5 Top Ways to Find Cool Photo Spots

Above: “Stone Chapel in the Woods, Stowe, Vermont” by Edward M. Fielding. Cards and prints are available.

When planning a vacation, finding great photo spots can be a challenge. Travel guides offer a lot of information about where to stay, where to eat, what museums to check out, good places to entertain the kids but they don’t necessarily speak the visual needs of the photographer.

Besides, each photographer has a different vision of the types of subjects they like to capture. For me, I like off beat, out of the way spots that don’t usually show up in the travel guides. I like finding old roadside attractions or abandoned ghost towns. Things unlikely to attract bus loads of tourists.

My research starts months before my trip and includes these top five resources.

YouTube

YouTube is a great resource for photographers planning a photo trip. Often YouTubers have posted videos of the areas you are thinking about traveling to – they sometimes even post videos of the drive so you can really see what an area has to offer.

Flickr

Flickr is a photosharing site so you can see what other photographers have discovered in an area. The photos might be fantastic or terrible but you can get an idea of what opportunities there are in the areas you are considering. Usually the Flickr photo descriptions will give at least a general idea of the area where the photo was taken but you might have to do further research to pin down the exact location.

Google Maps

Google Maps is a great resource because many reviewers have uploaded photos of specific spots. You can browse around the map of the area and zoom in on photos. If your tagging along on your wife’s business trip, for example, you can search the immediate area around the conference for photo opportunities.

Pinterest is a visual scrapbook of “pins” which are photos people have posted. There are lots of great images on Pinterest, but it can be difficult to get photo location information from the photos. Lots of the pins seem to be click bait type posts that don’t necessarily even pertain to the location they claim to be.

Blogs

Travel blogs and photographer blogs can be a great resource for discovering an area before you head off on your trip. Say you are going to Iceland for the first time, well there are several Icelandic bloggers who have all kinds of travel information. Another resource is photographer’s blogs, information from other photographer’s who made this same journey in the past often blog about. This photographer might not shoot the same kind of photos you like to shoot but at least the information will be from another photographer’s perspective.