joshgates

antarctica

Antarctica - Ushuaia and heading to the Drake Passage

Antarctica - Ushuaia and heading to the Drake Passage Whew, after a day that didn't quite go as planned, I spent most of my downtime exploring a few spots in Buenos Aires that I hadn't visited yet, such as El Ateneo Grand Splendid. Since it was

2023

Antarctica - The trip to Ushuaia

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with

2023

2023 - Antarctica Planning - Camera Edition

2023 - Antarctica Planning - Camera Edition With a bit over two weeks to go before leaving, it’s come time to finalize my photography equipment and make sure all is ready to go. I’m looking at it in three main categories: * Bag * Camera(s) and Lenses * Accessories * Processing

2023

2023 - 40 days to Antarctica

Ok, it’s not actually 40 days until I’m in Antarctica, but the countdown has started for when I leave. Today I was able to see the ship I’m going on, the Ocean Endeavour, on the Webcam for Ushuaia in port a day late for it’s delivery,

2023

2023 - Norwegian Escape - New England and Canada

2023 - Norwegian Escape - New England and Canada A brief pause in Antarctica planning took me on a cruise out of New York to New England and Canada for a week of relaxation and exploration. This was booked last minute for me, only a month from sail date. I’

2023

2023 - Antarctica Planning

With two and a half months before I embark on a trip to Antarctica, it’s finally starting to feel real. I’ve been dreaming of Antarctica since I was in my early 20’s and fantasizing about quitting my job to work at a station there. That never happened,

2023

2023 Updates

This year will be the lightest year I have for travel since I started my adventures, but for good reason. Just two real trips planned for this year, one in July on the Norwegian Escape out of Miami and the other going to Antarctica with stops in Buenos Aires and

2022

Norwegian Escape

Planning and research for Antarctica is still ongoing, and there's a lot that I still need to figure out, but with only 51 days till the annual Christmas vacation I'm switching over to that for a little while. This year's getaway is on the

antarctica

Antarctica

Going to Antarctica's been a goal of mine for as long as I can remember.  Back in my early 20's when I was looking for some way to escape the rutt I was in I'd spend time looking at jobs that'd take

NCL Getaway - Spur of the moment

With only a month before my next trip, figured it's about time I catch up on a couple of trips from earlier this year.  Brief posts to be sure though. Early in March I was daydreaming and looking into cruises on NCL to use up some of the

2021

Holiday Escape

This will be a mostly pictorial post, I'm not going to spend much time discussing this cruise.  There were some fantastic parts to be sure and overall I really enjoyed this trip, however given the port intensive nature of it and the state of the world with omicon,

2021

Grandeur of the Seas - Christmas 2021 - Planning

Now that the protocols for getting into Barbados and onto the ship have been released the reality of what all needs done is setting in.  It's not that there's a lot, but everything needs to be done in a fairly short timeframe, during finals week, and

2021

Christmas 2021

For the last several years I've been taking a solo trip for Christmas, the last one being a back to back trip on the NCL Breakaway out of Port Canaveral.  Absolutely one of those trips that I thoroughly enjoyed in the moment but as the year went on

2021

Adventure of the Seas - Last days

I should probably finish this before I head back in less than two weeks.... Ok, so it's taken awhile to get to the end of the trip but it's been a busy month since I moved :) This part won't be very long though, after

2021

Adventure of the Seas - Perfect Day at CocoCay

September of 2019 was the first time I went to CocoCay (and my first cruise on Royal Caribbean) and quickly fell in love with it.  Despite my dislike of sand and beaches in general there was just something about this island that drew me in and made me want to

2021

Adventure of the Seas - Freeport and Hot Ice Cool Art

Ahhh, first morning of the cruise, one of my favorite moments.  You've just woken up, the ship is still quiet (although it was pretty quiet all the time on this one due to capacity), and you can wander around in peace, enjoy it like it's your

2021

Adventure of the Seas - Embarkation day

Morning started a little rough, there may have been a few gin and tonics the evening before, so even though I called it a fairly early evening when I woke up I was a little under the weather.  A nice shower and a bottle of water with some propel powder

2021

Adventure of the Seas - It begins!

Ahhh, nothing like writing your entire post an accidentally deleting it.  Oh well, to start anew and make it a bit more concise! If you haven't seen it, the intro to this cruise is here [https://www.joshgates.org/adventure-of-the-seas-initial-plans/].  There are some changes to the schedule since

Aesthetics

I have a preference for black and white photography.  There's something about it, the focus on the quality of the light, shapes, tonality, maybe because it harkens back to a different era of photography or maybe because, at least for me, it's easier to focus on

travel

Travel Photography Kit

Having a year and a half without really going anywhere, and a large part of that stuck completely at home, has given me plenty of time to think about what I wanted to bring when I started traveling agin.  How am I going to balance my desire to minimalism, desire

nasa

Why a blog?

One of the things I've regretted since COVID hit was that I'd never put any focus on documenting my trips.  I have all these memories, people I've met, places I've gone, things I've done and seen, but when trying to

travel

Adventure of the Seas - Initial plans

Planning has begun! This won't be my most active cruise excusion wise, two of the ports aren't offering much that interests me so I'll likely stay on the ship if we're not able to get off to walk around on our own,

travel

Adventure is Back

Photo by Fernando Jorge [https://unsplash.com/@fx24?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText] on Unsplash [https://unsplash.com/s/photos/nassau?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText] A year ago if you'd asked me I'd