“The journey not the arrival matters.” – T.S.Elliot
We are all by now used to jumping on an Easyjet or Ryanair plane and reaching a destination without any thought to the journey. In the US flying between states is known as commuting rather than any big deal in terms of journey and even the journey up to Everest has congestion. Is there anywhere really remote and hard to get to?
Yes the world has got smaller and easier to access in so many ways but as the following photographers can attest there are still many destinations that are remote and often hard to get to. And the joys and rewards of experiencing that place are abundant and often curious and fascinating as these storytellers reveal.
Chase Guttman is the winner of , an international competition judged by museum curators and magazine editors. To date he has shot in a number of remote locales.
“Lesotho is Southern Africa’s “Kingdom of the Sky” and a travel destination of a different breed. Rich cultural exoticism coupled with dramatic mountain terrain makes Lesotho feel like the face of another planet. In the frost-laden foothills of this remote nation, the Sotho people weartraditional tribal blankets,Mokorotlo hats and balaclava like masks to combat the harsh climate of their high altitude residences. They utilize Basuto ponies to traverse narrow mountain passes and travel between villages.”
“It is truly a feast for the eyes and its secluded corners are the most rewarding if you are willing to journey there. To get to Semonkong, Lesotho, I traveled across a packed South Africa-Lesotho border and negotiated winding, mountain roads (encountering a mixture of bovine and icy obstacles along the way) en route to the heart of the country.”
“Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada is an under-appreciated jewel tucked away in the northeast corner of the second largest country in the world. Gorgeous coastal towns and vibrant fishing villages dot this rural province renowned for its once dominant cod fishing and Basque whaling industry. Stunning landscape after stunning landscape is there for you to ogle, photograph and take in.”
“Labrador, Canada is particularly difficult to access — the lonely, 1,200km long Trans-Labrador Highway is the only road that connects the isolated communities in this vastly unsettled and untouched region. In addition, some of rural Labrador’s gorgeous maritime towns can only be accessed by boat.”
Eric Lafforgue, another intrepid traveller highlights the Omo Valley in Ethiopia and reveals the New Year celebration Kael by the Bodi tribe.
“For 6 months certain men from the tribe sustain themselves strictly on fresh milk and cow blood. They are forbidden to have sex and leave their hut. Everybody takes care of them, the girls bringing milk every morning in clay or bamboo pots. The winner is the fattest man. His prize is fame.”
“Usually, tourists are not permitted in this area where tribal traditions are well-preserved. On the day of the celebration, aheaddress made of ostrich feathers and cauris shells (expensive as the sea is 1000km far from the village)is attached on the head of the fat men, their only“cloth”. Some fat men are so big that they can’t walk anymore. One asked to me to drive him to the ceremony. As they do not make any physical effort for months when they become fat, they can hardly walk.”
“Under a hot sun, the fat men will run around a sacred tree for hours. Many waddle like babies, frequently losing their balance as their belly is huge. The ceremony ends with a cow sacrifice. They kill it with a sacred stone with one bang on the head. The elders will predict the future by reading the cow’s blood and organs. They say good days are to come butmany fear that the Kael will end soon as foreign companies running farms are taking the Bodi’s land and displacing the tribe into government camps – essentially destroying their culture.”
“To go to this place, you need to drive 2 days from Addis Ababa. The road is off road, so the journey is long to reach the Bodi people.”
“The Kael have very few pictures as the festival takes place after the harvest and depends on many things, including the full moon but most of it the decision of the Chief about the schedule. I have been there 3 times to have the chance to see the fat men! The first two years, the chief decided that there were not enough fat men to do the ceremony, as the milk was missing. One year I even had to send my car to Jinka, 70 km from the village, to pick the chief and bring him back to the village as villagers were waiting for him to launch the ceremony!”
“Thanks to this, I became a hero in the village as people could celebrate Kael, and was allowed to document the ceremony. The ceremony is rather hard to shoot as the fat men are in a kind of trance , and have bodyguards very excited who tend to push you away… and they also have long sticks they use to whip the people who come too close of the fat men. My legs still remember the whipping sticks!”
“Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.”– Ray Bradbury
Inge Johnsson, a prolific travel photographer highlights the remoteness and beauty of hard to reach places in the US.
“Every Washington state hiker worth his salt knows that the Enchantment Lakes Wilderness in what is called the “Washington Alps” is the ultimate destination for any nature lover or photographer. This is especially true in late October to early November when the abundant larch trees up there turn golden with an almost radiant yellow color. To further compel visitors its peaks and lakes have fairy tale like names such as Dragontail Peak, Leprechaun Lake and Aasgard Pass. This is however not a hike for the casual outdoors person as it requires applying for a rare camping permit in a lottery many months ahead and then hiking in, or actually up, 11 miles and around 5,400 feet elevation gain to reach 7,800 feet. However, when the circumstances are right the experience is quite sublime with dramatic granite peaks, a string of lakes connected with waterfalls, and the aforementioned western larch trees. Washington state is located in the Northwestern corner of the United States, and is home to the city of Seattle.”
“Deep inside the Grand Canyon in the US state of Arizona is a fantastically carved side canyon called Matkatamiba Canyon. It is virtually only accessible from the Colorado River and will thus involve rafting or kayaking to the 148-mile point on the river. A 10-minute scramble up from the river will take you into this twisting corridor of serpentine narrows that lead to a large amphitheater. The slot canyon through Muav limestone is cut by a small stream that sometimes contains pools which can only be crossed by swimming or at least wading through deep water. Once inside the slot you are rewarded with tall and narrow walls with sensually curved striations, small twisted waterfalls, and the glowing sunlit sandstone walls towering above.”
“The Fly Geyser is an unlikely encounter in an arid area near Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, resembling some strange feature on an alien planet. Located on private land, requiring a permit from the landowner, this geyser formation perpetually sprays hot water and steam into the open blue Nevada sky. The geyser itself is colorized by algae in unlikely hues of orange, yellow and green. I had the opportunity to study it at all times of the day; as the wind shifted the steam concealed and moistened some parts of formation, while others temporarily dried up, constantly changing the appearance of the incredibly colorful algae covered travertine. It is also sointriguingthat it was actually people that startedthe creation of this natural wonder with a well drill in the 1960s.”
Nik Wheeler has worked as a professional photographer for nearly 50 years. Having come fairly late in life to travel photography via photojournalism he has been fortunate to have visited several remote regions of the world long before they became well trodden tourist destinations or dangerous.
“The Marshes of Southern Iraq is the legendary site of the Garden of Eden where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers come together. These marshes were a magical watery oasis in the middle of a desert world when I went there first for National Geographic in the late 1970s. Surrounded by wetlands known as the Hor the Marsh Arab people lived a simple independent life in communities of houses built of woven reed mats perched on small man-made islands made of mud and bulrushes.”
“For transportation within their villages they paddled around in small wooden boats or large war canoes with high prows and fished with three pronged spears for the local carp while the unveiled women spent the day minding the water buffalo or gathering reeds for weaving mats. They grew rice on land at the edge of the Marshes and sold their reed mats to the nearby towns. In the evenings the men would gather around a buffalo dung fire inside a grand hall the size of a chapel and chat and drink tea. Mostly Shia Muslims the Marsh Arabs brand of Islam was very low key and personal. Weddings were celebrated locally but funerals were carried out in the nearby holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala.”
“I was one of very few Westerners permitted access to this isolated world. The Marshlands had always been very inaccessible even to other Iraqis who considered it a dangerous hideout for criminals and political dissidents. After the First Gulf War Saddam Hussein began a campaign to drain the Marshes and drive the people from the region. In recent years a government programme to try to restore the marshes has had some success and a few of the former inhabitants have returned to resume their ancient and unique way of life.”
“Southern Iraq is not as dangerous as Baghdad and the North and the Marshes could still hold some magic for an intrepid photographer.”
“The Nar-Phu Valley in Nepal, a few miles from the Tibet border has been open for trekkers since 2003. But when I went there in the early 80s to photograph a book for Time-Life on the Bhotia people who lived in this remote Himalayan valley, our expedition needed special permission from the King of Nepal.”
“With a dozen porters and four Sherpas we trekked for 11 days to reach Nar, a hillside village of stone terraced houses at an altitude of 13,000 feet. We spent three weeks living with the villagers and documenting their traditional lifestyle and another week in the nearby village of Phu. Every year the Bhotia would leave their villages before the harsh winter began and migrate to the lowlands, returning in the spring to round up their yaks that they had left to fend for themselves. They would till the stony fields and plant a crop of barley which they would harvest before the fall. Although Nepalese by nationality their culture, language, religion and physiognomy were Tibetan.”
“One of the ceremonies I witnessed during my time there was a funeral ceremony. Because the villages are situated above the tree line, wood is too valuable for cremations and the earth is too rocky for a burial. So the corpse is carried in a procession of chanting monks and relatives to a desolate spot away from the village. Unwrapped from a shroud it is hacked into pieces by the village undertaker and laid on flat rocks for vultures to swoop down and devour. In those days I used to carry a Polaroid camera to give out photos to villagers who had never had their photo taken before. I was constantly being asked to take someone’s Polaroid photo. As I watched and photographed the undertaker sharpening his traditional kukri before dismembering the corpse he asked me if I would take a photo of him and the dead woman. She was his mother-in-law he told me and he wanted a souvenir Polaroid with her before he chopped her up.”
never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” –Oscar Wilde
Hard act to follow on from the last narrative but Tanveer Badal does it magnificently with his account of his trip to Madagascar. Tanveer considers travel to be a privilege and strives to do justice to the places and the people he photographs.For daily travel inspiration, follow Tanveer on or visit his travel blog, .
“Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park in Western Madagascar is one of the hardest to get to and most rewarding place I’ve ever traveled to. I was on the road for the entire 2014 year with my travel writer wife. We arrived in Madagascar 5 months into our travels, so were pretty seasoned travelers at that point. We flew to the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo,from Bali (via a 10 day stopover in Mauritius).After a couple of days of getting acclimatized in Tana, we headed south to Antsirabe on a local taxi brousse which is basically a shared taxi minivan with 20 other locals and in our case included a couple of chickens squawking in a plastic bag. Upon our arrival into town, a man in a bicycle pedaled alongside us the entire way to our hotel, screaming about a canoe trip that would depart the next morning. I was so impressed by his marketing efforts, that I met him for a coffee as he proceeded to scribble the trip itinerary on a piece of school notebook paper. The next morning, we were on our way on a 3-day canoeing adventure down the Tsiribihina River. We would travel though an area lacking any major roads, hotels, or even cell phone reception. Instead, we watched lemurs swinging from tree branches and crocodiles peering with their eyes out from the water, while local children impressed us with backflips only several yards away. Each night,we parked our boat on whatever stretch of sand on a deserted island and watched the MilkyWay more clearly than I had ever seen it before.”
“At the end of the river cruise, our guide had arranged for a 4WD vehicle to pick us up, but of course it wasn’t there. We wondered if we’d be stuck in the tiny village with all our worldly possessions for the rest of our lives. But eventually, the vehicle did arrive right around nightfall. We broke down about 18 times and ended up having to ferry the vehicle across rivers on a raft steered with a bamboo stick and my headlamp providing the only source of light. Ultimately, we arrived at Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park and had the incredible place pretty much to ourselves. We learned that the national park receives only a few thousand visitors per year (in comparison, the Smoky Mountains sees 10 million). We ended up spending only a few hours at the park, doing one hike in the morning, and another one in the evening, before taking off for more Madagascar adventures the next day. But the journey to get us there will live in my memories for a long time…”
Marcus Best is no stranger to difficult journeys and remote places having recently completed a solo sixteen month motorcycle trip around the world. The Kalyan Mosque and Minaret in Bukhara, Uzbekistan transported him to a time of Silk Road caravans.
“Here time slows down in the old town of Bukhara as you wander through its cobblestone alleyways and markets. The pace is easy and calm, but sitting under an ancient mulberry tree next to the central pool, I am transported to a time of desert caravans and Silk Road merchants. Bukhara has hosted travellers and scholars for thousands of years; it’s a remarkable place rich with history, architecture, culture and religion.”
“The Agadez Mosque, Agadez, Nigeris the last major outpost before entering the heart of the Sahara. And it feels like an outpost, surrounded by a sea of burning sand, an inhospitable place where coping with the elements is a daily struggle. A journal entry en route to Agadez through Chad and Niger by motorcycle: ‘My stomach was bloated with hot yellow sulfurous water, but still I was thirsty. The idea of sipping water rather than guzzling was absurd. I drank till it hurt, and drank some more.’ The Agadez Mosque is the only unique structure in the town, rising above a monochromatic scene of rusty brown mud buildings and rusty brown dirt roads.”
“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” Ibn Battuta
Photographer Ami Vitale has lived inmud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, anddonnedapandasuit—all in keeping with herphilosophy of “living the story.” She has traveled to more than90countries, bearing witness notonly to violence and conflict, but also to surreal beauty and to the enduring power of the humanspirit. From her photo-journalistic perspective she highlights the West African country of Guinea-Bissau.
“Early in my career, I had the opportunity to visit Guinea-Bissau, which was then and still is one of the poorest countries on earth. My sister was working there in the Peace Corps and I thought I would visit her for a few weeks. Those weeks turned into months, then half a year. Without the pressure of a deadline or the expectations of an editor, I learned the importance of patience, of taking time to tell a story.”
“What I encountered was not the Africa of war and famines and plagues, nor was it the idealized world of safaris and exotic animals. It was something altogether different. I spent my days learning Pulaar, the local language. I carried water, gathered firewood and experienced life as just as the majority of people on the planet live. When food supplies ran low, we all went hungry.”
“To the women I was totally useless. I had neither a baby nor a husband. I could barely cook. I couldn’t even get water out of the well without help. But I think they trusted me because of the years my sister had spent living with them and they loved her like a daughter. I became accepted into the community, and once I was accepted and gained their trust, I realized that though my life in Guinea-Bissau was vastly different from that of the United States, the surprise wasn’t in our differences, but in all the things that we shared.”
“On my last evening there, I sat with a group of children beneath a sea of stars talking into the night about my return home. One of the children, Alio, looked up and asked me if we had a moon in America. That was a turning point in my life – when I realized I wanted to spend my life working to highlight our commonalities rather than our differences.”
“Stories of love, courage and those that inspire empathy exist everywhere. The far more interesting story is not that people are so different from one another. There is a universal truth and if you get beyond those headlines, if you peek under the veil, you find a wonderful commonality between cultures and races. When we truly understand each others’ stories, we are transformed and no matter where you go, the joy of human emotions remain the same.”
t is not down in any map; true places never are”. –Herman Melville
On reading these accounts I can just feel the sheer joy emanating from these texts as well as the wonder, fascination and engagement with extraordinary people, terrains and civilisations.
Here is more on the and a previous blog on the best travel destinationsto photograph before you die!