vip in the city

Travel Notes

Photographer Christoph Bangert made an appearance at the International Center of Photography for a book signing to celebrate the launch of his new book, Travel Notes: 22 Thousand Miles Across the Americas. The book chronicles Bangert’s 2002 journey by Land Rover from the southernmost tip of South America to the urban landscapes of New York City, where he was set to begin studies at ICP. Bangert, now an ICP graduate, recently spent five months on assignment in Iraq as a contributing photojournalist for The New York Times.

Travel Notes serves as a breathtaking diary of the photographer’s 22,000-mile journey, beginning in Buenos Aires, over two continents, across the borders of fourteen countries, through mountain ranges and over countless bodies of water, to his new home in Brooklyn. Along the way, Bangert describes his adventures: a frigid night on Tierra del Fuego, a scorching day in the Atacama Desert along the coast of Chile (the driest desert on Earth), stranded for two days in the deep mud of a Bolivian salt flat, making a precarious crossing over Lake Titicaca, along the Pan-American Highway, through every country in Central America, into Mexico, crossing one final border into the United States towards his final, triumphant arrival in New York City.

What an amazing, life-changing experience. Puts me in the mood to plan my next big trip…

Later that night, at SK’s housewarming, I talked some more travel with fellow party guests DJ and RK, swapping notes on Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and Costa Rica. The apartment was located inside a pretty prewar on West End Avenue with an elevator operator, steps from the private enclave Pomander Walk, which reminded me that even if it’s a little while before the next far-flung adventure, there’s still so much left to explore right here at home.

Pampered pooches

This made me smile.

At least it wasn’t a double-wide. And I suppose a dog stroller is not nearly as ridiculous as K9 sunglasses or the BowLingual Dog Bark Translator. (Though apparently it works! Sorta.)