Two Years of Travel- Final Stretch of My Americas Tour.

Art Model, @Kayci.Lee, and her photography, @K.clayphoto ©2018 Terrell Neasley

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” 

– Anais Nin

On 08 January 2018, I set out on a dynamic, ever-changing journey to backpack around the world. My endeavor began with tumultuous life events that got worse the next year. It has taken considerable effort and time to center myself and in truth, I should say it's an ongoing process even now. I have marked objectives I need to achieve, but I still have yet to wrap it into a specific purpose and I try to be patient with that process. Right now, all I can do is simply keep moving and figure it out along the way.

In less than a week, I will complete my tour of Central and South America albeit this is not the last I intend to see of this place. I am grateful to have visited Nicaragua, Colombia, and Peru twice yet I have more to see in each of these places. In a few days, I will have spent 5 weeks in Ushuaia, Argentina at the bottom of the world. I have done more writing than photography. I was not able to make it to Antarctica. My plans changed from desiring to see Chile and more of Patagonia. Instead, I elected to stay in one place longer which has been true to my habit. Now I have an excuse to return here again.

Art Model, @Kayci.Lee, and her photography, @K.clayphoto ©2018 Terrell Neasley

My next leg will take me further away, although I have not made up my mind 100 percent. It will either be French Polynesia (Tahiti) or I will skip the South Pacific and go straight to Australia. If at all possible, I would love to sail around the South Pacific Islands with someone who could use a photographer aboard or at least a good friend. But maybe I will have to be cool with doing Tahiti, Fiji, and Tonga by air and THEN fly to Australia.

I'm working on a complete restructure of my photography business that will incorporate and consist primarily of LANDSCAPE, PORTRAITURE, and NUDE photography. This will include a new website, a new blog, and a few other options that will consist of LESS social media. I'm not an Instagram fan and I don't believe it should kill me that I'm not. I hope you don't hold that against me, either.

Art Model, @Kayci.Lee, and her photography, @K.clayphoto ©2018 Terrell Neasley

I wish I could have finished out this year the same way I started. Coming out here alone would have been much tougher when I left in January 2018. Kayci.Lee chose to join me for a month and that steadied me. I've mentioned in previous posts that Oct/Nov 2017 was a wreck for me. And oddly, then again the same exact months for 2018. But when we left that Dallas Airport 8 Jan 2018, I was in a much better state of mind to do this journey.

There's a good chance I would have canceled the whole thing in less than a month, otherwise, had I been alone. Shooting her gave me something to do... something to focus on. My brain was occupied on something that had to be completed instead of dwelling on past events. After she left, well... then I had work to do. I still had mess to deal with, of course, but I was dealing with it from a much better perspective. I would have loved to have her here with me in Ushuaia.

Art Model, @Kayci.Lee, and her photography, @K.clayphoto ©2018 Terrell Neasley

I sincerely hope I don't have to go such long stretches between my nude shoots. Having somebody traveling with me is definitely preferred, but this is not an easy option for 99% of people in the world. I confess travel life would be much easier if I didn't have an absolute need to shoot nudes. The places I will visit over the next year... man! They're gonna be expensive and this will likely be the case until I get to Southeast Asia... probably another year away. But who knows.

I have learned a lot about Latin America, though admittedly I can't say I understand it all. Positives? The diversity of all the forms of beautiful country you'll run into from the tropics to the cold spots and from sea level to 12K feet up. On the negative, damn... I have run into some of the same racial biases that we have in the US, between indigenous people, referred to as locals, Indians, or natives and those of European descent.

Art Model, @Kayci.Lee, and her photography, @K.clayphoto ©2018 Terrell Neasley

I have so many reasons yet to revisit Central and South America. I've been to Nicaragua and Guatemala 4 times each and I'm still not done. There are still places to see and I have friends there to visit. It's the same in South America. I need to get a better feel for Ecuador as I was only there for 3 weeks and all that time was spent grieving my brother. If you have any questions about making a trip to any of these places, please feel free to ask me. I want to encourage you to spend a little time out of your familiarities and travel outside your comfortable element. You won't regret doing so.

Thank you for following along with me this year. A new one awaits and I hope you'll be with me on the other side of the world next year.

I tried, but there's no way I could end a post of her with NO nudes. I was kidding myself and cheating you. Apologies. Let me correct that egregious error now...