Planning travel/outdoor trips

[Andreas]

Hi,

 

a question to travel/outdoor photographers - how do you plan your trips to a country and save your research ?

I use multipe sources

-  (paper) maps as an overview to get a feeling for distances and areas worth to visit

- web research for hiking trips / blogs on regions

- paper travel guide

- look up pictures in tour books to get an idea of an area

 

I'm looking for an easy way to collect this information, my favorite would be

- an electronic map where I could add points of interests/link related web pages/hiking info.  

- usable by PC and Android

- not forced to store this in a specific cloud (would use my current online storage provider) .

 

I would really prefer something where I could add my information as layers/POI on free maps like Open Street Map. Looks like Google offers tagging on own maps, but I'd like to avoid Google for this.

Any tool you know that fits for these requirements ?

(My currrent favorite: One Note from Microsoft. Plus: free, allows to embed URL's, pics and more. Minus: Microsoft cloud.  Map screenshots need to get manually added. )

 

Andreas

Andreas

[vpics]

Oh, and don't forget this app.

http://photoephemeris.com/

[Brasilnut]

In my experience, I rarely plan and run into the more interesting situations. Sometimes it goes wrong though  

[Betty LaRue]

31 minutes ago, Brasilnut said:

In my experience, I rarely plan and run into the more interesting situations. Sometimes it goes wrong though  

Our touring vacations were like this. Whether staying at motels or camping, each morning when we rose, I looked at the map and told my husband which road to take. We might know the final destination, but we wandered everywhere on the way. No reservations, ever. 

Yes, a few times in our RV we found ourselves parking at a rest stop or Walmart parking lot, but not often. 

When we had the conversion van, we had a pop up tent. Half the nights in it, half at a motel.

 

Cheap way to travel and I actually preferred the tent because I love nature and most of the state parks were beautiful. Some by the sea. More photo ops, too.

Of course, dumb me got lost within a huge state park at night. I forgot to scatter bread crumbs.  That is, if I could have seen them in the dark.

Miles of walking in circles later, strangers took pity on me and drove me around until I spotted our campsite. I was ready to hit the old sleeping bag, for sure.

Betty

[James Hodgson]

I often use viewranger app. It allows you to plan a route on your map and download it to phone or tablet. GPS track your route and give you distance height etc. But also add way points where you can add notes. You can then look at everything on a pc when you get home. It's not completely free as you buy sections of map from the app but they are quite cheap.

[Andreas]

The viewranger app might fit, but I'd prefer something with free maps like OpenStreetMap. Will dig more into OneNote, had used it years ago on my job.

 

I like to stroll around as well, taking minor roads and just see whats there. But I remember situations when I missed spots just some kilometers away - e.g. special basalt formations on Iceland, or a village on Lofoten Island where I just was too tired after a days shooting, but with an idea what I missed I'd made the extra mile.

[tarsierspectral]

I create maps in google maps and then export KLM and import to Galileo on my phone as it doesn’t require internet connection and is free and it can do navigation as well.

 

[John Mitchell]

On 1/8/2018 at 16:20, Betty LaRue said:

Our touring vacations were like this. Whether staying at motels or camping, each morning when we rose, I looked at the map and told my husband which road to take. We might know the final destination, but we wandered everywhere on the way. No reservations, ever. 

Yes, a few times in our RV we found ourselves parking at a rest stop or Walmart parking lot, but not often. 

When we had the conversion van, we had a pop up tent. Half the nights in it, half at a motel.

 

Cheap way to travel and I actually preferred the tent because I love nature and most of the state parks were beautiful. Some by the sea. More photo ops, too.

Of course, dumb me got lost within a huge state park at night. I forgot to scatter bread crumbs.  That is, if I could have seen them in the dark.

Miles of walking in circles later, strangers took pity on me and drove me around until I spotted our campsite. I was ready to hit the old sleeping bag, for sure.

Betty

 

Those are the trips that I usually enjoy the most, the ones where I follow my nose so to speak. A lot of travel has gotten too planned and mechanical IMO, with crowds of people all with similar "bucket lists" lining up to see the same things. I used to enjoy driving down the Pacific Coast to California, like you packing a tent and staying in the odd (some of them really odd) motels and just going with the flow.

[Betty LaRue]

1 hour ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Those are the trips that I usually enjoy the most, the ones where I follow my nose so to speak. A lot of travel has gotten too planned and mechanical IMO, with crowds of people all with similar "bucket lists" lining up to see the same things. I used to enjoy driving down the Pacific Coast to California, like you packing a tent and staying in the odd (some of them really odd) motels and just going with the flow.

We never had a huge budget. Did a lot on the cheap.  Ate a lot of sandwiches, hamburgers, pizza, and every few days a decent meal at a family cafe. Hot dogs over the campfire.  

We panned for gold, fished for trout.  We caught Dolly Vardin, cutthroat, rainbow, and browns.  Loved puttering around in the mountains, although my heart didn’t like the altitude.  We always ended up at the Pacific. Stayed in a tent cabin at Jackson Hole.  2 sides canvas, 2 sides logs.  In the middle of July, we got up to a gorgeous scene with heavy frost covering the pines and every surface, with the morning sun turning it into diamonds.  We sat at the patio picnic table in parkas and gloves drinking steaming coffee, and drinking in the beauty.

That was before I got into photography, when all I had was a film point and shoot. Darn it.

 

Anyome traveling the U.S., you can’t go wrong seeing the Teton and Sawtooth mountains. Gorgeous country. Old west.

Betty

[wiskerke]

23 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Anyome traveling the U.S., you can’t go wrong seeing the Teton and Sawtooth mountains. Gorgeous country. Old west.

 

Amen!

However Jackson Hole's a bit expensive nowadays.

wim

[Betty LaRue]

3 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

Amen!

However Jackson Hole's a bit expensive nowadays.

wim

That’s gorgeous. I only took film. Would love to go back with digital. Expensive? That’s why we stayed in a tent cabin. And that was years ago. Jackson hole is a tourist place, for sure. Even so, I wanted to see it.

Happy you were able to go there, wim. It’s a different feeling...maybe because there’s so many wide open spaces, yet rimmed by those rugged mountains.  There are places where you are motoring down a road and can’t find a town for many miles. Then when you do, the population is 93, the one tiny gasoline station is closed for the day, and you pray you’ll have enough gas to get you to an open one.

i speak from experience. The night skies are spectacular. I felt I could touch the billions of stars.

seeing the herds of antelope is nice, too.

Betty

[wiskerke]

5 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

That’s gorgeous. I only took film. Would love to go back with digital. Expensive? That’s why we stayed in a tent cabin. And that was years ago. Jackson hole is a tourist place, for sure. Even so, I wanted to see it.

Happy you were able to go there, wim. It’s a different feeling...maybe because there’s so many wide open spaces, yet rimmed by those rugged mountains.  There are places where you are motoring down a road and can’t find a town for many miles. Then when you do, the population is 93, the one tiny gasoline station is closed for the day, and you pray you’ll have enough gas to get you to an open one.

i speak from experience. The night skies are spectacular. I felt I could touch the billions of stars.

seeing the herds of antelope is nice, too.

Betty

 

Yep!

We always take our tent. The whole outfit goes into one roller bag that's exactly within size and weight limits ;-)

Two cheap Walmart chairs and 2 extra mats complete my setup. Rental car is usually a quite modest minivan or small suv.

Usually ;-)

- In Sequoia National Forest, last September.

 

My apps of choice: TPE - Photographer's Ephemeris ; Sony Remote and PlanIt together with some additional stuff like a Dof Calc; ND filter Calc; Bubble Level; Vibrometer (really useful!); local weather app; local train/metro/bus app; a WiFi analyzer and the inevitable Tripadvisor.

For maps I simply use Google. Sometimes downloaded beforehand with my POI's on a separate layer. Plus a TomTom 6200 for the car.

 

wim

 

 

[Betty LaRue]

I understand when you travel to another country, spending that kind of money, you must know your objectives. I would have them, too if I were able to travel like that. Since all of our travels are in the U.S., (with the exception of St. Croix,) we only have known the end objective.  Even then, when we got there sometimes we took off on another tangent, and always came back a new way.

While I enjoyed eastern U.S., I love the west and northwest more. 

Betty

Edited to add

wim, I think you have done a more thorough job of seeing the U.S. than I have.

 

 

[Ilya Genkin]

For the plaiining it's pretty much the same as yours, Andreas. Then I'm creating a map in Google Maps, export locations in KML and then import in my favourite map app on a phone. For itinerary I'm using Excel spreadsheet which you can easily open on a phone in many apps - no cloud required. Everything is stored on Dpropbox and on a phone as well as a copy.

[Essexps]

Don't forget Alamy as a resource.  You don't say how much of the trips are with Stock in mind, but before going away anywhere I always search the All Alamy Measures for what customers are searching for and draw up a list of subjects/areas that I would ideally like to cover.  I go back a year and use a % at each end as a wild card.  I'll try some generic searches of the area (%Lake District%) and then try some specific places (%Windermere%,  %Buttermere%< %Langdale% etc) to get a feel of what appears to be popular.  

 

 

[wiskerke]

+1 for both Ilya and Essexps.

My preparations are identical except for Excel.

Ilya, could you explain why and how you use a spreadsheet for this?

 

Forgot to say that paper maps and local print guides still play an important roll on the road.

 

wim

[Ilya Genkin]

9 hours ago, wiskerke said:

+1 for both Ilya and Essexps.

My preparations are identical except for Excel.

Ilya, could you explain why and how you use a spreadsheet for this?

 

Forgot to say that paper maps and local print guides still play an important roll on the road.

 

wim

Why... don't really know. Probably because of the way how I organise notes for my itinerary. I usually have a spreadsheet with rows for days and columns for info per day. Similar to that:

Day 1, Date, Sunrise Time, Shooting location for sunrise, Daytime shooting location OR/AND travel to another far destination, Sunset time, Sunset Location, Hotel info

 

Here how it could look for Sydney for example:

Day 1, 13/01/2018, Sunrise: 5:57am, Location: Sydney Opera House from Mrs Macquarie's Chair, Day Location: The Rocks. Then drive to Katoomba, Blue Mountains (1.5h, 100km), Sunset: 8:09pm, Location: The Three Sisters, Palais Royal Boutique Hotel.

 

It's nicely formatted in the spreadsheet so it's easy to read.

 

Then for each location I can have another page in the spreadsheet with more info on hotel location, cafes, detailed shooting locations etc. if required.

[wiskerke]

52 minutes ago, Ilya Genkin said:

Why... don't really know. Probably because of the way how I organise notes for my itinerary. I usually have a spreadsheet with rows for days and columns for info per day. Similar to that:

Day 1, Date, Sunrise Time, Shooting location for sunrise, Daytime shooting location OR/AND travel to another far destination, Sunset time, Sunset Location, Hotel info

 

Here how it could look for Sydney for example:

Day 1, 13/01/2018, Sunrise: 5:57am, Location: Sydney Opera House from Mrs Macquarie's Chair, Day Location: The Rocks. Then drive to Katoomba, Blue Mountains (1.5h, 100km), Sunset: 8:09pm, Location: The Three Sisters, Palais Royal Boutique Hotel.

 

It's nicely formatted in the spreadsheet so it's easy to read.

 

Then for each location I can have another page in the spreadsheet with more info on hotel location, cafes, detailed shooting locations etc. if required.

 

Sounds reasonable, thank you!

Maybe I should try it.

 

wim