For the last few years I’ve been proud to be able to call myself a Vanguard Professional, which means I’m an ambassador for Vanguard, an awesome company which manufacture a variety of useful photography accessories (amongst other things), including a range of tripods (essential for photography, read why here) and photography bags.

Vanguard also make optics, including hunting scopes and binoculars, and my parents were so impressed by a pair of binoculars they tried out recently that they’ve invested in a pair for birdwatching. I digress.

In 2015, I was delighted to help launch Vanguard’s VEO range of tripods and bags, which at the time was something new for them – a range aimed specifically at the travelling photographer or backpacker who wants to keep their gear light and portable, whilst still offering great stability and value for money.

Jess and I have explored a great many parts of her home state of Ohio in the United States. We’ve now visited nearly every corner of the state and have seen a lot (including all the best waterfalls in Ohio!), and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you.

In today’s post, I want to share with you a suggested itinerary for visiting one of the more popular parts of the state – the Lake Erie Shores and Islands, which we were invited to visit by the Shores and Islands tourism board on one of our trips to Ohio.

Did you know that not too far from Glasgow and Edinburgh is Scotland is a beautiful moss covered, 100ft deep gorge, through which flows an almost ruby coloured river?

This magic location is not too well known, despite appearing in TV’s Outlander (as the location for Liar’s Spring), but if you make the effort, is a hugely rewarding spot for both photography and nature lovers.

Spanning a fabulous 500 miles around Scotland’s northern coast, the relatively recently launched North Coast 500 road trip is already being lauded as one of the world’s finest drives. As we’re huge fans of road trips, and this one is practically in our back yard, naturally Jess and I took the opportunity to hit the road ourselves when the official NC500 folks invited us to do so.

We’ve already written about our favourite photography locations on the North Coast 500, and we’ve put together a detailed guide to accommodation on the North Coast 500 as part of our Scotland content. We’re also planning a number of other posts to help you make the most of your adventure.

In August 2017 Jess and I visited Bristol for a week, partly to see the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, and partly because we’d not explored this beautiful city together.

Naturally we’ll be writing more about our visit to the city and giving you some ideas and suggestions for what to see, but I wanted to start off our posts with a tour of some of Bristol’s street art.

Regular readers will of course know that we are big fans of street art, and have already put posts together covering the street art in cities from Glasgow to Barcelona. So of course, we couldn’t visit Bristol, believed home of arguably the world’s most famous street artist, Banksy, without doing a post!

Jess has wanted to see puffins for a very long time, so when the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, Scotland, offered us a trip on one of their bird watching tours at the start of puffin season, naturally we leapt at the opportunity.

Of course, it’s about more than just puffins. There are loads of species of seabirds that you can see from the Scottish Seabird centre, including the worlds largest northern gannet colony. And seabirds aren’t all – you might even be lucky enough to spot seals or even dolphins!

Jess and I have spent a few weeks road tripping around the US state of Ohio, and have visited many of the highlights of this state. It’s also Jess’s home state, so we often visit to see her family.

One of the tasks I set for myself on these trips was to find the most photogenic waterfalls around the state, and after a fair bit of driving and picture taking, I’m pleased to present my guide to the most photogenic waterfalls in Ohio.

Sleeper trains! Jess and I are big fans, and we’re taken them in a wide variety of countries. We’ve ridden all sorts of sleeper train, from creaky old eastern European models through to the vintage Orient Express.

But one thing we’d never done is try a sleeper train in the UK. After all, the UK isn’t exactly that big. You can get from London to Edinburgh in under five hours by train, so why would you want a sleeper version?

Rome is easily one of our favourite cities in Europe. It is absolutely stuffed full of sights, with thousands of years of history layered upon itself – you’ll find everything here from Roman ruins to Renaissance art. It’s also home to fantastic food, the Vatican City and sights like the Trevi Fountain, the Coliseum and the Spanish Steps.

Certainly three days in Rome is not enough to see absolutely everything that the city has to offer, but it’s definitely enough to see all the highlights if you manage your time effectively.

We’ve all heard horror stories from people who’ve gone away on a trip and then returned home to a huge bill thanks to their mobile phone roaming on data networks when they’re away.

The good news is, this doesn’t have to be you. There are lots of options for getting online when you travel, ranging from entirely free through to more premium options.