Photography Portfolio

Close enough to SF that it stopped being a trip and became a normal weekend. After enough visits, we've got the itinerary down to something we can run without discussing it.

Marrakech, the dunes at Merzouga, then north through Fez and Chefchaouen and back down the coast, all of it in August, which was the one clear mistake. Came home with lamps, leather jackets, and a suitcase that should have been a size bigger.

They call it little Kyoto, which undersells it. The samurai town, quieter than Kyoto and better for it. Sat in a tea house at Kenroku-en with matcha and mochi, drizzle coming down on the pond, and I'm not sure I've had a better hour anywhere. Also had omakase at Soki that I still think about.

Kyoto turned me into a morning person for three days straight, purely to get ahead of the crowds. One afternoon we gave up and went back to the hotel. Beautiful place, and I probably won't return, because of the crowds, of which I was one. Nara was mostly bowing to deer. In Osaka we planned every day around food — omakase, sushi, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, onigiri, 7-Eleven — and at one point split an entire fluffy cheesecake in a square, which is defensible at 20,000 steps a day

Overnight here and never saw Fuji once — solid overcast, though it did good things for the fall colors. Went back for a day trip at the end of the trip to Japan and got about as lucky as you can get.

Lowkey underrated. Went here instead of Yosemite and had the trails mostly to ourselves, and it was the first real bed and breakfast I've stayed at in the US — not an Airbnb with a lockbox and a list of rules.

An hour from the city and it does a fair Scottish Highlands impression, right down to the weather. Don't go May through August unless you want fog; there's a herd of tule elk out on the point that you'll see either way.

Water blue enough that you want to get in, cold enough that you immediately want back out. We made it down to the shore the season before they closed the trail for repairs.

Small enough that we ran out of things to do by Saturday afternoon, which turned out to be the point. Rode the Skunk Train because you're supposed to — wouldn't bother a second time.