Two sea otters floating together in calm water

Spotting Marine Mammals in Sitka

Getting to Sikta The flight to Sitka was stunningly beautiful. We flew over countless small islands, each with just a home or two and a dock. Exiting the plane was a bit unusual because there were about 20 state troopers waiting. Apparently, Sitka is a training facility, and there were 50 new recruits on our […]

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Brown bear catching salmon at waterfall

A Bucket List Trip to See the Brown Bears at Brooks Lodge

Brooks Camp – The Densest Concentration of Brown Bears in the World (Here’s a link if you want to skip the section about how we got to Brooks Camp, including an epic moose sighting in Anchorage, and get straight to the bears) Getting to Anchorage Our journey from Australia included a brief stopover in Southern […]

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Alaska mural with polar bear and night sky backdrop

Our Three Week Adventure in Alaska

Seventeen Years of Dreaming of Returning to Brooks Lodge Brooks Lodge is pure magic—our first visit was back in 2007. It was such an amazing trip that it earned a spot on our website home page. Deep down, we knew we’d be back eventually. Fast forward 15 years to December 1, 2022. I stumbled upon […]

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Southwestern Photo Safari

Oops! This page appears to be part of the 2014 website migration crisis. Not to worry; we’ve got the text and images safe and sound, just waiting for their triumphant repost when we find the time.

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The Long Layover in Kona (and Waikiki) (after a trip to Scottsdale)

(There’s a long preamble for this trip, so click here if you just want to read about Kona). We’d been isolated in Australia for 26 months. TWENTY SIX MONTHS! To be fair, there are far worse places to be confined. When the Australian border reopening was announced, we immediately booked flights to visit my mom […]

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The Sea Lions of Los Islotes

Sea lions are one of my favourite subjects to photograph. They have adorable faces and genuinely seem to like interacting with humans. La Paz, in the Sea of Cortez, is known for its colony of 200 California sea lions and is an easy side trip from the United States. Getting There We flew from Sydney […]

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Swimming with Sharks in the Bahamas

Every few years, a rare condition occurs in Australia where the Easter holidays and Anzac Day line up. This means that you can take 10 days of leave (vacation) and get a whopping 19 day holiday. The last time this happened was 2014, when we visited New Zealand (though we were amateurs back then and thought […]

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Bareboating (and lobster-eating) in the Grenadines

(Location: St Vincent & the Grenadines, Caribbean) We’d heard the Grenadines was “like the BVI was 20 years ago.” The BVI had become pretty developed, so were intrigued. We’d also heard that “the BVI is where you go if you want to drive your boat from bar to bar, the Grenadines is where you go […]

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Getting our Cameras Dusty in Antelope Canyon

We’d visited Antelope Canyon a few years back, and decided that a return visit was in order with our newer cameras. If you’ve never heard of Antelope Canyon, you’ve likely seen photos of it. We stayed at the Best Western, which isn’t the cheapest option but it is as good as it gets in Page. […]

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Mittens and Fry Bread

After being foiled by forest fires in Bryce Canyon, we decided to end our stay early and head over to Monument Valley. The drive took a little under five hours, and passed quickly. Monument Valley is the quintessential image of “the west” – flat plains punctuated by towering buttes (nicknamed “mittens”). We stayed at Gouldings, […]

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