Today, I just wanted to share some wonderful positive feedback I received from our just completed April, 2025 Wild Nature Photo Travel expedition to Svalbard (Trip Report coming in the next few days). Shared experiences like this are the reason I started this company and continue to be the driving force for taking photographers into some of the wildest and most remote locations on our planet. Thank you to Andy and Jennifer for taking the time to write such wonderful feedback.
“Dear Fellow Pilgrims on the Svalbard Sojourn, And so it goes, as one might mutter in a post-epic journey haze, that we find ourselves penning this note, our hearts still adrift in the icy dazzle of April’s photographic odyssey to Svalbard—a place so starkly, absurdly beautiful it could make a grown man weep or a cynic reconsider their trade. We’re trying, in our fumbling, human way, to stitch together a thank-you that does justice to the kaleidoscopic wonder of what we all shared. Spoiler: words are flimsy things, like paper boats on an Arctic swell, but we’ll give it a go.
First, a nod to Joshua and Susy, our intrepid guides, who didn’t just lead us through the frostbitten wilds but opened their journey to us, letting us piggyback on their passion like hitchhikers on some cosmic road trip. You didn’t just show us walruses lolling on ice floes or the ice bear’s ghostly shimmy; you gifted us a lens—literal and otherwise—through which to see our fragile world anew. And to every soul on this expedition, from the gear-hauling, tripod-toting shutterbugs to the quiet ones who whispered awe at the edge of a glacier: you made this thing hum. You were, to borrow from that old B.W. Stevenson tune, the embodiment of “Everyone is helpful, everyone is kind / On the road to Shambala.” Svalbard, with its endless snow and light that bends time, felt like a glimpse of that place. Each click of our shutters, each shared fika of coffee in the bone-chilling cold, was a step on that road. We weren’t just chasing images; we were chasing renewal, love, the kind of adventurous spirit that makes you feel, for a fleeting moment, like you’ve cracked the code to being alive. And you all—every one of you—were kind, were helpful, were the sort of companions who make a journey feel like a destination in disguise. Our gratitude is a clumsy, oversized thing, too big for this page, but it’s real. We wish you all safe travels, continued success, and more journeys that feel like Shambala’s just around the bend. Keep chasing the light, literal and otherwise. – Andy & Jennifer”
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 