Inside the journey, revealing my dream. Is this the best or worst idea I’ve ever had?
Hello friends and neighbors, great to see you again. Welcome back to the luminous journey.
I want you to imagine waking up, the sound of birds and a slight wind rustling the leaves. It takes a moment to remember where you are. Montana? Wyoming? Ah, yes, last night you photographed the Garden of One Thousand Buddhas, so it’s Montana, Arlee Montana. You were up late photographing, so it’s 10:00 already, but there’s no alarm. You step outside for a breath of fresh air as you sip your morning coffee. After a light breakfast, you transfer and briefly sort your work from last night. You are on your way to an exhibition in Bozeman, and you’d like to leave the campground by noon. Your devoted assistant is already preparing the RV for takeoff. A few hour trip and you’re in Butte, where you plan to take a few days to photograph Our Lady of the Rockies, and whatever else catches your eye. You pull into your new home around 4, set up, and do a quick scout of the area, so you can be ready to capture the night again. Is this a dream? No, this is a day in the journey.
The great American road trip…. A tradition that goes back 100 years. Even when the roads were poor, cars were unreliable, and we didn’t have the hundreds of thousands of campgrounds and hotels that we can choose from now. The travel bug has been biting us for generations, and it seems to have only gotten stronger through this whole pandemic experience, with record numbers of RVs being sold, and campgrounds sold out across the nation. So I know, without a doubt, that most of you understand the lure of the road.
In my native country of Turkey, the road trip is not nearly as well loved. We certainly travel, and have wonderful destinations to see, but the goal is typically the destination, not the journey. For a trip of any length, we usually get on a bus or a plane, reach our resort or hotel as quickly and economically as possible, and then enjoy our vacation there. It’s just a different philosophy of what a vacation is, and certainly works well for millions of people. I’m sure you all have your preferences as well, certainly let me know in the comments.
When I came to the US in 2014, living in Wisconsin, one thing that struck me was the fascination with the “great outdoors”. Camping, roughing it, RVs, backpacking, and weekends at the cabin were all things that I had never really done. My idea of a great trip mostly involved beaches, pools, and suntanning. Sweating it out down a trail, using a pit toilet, dehydrated camp meals, and a general lack of massage facilities, didn’t really seem like something I’d be interested in. Then, in 2015, we decided to move west. We loaded our belongings into a minivan, and hit the highway. It was at that point that I really got a feel for the scale and variety of landscapes that exist across this nation. We passed plains, rolling hills, badlands, lakes, rivers, mountains, deserts, all the way to the coast. Just a stunning range of views that often took my breath away. To some degree, that was expected. What I didn’t anticipate though, was the roadside culture. The little quirky attractions, diners, fun parks, ghost towns, all these attractions that can be found just all over the place, were to me completely fascinating.
A seed had been planted. Fast forward another five years or so. By then, my photography obsession was in full swing, so much so that I had started an LLC, The Luminous Eye, and started to try to sell some prints, get into exhibits, and get my name out there. It was around that time that the world stopped, and everything changed.
I was working from home at that point, well, probably working about 20% and dreaming the other 80%, you know what I mean. That gave me plenty of time to theorize. We had already covered most of California in our weekend excursions, and I’d photographed many of the sculptures and landscapes of that great state. But it was then I started thinking bigger. If just one state offered so many different subjects for my lens, what could I discover across the other 49? If I could do so much on weekend and 3-day trips, what could I do if I didn’t have to go back to work on Monday? Would it be possible to move from place to place, living as a full-time photographer, drinking in and processing all the fun, beautiful, unique locations I can find?
My initial research has been a bit daunting. I essentially learned that it will not be cheap, and it will not be easy, but it is possible. If you’ve done extended RV trips before, I’m sure you can comment on some of the challenges. Breakdowns, overbooked parks, burnout, security issues, and cost are just a few that seem to plague such voyages. So I suppose I could give up at this point. It’s too expensive, It’s too hard, I’ll fail, woe is me. But that, is not, the American way.
This will be an epic road-trip, spanning multiple years, a journey of exploration across this immense and incredible country. I plan to travel through all 48 continental states, most likely more than once. It’s roughly 3,000 miles from west coast to east coast,
and about 1,700 miles from north to south. This journey will span those distances several times.
To make that work, I’m going to need a fairly sick RV, which will be the focus of a future video. I don’t have time today to get into all the pros and cons of diesel pushers vs. 5th wheels vs. class C, and on and on. So we’ll get into that, but suffice to say I’m going to need more than a Sprinter van conversion.
I expect to find so much more than I can ever expect, but what I’m looking for is mostly inside myself. Of course, all the monuments, the parks, the sculptures, structures, landscapes, and endless visual stimulus will be amazing, and I can’t wait to show you how those will look through my eyes. But I simply cannot predict what this will do to my soul. How will I change, how will my vision expand? What lessons and experiences will I share with all the fellow travelers I encounter along the way? This is what truly excites me about the Luminous Journey, and it’s the main reason I’m documenting the whole thing through the magic of the Youtubes. I have a feeling that when this voyage ends, I will have a hard time recognizing myself, and that’s just thrilling. What a joy to be able to share it with you.
Keep in mind though, that as a passenger, you will not always see me in a great mood. There will, no doubt, be times when I doubt my decision, probably even to the point of despair. I’m frankly not even sure yet that this is a great idea. We’ll find out together, I suppose, as long as you find those like, subscribe, and notification buttons. The only way to see how this ends, is just to begin. So my next post will show you what I’ve been doing to build my brand and who’s inspired me. Then we’ll get more into the photography before we talk logistics. Your task of the week is to tell me how long you could maintain the modern nomad lifestyle, if at all. I’ll tell you the results next week. Love you all, see you soon.
Watch this on YouTube by clicking HERE.
