TRAVEL: Best of 2024 with PhotowalksTV, from Tijuana to Big Sur
Mural in Tijuana by Jefferson Graham
We started the year gazing out at the Mexico border from a pier three miles away in Imperial Beach, California and ended with another Photowalks expedition to glorious San Francisco.
Along the way, hello Tijuana, Sicily and Barcelona, the West (Heber and Park City, Utah, Cody, Wyoming, Bozeman, MT and Victor, Idaho) a return to Santa Fe and Taos, and a new find for us, tiny Abiquiu. Plus more of the California beach towns we love, like San Diego’s Oceanside and Carlsbad.
We barreled through 8 states, 3 countries and 15,000 miles in pursuit of the most photographable places on the planet with mobile phones for PhotowalksTV. Here’s highlights:
This is the most “southwesterly” city in the U.S., known for being stinky due to pollution from the Tijuana side of the water, but the town has a charm, a beautiful long pier and beachy vibe that made it worth visiting for me. How many other piers can you stand on and look out at another country?
Speaking of a far-away land, just 2.5 hours from Los Angeles, TJ has a reputation as a sketchy place where people get robbed, and I wanted to find out if the bad press was warranted. So I signed up with an Airbnb Experiences tour, led by Nathalie, as not to be on my own, and it was eye-opening. The people were incredibly nice, the streets clean, there was amazing art everywhere I looked, plus the best tacos and quesadilla ever and I really want to go back. Again! (Plus: most viewed 2024 video of the year!)
The North San Diego city of Oceanside has a paved Strand for joggers, cyclists and the like to enjoy Beach Life. By Jefferson Graham for the PhotowalksTV series.
As we continue up the California coast, this is a community that has seen major investment in recent years, as a once sleepy military town came into its own with swanky new hotels and restaurants. The playground that is the oceanfront and pier is gorgeous and worth photographing.
Next-door neighbor Carlsbad hooked me with its ad campaign: “Come and smell the photos.” The pitch is the Flower Fields, the 50 acres of ranunculus flowers set on a hill top as a must-see (only open from March through Mother’s Day), there’s a cute, old-fashioned downtown, once home to a sanitarium offering mineral water to enrich your life, the beach is across the street and there’s Legoland around the corner.
From the Flower Fields of Carlsbad, by Jefferson Graham
On a San Francisco visit, we stopped into the last beach town on the coast before you hit the city, the 40,000 pop. small city of Pacifica. Great views, hikes, the best Taco Bell in the world (the only one on the sand!) and it’s only 20 minutes from the City by the Bay.
In town for the NAB convention, I roamed with my camera at night, looking to document the old, classic neon that has all but disappeared from the Strip. There are a few exceptions, the masterpiece that is the giant Circus Circus sign is still standing, along with the Flamingo, but most of the old, vintage signs have been sent to the Neon Museum in downtown. News update: the museum will be moving in 2027 to a new, larger location in the Las Vegas Arts District.
Los Angeles’ funkiest beach got a return visit from us this year, where we loved chatting with local legend Vivienne Robinson, the woman the birds love, about the art of writing names on rice.
By Jefferson Graham
We’d been to Italy before, to Rome, Florence and Venice, but the Italian island of Sicily was new to us, and easily the highlight of the year, a place of beauty, history and gelato and cannoli on every corner. If you saw Sicily in season 2 of HBO’s The White Lotus, it only gets better in person.
This was a return to Europe’s most magical city, our first time since 2011, when I was photographing on the Canon 20D camera, which at the time was one of the first DSLRs. But at 8 megapixels and terrible in low light, it pales to the newer iPhones I was toting around. Barcelona, of course, is home to those wild masterpieces by Gaudi and the best museums right on every block—just look at the local buildings. They dance on the streets, and the food’s not too bad either. (But be careful of the pickpockets. We didn’t get stung, but a local cop admonished me for carrying my iPhone on a Selfie Stick. He thought that was too out in the open.)
Another Gaudi masterpiece in Barcelona, the Casa Battlo
A week after we returned from Europe, I was back in the car on a 12-hour drive to the “Heber Valley,” one of the great unsung areas of an amazing state, and if you visit, do like I did and go in late May, when the green grass is so rich and “green green” against those bright Utah blue skies. Also make sure to visit Midway, the old Swiss town nearby with many buildings that go back to the 1800s settlers.
Most of you are familiar with the ritzy ski town of Park City, a place that also happens to more miles of great hikes than most other small towns, and it’s just drop dead fabulous in the summer. Hotel rooms are cheaper too.
Buffalo Bill William Cody, as seen in the Center of the West Museum in Cody, Wyoming
I went to Cody to attend a conference of the Society of American Travel Writers, where I was lucky to be paired with the amazing local photographer Amy Gerber, who took me out with her on a wildlife shoot. Like I say in the video above, I dropped the iPhone for this one, as I needed a big camera (my Sony) for great close-ups of bears, wolves, owls and bison.
A short two-hour + drive from Cody brought us to the other side of Yellowstone, to funky Bozeman, a college town with a historic downtown, great mountain views and locally made huckleberry ice cream sandwiches. Highlight every night: sunset hike, topped up with the Huck treat.
An abandoned shack in Driggs, Idaho, with the majestic Tetons in the background. By Jefferson Graham for PhotowalksTV.
Victor, Idaho is part of the “Teton Valley,” the other side of the Tetons, about an hour away from where the ultra-rich play and stay in Jackson Hole. You get the back view of the mountains, which is just as glorious, at a lower nightly room rate, and some cool small towns to explore, like Driggs, Tetonia and Victor, where I was able to park my car in the middle of a back road, mount a tripod and snap timer-led selfies, without any other car coming by. Plus: back to Huckleberry. The Victor Emporium is known for making the greatest Huck shakes in the world, and they sure didn’t disappoint.
Back in California, I visited the 100,000 population town of Temecula, which is about half-way between San Diego and Los Angeles, and is known a major wine destination. Downtown is a historic area, dating back to horse and buggy days, and beloved for the best hot air ballooning in southern California. While in Temecula, I did my first balloon ride as well as my first interview up in the skies. Highly recommended.
A hot air balloon flies over Temecula, by Jefferson Graham
Arguably the no. 1 road trip in California is Highway 1, between Hearst Castle and Carmel by the Sea, known for those windy roads, rocky cliffs and dramatic ocean views. However, mudslides and rain have damaged Big Sur and caused the road to be closed into two parts. So I drove from the north to the end, did a U-turn and went back to Salinas down an alternative highway to document the southern part and show people what they might miss. Check the video, one of my most popular of the year to see it all.
It was back to New Mexico in October, the best time of the year to visit, with the rich fall colors set against the adobes and hanging ristras. Beyond the small town of Santa Fe, I also filmed in nearby Abiquiu, the home of the famed artist Georgia O’Keefe, pop. 200, and then onto Taos, where I did another hot air balloon ride, and met the local entrepreneur Ruthann McCarthy, who has a little cafe on the Plaza. Her family has been running businesses on the Plaza for over 100 years.
There were also trips to the vastly under-rated and must see Gold Country of Northern California and back to San Francisco, for a complete 44-minute two part episode on all the great things to see and photograph in America’s most beautiful city. (Don’t believe the bad press: San Francisco is still an amazing place to visit.) You’ll see both of these episodes next year. We also slipped in visits to Alcatraz and Treasure Islands in San Francisco.
The New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe by Jefferson Graham for the Photowalks series