti Tanzania Trinidad and Tobago Thailand Tibet Togo Turkey Venezuela 

Curious facts:  There were no places on my list that started with D, H, L, O, Q, U, W, X, Y, or Z.  Do you have recommendations that begin with these letters?

The letter with the most destinations in "T" with seven.  "S" is second with six. 

Eleven are in the Pacific and fourteen on the Pacific Rim.  North America had the fewest locations with 3 but if you count the Caribbean you get 6 and what continent is Iceland associated with anyway? Seventeen are in Europe. Seven are part of South America. Nine are in Asia.  Two are in Central America.  Eight are in Africa.  Twenty-two are islands.

My #TravelWishList posts: 

Part one - The History of My Travel Wish List and The Candidates   

Part two - 13-4-’13 - Thirteen Places To See

Part three - Six Islands I’d Swim To 

Part four - Six Places In The US That Are Calling My Name 

Part Five - Six Places I’ve Been But want to Go To Again 

Part Six  - My Favorite Places in Colorado And The Neighboring States

Please share your Travel Wish List in the comments.

#Alaska #Antarctica #Argentina #Austria #Azores #Bali  #Bhutan #BoraBora #Botswana #Brazil #BritishVirginIslands #Canada #CanaryIslands #Chile #Cuba #CostaRica #EasterIsland #Egypt #England #Estonia #France #Fiji #Islands #Galapagos Islands#  #Greece #Guam #Iceland #India #Ireland #Italy #Jordan #Kamchatka Peninsula #Kenya #Kyrgyzstan #Madagascar #Maldives #MarquesasIslands  #Mauritius #Mexico #Mongolia #Morocco #Myanmar #Nepal #NewZealand #Norway #Panama #PapuaNewGuinea #Peru #Portugal #Romania #Russia #Seychelles Islands #SouthAfrica #Spain #Sumatra #Sweden #Switzerland #Tahiti #Tanzania #Trinidad and #Tobago #Thailand #Tibet #Togo #Turkey #Venezuela

"The Marlin" South Beach - Miami, Florida USA

The Marlin, South Beach 

South Beach comes alive after dark with trendy nights spots lining Ocean Boulevard. The young, rich, and beautiful people come out to be seen in Miami's playground.

I had a photo assignment to Costa Rica and the writer I was working with on this trip convinced me that it would be a good use of our time and resources to make a stop over in South Beach. Her rationale was that the Costa Rica assignment had provided us with transportation through Miami and, with the investment of just a couple of additional days, we could create another travel story using very little of our own money. She had connections with the Miami CVB and they would set things up for our visit.

I was not very excited by the prospect and knew we would be tired at the end of the whirlwind soft-adventure trip through Costa Rica that included two of days of white water rafting. After being shot through Costa Rica on arrow I would just want to be headed home. Additionally, I had been to Miami and South Florida a few times before and had been roundly unimpressed.

A few years earlier I visited South Florida on another layover between a film assignment for Sobeck Mountain Travel in Peru and a photo shoot for Windjammer Cruises in the Bahamas. I spent three miserably hot, humid, July days in Miami. It was only tolerable to leave my highly air conditioned hovel around midnight. When I departed for Nausau in the Bahamas I vowed there would be no return visit to Miami.

My impressions of South Florida had been formed as a child by photos and stories my parents brought back from a vacation they had taken in Miami in the early 60's. That, and the reruns of "The Golden Girls", which had cemented my impression of all of Florida as a gigantic retirement home. I expected to find octogenarians teetering serenely back and forth in their Kennedy rocking chairs on the porches of the hotels along the ocean that were now as far past their prime as were their aged inhabitants.

How wrong I was !

I was in South Beach for a bit over 50 hours. I estimate that I managed about 4 hours of sleep. It was not only a great photographic experience, I had a very good time with what little free time I afforded myself. Whether that be having my morning coffee at the News Cafe with all the chic European models (in town for a catalog shoot), a sunset walk along the beach, or drinks at the Clevelander Bar and dancing at any one of the many places along the Boulevard. At the end of the trip I was asking the writer why she had allowed us such a short time here in South Beach.

The once moribund oceanfront hotels have been beautifully reclaimed. The scale and color of the art deco architecture was a photographers dream. The light was clear and bright yet soft during the day and at night South Beach seemed to have even more color and certainly more vitality.

The Marlin (pictured above) has become a trendy meeting spot for those seeking a bit of the limelight here in South Beach. It is a visual treasure with its arching lines framed by neon.

These words and images are copyrighted and may not be used, re-posted or reproduced without direct written permission.

Contact me at @JeromeShaw  or  Facebook

Fotolog- Postcards from Brazil / Jerome Shaw
Fotolog- Travels Along the Timeline/ Jerome Shaw
www.jeromeshaw.com

Subject : The Marlin - South Beach Miami - Florida - USA

Original Post Date: : Oct 29, 2006 3:36 PM

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