Latest Billboard

It's always nice to see your images used big and they don't come much bigger than billboards! This is a recent pic from a series I did for Trinity Anglican School and it is currently being used in a large billboard on the southern access road coming out of Cairns. It's always a buzz seeing your pictures used in such a great way, although I'm sure the kids are sick of me mentioning it every time we drive past. :)

Is a small camera in my future?

Call me crazy but I actually like carrying round a dSLR with lenses. Maybe it's the continuous paranoia of not having the right equipment for all situations. An inability to accept that you can't photograph all the great stuff you see.

I've never been much of a street photographer per se. Yes I photograph festivals quite often, and enjoy walking around with a camera, but I'm never really worried about whether my camera is inconspicuous or not. Usually just by being a foreigner you're pretty conspicuous.

Does photographing people with a big telephoto lens make them uncomfprtable? I guess that kinda depends on how comfortable you make them beforehand. If you take a look at my website you'll notice that the vast majority of my portraits are shot up close and personal. There's invariably an interaction with my subject beforehand. After I've formed some sort of rapport I will then choose whether to photograph them with a wide angle lens, to include more of their environment for a sense of story, or maybe to back off and photograph them from a distance with a telephoto.

Both lenses have different looks, neither one better or worse than the other. Different lenses for different situations I say. The important thing is that my subject knows I'm photographing them and is happy about it.

I can't imagine paying a lot of money to go half way around the world and not being prepared for as many photographic opportunities as possible. As far as I can tell (and correct me if I'm wrong!) but the smaller cameras don't seem to have the same capabilities yet.

Even though many of them have interchangeable lenses the focal lengths seem to be at the shorter end of the scale. For many of my images - particularly landscapes - I like to go really long to pull details out of the scene. Some of my most well-known images have been shot using a 400mm lens with a 1.4x and sometimes 2x converter attached.

And, to be honest, even though your shoulders might be sore at the end of the day, I actually like the feel of something hefty in my hands. I carry a point and shoot for fun family events and I never quite feel like the real deal.

So for those of you shooting with the smaller formats how do you find it? Do you get frustrated with missed photographic opportunities or do they do everything you want? Does the convenience of light gear trump any of those inconveniences? I'd love to hear your opinions, especially if you think I'm totally wrong!

Happy New Year!

Wherever you are in the world I hope you had a fantastic New Year's Eve and that your 2012 will be absolutely wonderful. What do I have planned? More photography work that I absolutely love!

I'll be honest, last year was a big challenge for me. It was my fourth year as a stay-at-home Dad and all the fun and enjoyment that entails. It was also the first year my youngest son went to school, which suddenly left me with week days between the hours of 9 and 3 to myself. I envisioned myself getting back into work full-time but life is never what we plan. Instead I found myself trying to determine exactly what kind of photography work I can do in these limited hours, and discovered that it doesn't look anything like what I imagined, or what my previous decade in the industry had me doing.

So this year will be all about trying new things, mixing it up and gradually transitioning my business away from the spend a lot of time overseas pattern that I've known up till know. I want to photograph far North Queensland in-depth. I want to photograph interesting people and their stories. I want to work on finding my voice and my niche in a city which has more 'professional' photographer than you can poke a stick at!

Last year I ran a private photography tutorial or two and I'd like to continue doing that. I really enjoy teaching, and if the feedback is to be believed, I'm pretty good at taking complicated concepts and putting them into layman's terms. I'd also like to run a few more courses - maybe even organise a day trip or two. Most of all I want to focus on my core competencies. The stuff wild horses couldn't drag me away from. I have stuff that I'm really good at and stuff that I'm not so hot at. I want to pass the not-so-hot stuff on to colleagues and concentrate on hitting every assignment out of the park.

What about the blog? Well I'm going to try and post more regularly but it will still be my usual rants on the state of the industry, the spiritual side of this amazingly creative profession and lots of pictures from my travels around the local area and the world. I'm thinking of making things longer. No more of these short posts that are nice to look at but ultimately don't cause you to think too much. I want to spark some conversations, some thoughts and hopefully help launch some creative dreams.

So as we go forward into 2012 I wish all of you a fantastic twelve months and hope that all your wildest fantasies come true (just don't tell me about the ones involving animals!).I hope you'll join me every so often to keep up with what's happening in my world, and come and follow me over on my Facebook Page - see the link on the right.

The difference a few minutes can make.

When we first arrived at the giant Merlion on Singapore's Sentosa Island it was early evening and the setting sun had lit the giant statue up lovely and golden. The light was certainly lovely but the statue lacked a certain zing.

So I decided to go and take a look inside the lion. There's a lovely view out over Singapore from between those lovely fangs.

By the time we looked around, bought a couple of souvenirs and just generally enjoyed ourselves 45 minutes had passed. The sun had well and truly gone down and this is what we found.

Same statue, totally different light.

We often think of light in terms of contrasty, not contrasty, soft, harsh, golden, blue.

But often we don't realise how such a short period of time can have such a huge impact on the look of our subjects. With the mouth and eyes lit up it is a much more dramatic image and all it required was killing 45 minutes.

Don't just assume that because something looks really nice in the light that you see when you first arrive that it's not going to look even better at a different time of day - even the same time of day on a different day!

Whenever possible try and explore photographic subjects that enthrall you again and again, in all different types of light. There's no way of knowing which light you'll prefer unless you try and experience as many different varieties as possible. Oh and I'd love to admit that I totally planned to photograph the Merlion when it was lit up at night, but to be honest I was on holiday and just happened to be there at the right time! Nothing like a bit of Merlion serendipity. :)

Trekking in Nepal

Trekking in Nepal - Images by Paul Dymond

I guess I must be in a photo mood! When I cant think of anything deep and philosophical (!) to say then I think it's just better that I shut up and let the pictures do the talking. This slideshow (FLASH based I'm afraid for those of you on an iPad) is of a month I spent trekking in the Himalayas - a truly life-changing experience as I'm sure anybody whose done it can attest to. One of my goals in life is to take my boys trekking in Nepal and show them this beautiful country.

Hokkaido - so much more than the cranes!

Hokkaido - Images by Paul Dymond

A friend just sent me a link to another photographer running wildlife photography tours in Hokkaido. The scenery up there is truly beautiful and the wildlife indeed stunning. But the island has so much to offer at any time of the year. I just thought I'd offer up some pics that show different facets of my home away from home.

Final Photographer's Intensive for 2011

Well the dates are set for my final Photographer's Intensive for the year and things are all ready to go for a November of intensive photography immersion here in Cairns.

Over the period of a month we’ll have a series of four hour lectures, running two days a week at Hambledon House in Edmonton. The days (Wednesday and Thursday for 4 weeks) are:

9/10 November

16/17 November

23/24 November
30 November/1 December

and the lectures will run from 10-2.

The cost of the full month’s tutorials will be $550 (incl GST).

In between lectures there will be an online discussion group and area to post pictures so that you can get critique from the other members of the group as well as full access to myself. I will be available all month to answer questions and personally guide you to improving your photography.

With a small number of students (maximum 10) we will be able to tailor the course so that you get the most benefit out of your four weeks. To really learn what you need to to improve your images. We’ll concentrate on the technical side of things to the extent that it helps you improve the creative side of your art. To create photographs that share your own vision and way of interpreting the world.

Starting with topics such as lenses, light, flash, photographing strangers and developing it from there we will definitely cover a lot of ground. And this is where the inspiration for the intensive came from.

I received a lot of feedback over the years from people that they enjoyed my weekend workshops but wanted something that lasted longer and helped them keep up the momentum and enthusiasm. This is it.

For those who don’t know me I have been a professional travel photographer for more than a decade. I am represented by Lonely Planet Images and my pictures have been featured in more than 50 of their guidebooks ranging from Thailand to Tokyo, from Nepal to Southern Africa and lots of places in between. My images have been published in magazines such as National Geographic Traveler and TIME (US) and I have been teaching photography workshops for most of that 10 years.

What past students have said:

Hi Paul

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the photography course we have just completed.  I must say at first I was a bit worried about the length going for 2 days a week over four weeks but in the end I found myself wishing it went for longer.  Not only was it most informative but you made it very interesting.      Your passion for photography is quite infectious and your willingness to share your extensive knowledge made it a pleasure to be a part of.   

I now have reinvigorated my love for photography and I look forward to being a part of another one of your courses sometime.  Thanks again.

Kind regards

Warwick Bourguignon

'Paul's course is well worth doing, no matter what your interests are. 
It was really enjoyable and a great learning experience.  He is an
excellent teacher and had plenty of time for individual queries and
critiques.  We covered so much, including flash photography which I'm
now hooked on!  The spread of the sessions over a month worked really
well, allowing time to practice in between.  This course has opened up
so many new photographic opportunities for me - I am so glad I did it!'
Jackie Hammer, Cairns

So if you think you’d like to improve your photography and really delve into your creative possibilities and would like to find out more please contact me at info at dymond dot com dot au  or check out my website .

Let's hang out on Facebook!

So I tried the Twitter thing and it just wasn't me. I'm just more verbose than 140 characters and I find it hard to have a conversation when anything you post gets swamped by other stuff in less than 5 minutes.

But I wanted somewhere I could talk with those of you who bless me by reading the blog. I've been using Facebook for years but only to keep in touch with friends and family. Now I've finally got around to setting up a Fan Page for Have Camera Will Travel.

I hope that this can be a place where the discussions will flow freely, my postings will be hilariously funny and photographically informative and I'll be able to share great tidbits I find on the web much easier than I can with the blog. So come on over to the Have Camera Will Travel Fan Page and join in the conversation.

You can see what my son thinks of the whole idea!

Back up for air!

Apologies for the scarcity of blog posts recently. Things have been very busy for me with assignments, stock sales and just coming to the end of my second Photographer's Intensive course. On top of that throw in weekly baseball games (and practice!) for my two little boys, school parades and regular skate park outings and - where has August gone?

Anyway I will try and be a bit more regular around here so that there's something regular to see and you don't all wander away to the dpreview site for your gear fix. :)

A kind of a theme for me this past month has been passion and practice. I've been exploring multiple flash work with both TTL and radio triggers to light interiors and I'm loving it. I find if I'm not constantly practicing both new and tried techniques I quickly get stale and settle into the known without pushing my own boundaries.

I had a couple of editorial portrait assignments where I got to push my off-camera flash beyond my usual style as well as pushing myself through the challenge of finding something new and interesting to appeal to my students every Monday and Tuesday for four weeks.

So it's been crazy busy but in a really good sort of way. I hope you've all been out practicing and honing your photography and feeding your own passions in life and all is well with the world. Stay tuned for a return to regular programming!

Cairns photo course in August

Well the dates are set for my second Photographer's Intensive and things are all ready to go for an August of intensive photography immersion here in Cairns.

Over the period of a month we’ll have a series of four hour lectures, running two days a week at Hambledon House in Edmonton. The days are:

8/9 August

15/16 August

22/23 August
29/30 August

and the lectures will run from 10-2.

The cost of the full month’s tutorials will be $550 (incl GST).

In between lectures there will be an online discussion group and area to post pictures so that you can get critique from the other members of the group as well as full access to myself. I will be available all month to answer questions and personally guide you to improving your photography.

With a small number of students (maximum 10) we will be able to tailor the course so that you get the most benefit out of your four weeks. To really learn what you need to to improve your images. We’ll concentrate on the technical side of things to the extent that it helps you improve the creative side of your art. To create photographs that share your own vision and way of interpreting the world.

Starting with topics such as lenses, light, flash, photographing strangers and developing it from there we will definitely cover a lot of ground. And this is where the inspiration for the intensive came from.

I received a lot of feedback over the years from people that they enjoyed my weekend workshops but wanted something that lasted longer and helped them keep up the momentum and enthusiasm. This is it.

For those who don’t know me I have been a professional travel photographer for more than a decade. I am represented by Lonely Planet Images and my pictures have been featured in more than 50 of their guidebooks ranging from Thailand to Tokyo, from Nepal to Southern Africa and lots of places in between. My images have been published in magazines such as National Geographic Traveler and TIME (US) and I have been teaching photography workshops for most of that 10 years.

What past students have said:

Hi Paul

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the photography course we have just completed.  I must say at first I was a bit worried about the length going for 2 days a week over four weeks but in the end I found myself wishing it went for longer.  Not only was it most informative but you made it very interesting.      Your passion for photography is quite infectious and your willingness to share your extensive knowledge made it a pleasure to be a part of.   

I now have reinvigorated my love for photography and I look forward to being a part of another one of your courses sometime.  Thanks again.

Kind regards

Warwick Bourguignon

'Paul's course is well worth doing, no matter what your interests are. 
It was really enjoyable and a great learning experience.  He is an
excellent teacher and had plenty of time for individual queries and
critiques.  We covered so much, including flash photography which I'm
now hooked on!  The spread of the sessions over a month worked really
well, allowing time to practice in between.  This course has opened up
so many new photographic opportunities for me - I am so glad I did it!'
Jackie Hammer, Cairns

 

So if you think you’d like to improve your photography and really delve into your creative possibilities and would like to find out more please contact me at info at dymond dot com dot au  or check out my website .

Home Sweet Home

Well I'm back in the land of Oz after a pretty relaxing time in Guam and Japan - well at least as relaxing as it can be with two adrenaline-junkie toddlers! What with waterslides, snorkelling, windsurfing, giant obstacle courses, baseball, video game arcades and other general adventures I think we managed to tire them out pretty well.

I'd show you some photos but I haven't got that far in my post-processing yet. In the meantime I thought you might be interested in the kind of gear I travel with and my workflow. It's pretty much the same whether I'm on assignment for a client, a self-assigned stock shoot or on holiday. We photographers are never really on holiday anyway!

I had a pretty minimal kit (for me) this time around and carried it in a Lowepro shoulder bag. Just a single body, 10-22 wide angle, 24-70 and 70-200. All f2.8's except for the 10-22. I limited myself to one flash as well as an infrared trigger as I always prefer to use my flash off-camera whenever possible. I have a small hard-drive/card reader gadget that lets me download cards during the day if I fill them all up but this time around I didn't need it. It also doubles as a back-up drive for my images. I also had a polarising filter for each of the three lenses as well as my trusty old Manfrotto tripod and a cable release.

These days I travel with a small 10 inch Acer notebook. It's a groovy aqua colour and is just the right size to fit into my little day pack. I don't have Photoshop installed on it because I don't like to do any post-processing whilst I'm away. Maybe I'm just weird but when it comes to the end of the day I just wanna sit down with a good meal and a cold drink and not spend hours looking over pictures. I know when I've got what I need and don't need to start playing around with pictures until I get home.

Which isn't to say I don't look at stuff. I have Expression Media loaded on and I download all my images on to the netbook and then catalogue them. I cull out any obvious mistakes and add metadata to the rest - copyright info, location, any pertinent keywords. I find that if I do this on a regular basis (usually every day), whilst it doesn't take long it saves a lot of time trying to remember names and places afterwards.I then back up those images on to external hard drives just for safety's sake.

When I get home I load everything on to the main computer and start working on them in Camera Raw. I leave the copies  on the netbook and external hard drives until I've finished finessing the images and make permanent back-ups, then they can be deleted from their temporary homes on the netbook and external hard drives.

And that's about as complicated as I like to get! I'm sure if you're on an advertising shoot with a tight deadline you must have to work a lot more quickly and process images on-site but not many of my clients really demand that. So I keep it light, simple and leave myself ample time to enjoy time away from the photography.

Stay tuned for some pictures from Guam and Japan!

Finding the balance between family time and camera time

One of the hardest things as a photographer is family vacations. If you've got kids then you'll know what I mean straight away. If you've got a partner who doesn't love their photography as much as you do then you'll be nodding your head in agreement. If you have neither then you're probably not sure what the fuss is all about.

The fuss starts when you start to get shutter button withdrawal symptoms. Mine start usually about two or three days after not having a camera in my hand and creating some images. But you're torn. You want to go off by yourself for a few hours and capture the local architecture at twilight but that impinges on getting the kids fed and to bed, or breaks up the booking at that romantic little local diner down the road.

In other words you have to abandon your family or siginificant other if you want to create anything more than 'been there, done that' snapshots. So here's what I do. I don't know if it's the best way to do things and if other people have suggestions I'm all ears. So far this seems to work for me.

The most important thing I find is to include your family in your photography as much as possible. But it's not enough just to have them stand with their hands held out looking like they're holding the Eiffel Tower in their palm. If you don't put as much effort and creativity into pictures of your family as you do your other 'more important' pictures then they're going to feel pretty left out.

Make it fun. Show them what a blast photography can be. The photo above is me and my youngest son going down a slippery slide at Takino Park, on the outskirts of Sapporo. In order to bribe my way into a little bit of 'me time' photographing the birch trees in the forest I kept him entertained with multiple (multiple, multiple, multiple!) turns down the slide. All the time with me holding a camera and a wide-angle lens above my head and shooting as we went down.

Killing two birds with one stone. Well three really. My son had a blast both sliding and looking at the photos afterwards (let's try that again with a different lens Daddy!). I got some really fun pictures of stuff that I don't usually photograph, and created some great memories to boot. And my wife (at the bottom of the picture) got a break from looking after the kids. Everybody wins.

So whenever I go away on a trip with my family I always try to fit them in to my photography as much as possible. When they can see images that far outshine the point-and-shoot efforts that most family albums contain, and when they can have a blast taking part in the shoot then they're much more inclined to let me go off on my own and do 'work photography' as my boys call it.

One more hint as to what not to do: never try to hold your family up while you wait for the best light, the perfect opportunity, the search for a better angle. If they're not actively involved they'll be bored and no matter how exciting the resulting pictures, all they'll remember is how boring it was for them and you'll be in the doghouse again. Keep them involved, keep them excited, create exciting pictures for them to remember your holiday by and she'll be apples (Australian for you'll be doing well!)

If you'd like to see how I balanced family and "work photography' on this particular day you can take a look at the Takino Park, Sapporo images on my website.

New layout and iPad friendly

I didn't really make a big song and dance about it when I changed it a couple of weeks ago but I hope you noticed and like it. I changed the format of the blog a little bit so that I can show bigger pictures. I also figured out how to link the images here on my blog directly to my Photoshelter website so that if you click on one of these lusciously big pictures you'll be taken to a larger selection of images.

Only thing I hadn't realised was that the photos weren't iPad friendly because the links were embedded with Apple's arch-enemy - flash. Anyway that's all been fixed now. The pictures are low linked with plain ol' HTML so all of you who've been seeing big blank spaces in my blog for the last couple of weeks, well things should be back to normal.

Oh and how did I find out? I was just browsing on my iPod Touch today when I just wanted to see how the new layout looked on the little screen. Needless to say I wasn't too happy with the big blank spaces! Anyway, problem fixed. All of you should be able to see the pictures no matter what device you're browsing on and I hope you like the new layout and bigger pics.

Hot Springs here we come!

Getting ready for a little hot-springs dreaming in a couple of weeks. This is the view from the window of my hotel on the shores of Lake Toya, just south of Sapporo, which is the capital of Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

The area is highly volcanic - Mt Usuzan, on the shores of the lake last erupted in 2000. Lots of volcanoes means lots of hot springs and there's nothing more pleasurable than sitting in a steaming pool of water with a glorious view out over a huge lake. I particularly love the outdoor pools - known as Rotenburo - because you can sit in lovely warmth while all around you the snow might be falling. Pure magic.

This image was taken early in the morning after a rather raucous night with colleagues from my English teaching days. Just to show that even a little hangover shouldn't stop you seeing photos! Another attraction of the area is the nightly fireworks display out on the lake. Fired off a little boat that runs along the shore, you can see the fireworks from the balcony of your hotel and because the show runs the length of the shore it pretty much doesn't matter where you stay because you can see them as they come along. If you'd like to see some fireworks shots as well as volcanoes and the wild deer on the island then you can pop on to the website to see Lake Toya images.

Laura Dance and Cultural Festival

Unfortunately I'll be away for this fantastic event this year. Without a doubt one of my all-time favourite festival experiences is the wonderful Laura Dance and Cultural Festival which is held in the small Cape York town of Laura.

Only a few hours north of Cairns it really is a world apart. Aboriginal dance troupes gather from all around the state for three days of competition to find the best dancers. Held in a small ring under towering gum trees with no accommodation but plenty of camping space, stalls from various groups such as National Parks and other community groups.


It's a no alcohol event and I don't know if that is part of the reason but when I attended I found a wonderful, friendly atmosphere with no aggression whatsoever. Everybody is here for a good time and everyone is made to feel welcome to this intimate glimpse into indigenous Australian culture. Definitely a highly recommended even for anyone about between the 17th to the 19th June.

You can click here to see a couple more of my images of the Laura Dance and Cultural Festival.

Festival time in Sapporo

Well even though it's cooling down here in the southern Hemisphere (although Cairns is still a balmy 25), up north things are warming up. Sapporo up in Hokkaido never really gets hot. In fact their summer is kind of like a north Queensland winter. But it's warm for them after six foot snow drifts and freezing all winter. So that's when you want to get the festivals happening and it's a time of year I love in this fabulous city.

One of my favourite festivals is the Yosakoi - a giant street procession with competing teams of dancers from all over the country, and even a few international ones. They all have to dance to the same traditional fishing song - although they can arrange the song however they like. So you have the teenagers dancing to rap versions and the oldies dancing to traditional versions. It really is a great party and one not to be missed.

It's great to photograph events like this because people are happy, have usually had a couple of beers and are more than happy to ham it up for the camera like these two. Whenever I'm shooting at night I usually put my camera in to Manual Mode. I set my shutter speed for something that will let enough ambient light in while not being so slow I can't hand hold it. Somewhere around 1/20 second or so at ISO400 or above. I set my aperture at about f5.6 and use my flash. My little secret is on the flash I have a little bit of orange gel to blend with the ambient tungsten lights on the parade street. Then it's just a matter of getting out there and looking for opportunities.

Hop on over to my website to see some more hams at the Yosakoi Festival in Sapporo.

Wallaman Falls - Queensland's highest waterfalls

Wallaman Falls is one of those places that truly blows you away the first time you see it. And to be honest I'd lived up here in Cairns for a long time before I ever got a chance (ie off my lazy butt!) to go and photograph it.

Mareeba - definitely worth a day trip up from Cairns

One of the advantages of being a Cairns photographer is that there is so much to see and do in a small area. One place I love to get out to on a spare day is Mareeba - up on the northern end of the Atherton Tablelands.

It's full of amazing places like the Mareeba Wetlands bird sanctuary, Granite Gorge with its cute rock wallabies and this place. Beck's Military Museum. I have to admit I'd driven past this place a zillion times and never knew what it was.

On assignment for Qantas, this place was on my list to photograph and I got the shock of my life. A giant hangar full of military planes, helicopters, jeeps. You name it, they've got it! The owner, Sid Beck, even let me get up on the roof of one of the bombers to take some shots.

"Don't fall off though, the bloody public liability wouldn't cover it!"

Good ol' far north Queensland humour. If you some spare time next time you're up this way definitely pop up for a look. It's only an hour or so from Cairns and a world away. To see more of what Mareeba has to offer take a look at my Mareeba photos.

Daintree looking lush, green and tropically tantalising.

Daintree National Park Photos - Images by Paul Dymond

The wet season in this part of the world is long, hot and very, very wet. Plus there's usually a  couple of cyclones and the humidity levels go through the roof. But when it's all over and far north Queensland has had its life-giving top up of water then we find out what it was all for.

At this time of the year the forests are lush and green. The creeks and rivers are clear and flowing with all the run-off from the surrounding tropical rainforest-covered mountains. And it just looks spectacular.

Arguably the jewel in the crown of our tropical rainforests is the world-heritage listed Daintree National Park. Enjoy these images and if you're local consider popping up to take a look - the ferry over the Daintree River is free for us! Yay. If you're from out of town then now would be a great time for a flying visit. My one tip for rainforest photography - leave the polariser on and don't forget the tripod.

Where would a travel photographer take his kids on holiday?

A fair enough question I guess. With a little over 50 countries under my belt my most oft-heard question is - what's your favourite country? And I never have an answer because I really do love them all. Especially the one I'm headed to next.

But when it comes to where would you take the kids on holiday I think I've narrowed it down. Now keep in mind that I live in Australia and visit Japan at least once, sometimes twice, every year. So there's nothing new for my two boys there. They're both kinda home.

In fact my eldest remarked a couple of years back that he'd never been overseas - despite the fact that he'd been to Japan 5 or 6 times! He was honestly surprised to find out that Japan was 'overseas'.

So coming from that perspective I would say my definite recommendation is Nepal. I love the food, the culture, the people. I would start them off in Kathmandu. I'm sure they'd get templed out pretty quickly but I would take them to Swayambunath and Bodnath. Let them play with the local kids in the street.

Then take them down to Chitwan National Park to look for rhinos and tigers on elephant back. I don't know if I could keep them quiet enough to actually find any wildlife but I know they'd have the time of their lives.

Then for the piece de resistance I would take them trekking. Mt Everest style. I'm sure they're still too little to do giant treks but maybe I'd hire a local yak and driver to carry them! I've seen it done and it looks like a great way for the kids to travel. Mind you those things are a bit mean and nasty at times. I'd have to think that one through.

But if there's definitely one place I recommend you should take your kids if you can it is definitely Nepal. So why haven't I done it yet? Well my youngest has anaphylactic dairy allergies which he's just about grown out of but I'd feel a lot safer if he was clear of them before we headed off. So in the meantime they'll have to be content with 'domestic' destinations like Japan!