The travel question is one I always trip over slightly, because the answer is longer than people expect.

Three trips to South America. Buenos Aires, Salta, Cafayate, across into Brazil, Rio, down the coast, then into Peru — Machu Picchu, a four-day hike through the Lares trek, down through Ollantaytambo, into Aguas Calientes and up into the citadel itself, then on to Iquitos and Lima. A second trip to Quito for Spanish school, back into Peru, through every archaeological site I could find, into Bolivia. Birding in the Amazon including a birding conference. A third pass through Peru because it kept pulling me back. Then Canada for skiing, across the United States for a month. Egypt, Jordan and Israel with structured tours along with free time in Israel at the end.

That's the summary version. The actual version involves considerably more dust and altitude sickness.

What I took with me.

A camera. Always a camera. And Jules, which turned out to be the most significant thing in the bag. There's a flattering idea that travel transforms you. What actually happens is simpler: you take yourself with you. What travel gave me wasn't a new self. It gave me a clearer view of the existing one.

You take yourself with you wherever you go. I tried not to, believe me.

Lima. Just watching.

There's a plaza in Lima I keep coming back to in my memory. I sat there for a long time with a camera in my lap, not shooting, just watching. That's where something clicked about watching, about the value of being still in a place and letting it show you what it is. The birding had already been teaching me some of this. You don't find birds by crashing through undergrowth. The same instinct makes a good photographer.

The life in between.

Between trips there was a chapter lived in North Carolina — a relationship, a home, Odin. The relationship ended in the early part of the pandemic. Odin stayed in the US. Going back became impossible as the borders closed. The pandemic years brought changes that were nothing to do with travel, and they take longer to process.

New Zealand, and the question of home.

After the pandemic, back in New Zealand, there was a feeling that had been building for a while the sense of not quite belonging. Not sudden. Just a feeling that accumulated until it was undeniable. Australia was one option. The UK was another. Before I booked tickets to London. Scotland called.

Before I booked tickets to London. Scotland called. Sometimes the right place finds you.

The recruiter from Edinburgh.

A recruiter contacted me about a job in Scotland. I said yes. That, more or less, is how I ended up here. Not because Scotland was a calculated destination. A recruiter called at exactly the right moment, and Scotland opened a door. Since being here I've kept exploring with a road trip around the North Coast 500, along with skiing in Andorra and the French Alps, Paris, Berlin. But Scotland has become home in a way that feels settled.

What travel gave the photography.

The eye I bring to a dog session in a Scottish field is the same eye that sat in a plaza in Lima watching the light change, that went still in South American jungle waiting for birds.

The subject changes. The attention doesn't. That's what the travelling gave me.

With muddy boots and a full heart,

Jules x