A Journey is Never Finished

When I first decided to create a journal of my travels, I had no idea where to begin. Fifty years of journeys lay behind me, each one layered with experiences, stories, and encounters. I had visited 107 countries, some more than once, and I knew I held more than enough material for a book. The challenge was not what to include, but how to shape it into something meaningful.

I began with the photographs. They had always been the most reliable record of where I had been and what I had seen. There were more than 250,000 images in my collection, catalogued carefully by country and divided into subsections. The orderliness saved me time, but even so, narrowing them down took six weeks. From early morning to late evening, I sifted through folders and files, scanning for moments worth revisiting. I reduced the collection to just under 41,000, but the number was still overwhelming.

As I looked through the photographs, memories returned. A narrow street in Prague where the stones echoed with footsteps. The bright colours of a bazaar in Rabat. A quiet hillside in Japan where cherry blossoms drifted across a wooden temple. These images transported me back in time, but they also reminded me how fragile the medium could be. Many prints had faded, and older slides bore the marks of years. Technology had changed, and so had my expectations of quality.

Fortunately, I had preserved my negatives and slides. With patience, I digitised them, restoring the sharpness and colour that time had dulled. The process took weeks, but it breathed life into old journeys. Slowly, I reduced the number again, paring 41,000 down to 1,064. Even then, the collection felt too broad, too heavy for one book. The final cut left me with 610 photographs. It was a difficult cull, but necessary. What had begun as a journal grew into something larger, more structured. The project no longer felt like a record for myself, but a book worth sharing.

The layout became the next challenge. I turned to software and began arranging the images across pages. One by one, they fell into place. The total number of pages climbed higher than I anticipated, 317 by the time I finished. Of my fourteen previous books, the most pages I had ever produced (other than my non-fiction novels) for one book were 155. This was by far the largest project I had attempted.

I decided the book should do more than simply display photographs. I added small details: the flag of the country, a map showing its place in the world, and a short note on the best time to visit. These elements felt essential, not only for the reader, but for me as well. They provided rhythm and order, weaving the photographs into a whole, rather than leaving them as fragments.

Then came the writing. One hundred and fifty-five locations required words, and each one presented a new challenge. I wanted to capture the essence of a place without overstating it, to balance history with personal observation. The research alone took more time than I expected. Some countries I knew well from repeated visits, while others required me to reach deeper into archives, travel journals, and old notes.

I began writing, and the words slowly built. Drafts multiplied, revisions followed, and paragraphs were reshaped until they carried the tone I wanted. By the time I finished editing, I had written 70,031 words. When I finally stepped back and looked at the book, six months had passed since I first searched the photographs. The result felt complete, both in scope and in spirit.

With the book ready, I thought about how to best share it. I contacted the Kent Farndale Gallery at the Port Perry Library, a space that had hosted many exhibitions over the years. They agreed to showcase my work, aligning the exhibition with the launch of the book. The date is set for October 18. On that day, both the gallery and the book, PhotosNTravel, will open together.

Looking back, I saw how the project had evolved. What had begun as a simple idea, a journal to collect memories, had grown into something far greater. It became a book of journeys, shaped by images and words, and a reflection of half a century of travel. As I prepare for the opening, I feel the same anticipation I had known before stepping onto a plane or setting foot in a city for the first time. A journey is never finished, it only takes on new forms. This book is one of them.