Autumn travel: Best Destination for Fall
Autumn gives the trails back their silence: colors take over from the crowds, the light softens and destinations finally breathe again. This page gathers my stories and tips for traveling in the shoulder season, when everything gets quieter and often more beautiful.
Stories and tips from my travels in autumn
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Eastern USANiagara Falls, a Natural Wonder between the United States and Canada
Niagara Falls attract approximately 20 million visitors each year. They form a natural boundary between the province of Ontario in Canada and the State of New York in the Eastern United States and are located 17 miles northwest of Buffalo, New York, and 75 miles southeast of Toronto on either side of the Niagara River,…
0 13 min read -
Midwest USAFall colors in the Great Lakes Region
Nature Lovers will like the open spaces, dense forests and stunning sunsets of the Great Lakes region. The area is suitable for sporting and nature-oriented holidays. The Great Lakes are a series of interconnected freshwater lakes along the Canada-United States border in the northeastern part of the United States. There are five lakes, including 35,000…
13 8 min read -
Western USAMan vs. Wild…
If you like moonlike landscapes and seek loneliness… look no further. Bisti Wilderness is the place for you! Are you ready for a “Man vs. Wild” but without Edward Michael “Bear” Grylls to accompany you ? Off State Highway 371 at Road 7297, about 35 miles south of Farmington is the entrance to the Bisti…
28 5 min read -
Western USANew Mexico: Land of Enchantment
New Mexico is trapped between the “Great” Arizona, the “Friendship” Texas and south of the “Centennial” Colorado. New Mexico, one of the southwestern States is often left out by tourists visiting the western United States. It is a pity because New Mexico is total ! The motto of the state is even “Land of Enchantment”…
24 7 min read -
Southern USANew Orleans: Let’s Get Together And Swing!
The lyrics of Les Acadiens by French singer Michel Fugain (Les Acadiens) run through my mind, “Y a dans le sud de la Louisiane / Et dans un coin du Canada / Des tas de gars, des tas de femmes / Qui chantent dans la même langue que toi. Tous les Acadiens, toutes les Acadiennes / Vont chanter,…
28 14 min read -
Southern USALouisiana’s Cajun Country…
As seen from the air, the blue and green reflection of the sun in the Mississippi River creates a strange effect… Water is everywhere, between the ocean, the river and Lake Pontchartrain ! The roads are suspended above the water on pillars and the vegetation has its roots in the water. Water is abundant in…
22 12 min read -
ArgentinaThe New World
Mmmmmmm … (etc) / In noreni per ipe / in noreni Cora / tira mine per ito / ne domina, with the music of Vangelis in mind I step into the New World ! Here I am in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus, on my way to The Conquest of Paradise. But am I already…
20 6 min read -
Western USAI visited Joshua Tree, U2
Enough of the city, cars and crowds! We head East. The city disappears slowly and gradually, houses become sparser and the land bare before giving way to vast stretches of sand and Rocky Mountains. Finally, the first wind turbines announce that Palm Springs is near. These are hundreds, even thousands, of wind turbines that all…
9 5 min read -
IndiaA taste of India
Namaste, The Taj Mahal, an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the South bank of Yamura River in Agra, is the most admired and photographed edifice in India. The building was and remains the most perfect ever built by man. It was commissioned in 1632 by Emperor Shah Jahan to express the love for his wife Empress…
3 10 min read -
IndiaFast and Furious
Namaste, I left the airport in New Delhi at 1.30 am local time… All my senses are immediately overwhelmed with smells, colors, and sounds… the heat is still overwhelming: it is still 100 ° F (currently the temperatures hit 116 ° F during the day – in the shade of course). I feel a bit…
22 7 min read -
AustraliaJourney to the Red Center of Australia
G’day mates, There you are, the red sandy plain of the heart of Australia. Aborigines call the red sandstone formations “Uluru” and “Kata Tjuta” and white people Ayers Rock and The Olgas. These sandstone monoliths were discovered by the first Europeans expedition traveling in the area. In 1872 Ernest Giles saw Kata Tjuta and called…
2 6 min read -
AustraliaWhen You’re in the Desert For Too Long…
G’day mates, We left behind the Flinders with its spectacular landscapes and rich wildlife to follow the legendary Oodnadatta Track into the full, red heart of Australia where there are no humans for hundreds of miles in any direction. The Oodnadatta Track follows the former Overland Telegraph line and the abandoned line of the Great…
0 5 min read -
AustraliaAnd no-one goes outback that’s that
G’day mates, Our discovery of the Kimberley region ends at Kununurra in far Northern Western Australia about 1,380 miles from Perth. Kununurra is a quiet town nestled in the heart of an oasis of tropical fruit plantations where wallabies wander and surrounded by prosperous farms that benefit from the irrigation system of the Ord River.…
0 9 min read -
AustraliaCrocodile Dundee
Oz, Oz-ons, Oz-ez, The Kimberley, situated in the Northwestern part of Western Australia, is known for its wilderness. It is one of the nine regions of Australia and bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the North by the Timor Sea and on the South by the Great Sandy and Tanami deserts. It…
15 8 min read -
AustraliaBack o’ Bourke
Crikey ! The further North, the warmer it gets… Is it a hallucination due to heat? A red kangaroo is calmly watching us. We wonder who’s looking at whom, each a curiosity for the other. A little further away, a Capricorn is taking it easy in the tropical sun ! Well, it is time for us…
8 6 min read -
AustraliaI dream of water, but of ocean…
G’day, After leaving the Pinnacles Desert and its extraordinary rock formations we continue our journey North, following the Indian Ocean and its beautiful beaches interspersed with fishing villages – Being happy over / Being on a boat / I dream of water / But of ocean / Ah! The ocean / Fishing fish in it…
10 6 min read -
ChinaThe Blue Lotus
您好 (ni hao), You have surely recognized (or not) the reference to the adventures of Tintin, the comics series by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé… I’ll let you guess the stopover? Come on, make a small cultural effort. I’ll give you another hint: it is the city where Tintin traveled to meet a Japanese business person…
18 7 min read -
Western USAN… as New Start
Lake Powell has many more treasures, some of them easily accessible. Horseshoe Bend is a beautiful horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River. The contrast between the emerald green of the Colorado River, which flows 340 meters below, and orange cliffs above is magnificent. The site is accessible from U.S. Route 89 via a 1.5-mile hike…
0 8 min read -
Western USAN as… No man’s land
We cannot leave this charming corner of Utah without a visit to Bryce Canyon National Park in Southwestern Utah (a State of Western USA). Bryce Canyon was named for Ebenezer Bryce, who settled below the Bryce Canyon Antitheater. He built a road to the plateau in the pink cliffs in order to carry firewood and…
22 6 min read -
Western USAN as in… Nuances
Yà’àt’héé, After watching the changing shapes of clouds reflected in the water at Vermillon Cliffs National Monument in Arizona (a State of Western USA), just south of the Utah state line, we decided to maintain this contemplative pace and observe the various shades of color, changing minute to minute inside the slot canyon… Besides in…
4 5 min read
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Frequently asked questions about traveling in autumn
Autumn on this blog begins in the American Great Lakes, when the maples catch fire beside Lake Erie, then flips into the southern hemisphere where the same months open the austral spring. Two autumns for the price of one, provided you know which way to fly.
What do Niagara Falls look like out of high season?
Same flow, far fewer people on the walkways. The site takes about 20 million visitors a year, and that mass piles into July and August. The Horseshoe carries 90 per cent of the total flow and stands over 50 metres high for 800 metres across; the American Falls run close to 300 metres wide, the Bridal Veil Falls only 17. Flow drops to 2 832 cubic metres per second in summer and climbs back to 5 700 in high season, a gap I watch in this round of the three Niagara falls. There are roughly 500 taller waterfalls worldwide. The foliage, though, shows up only in October, as in my cascade of autumn colours.
Where can you see fall colours in the Great Lakes region?
In Ohio, at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The park covers 134 square kilometres and was created only in 2000, which makes it one of the youngest in the country. Brandywine Falls drop 20 metres there and the Brandywine Gorge Trail loops in 1,6 kilometre, a short walk I did twice in one day because the light kept changing, as my run up the Great Lakes shows. The system holds about 35 000 islands across 244 100 square kilometres. Lake Erie, 19 metres deep on average, warms quickly and stretches the season by a few weeks. The road then heads south in Cajun country and its bayous.
Which season does European autumn match in Australia?
The austral spring, the best window for the Red Centre. I was there in October and November, when the heat stays bearable and the Kimberley tracks reopen after the monsoon. Uluru stands 348 metres high for 9,4 kilometres of circumference, and only a third of the monolith is visible; the land was handed back to the Anangu in 1985 and the site listed by Unesco in 1987, a history I recount in this passage through the Red Centre. Thirty-five kilometres away, Kata Tjuta lines up 36 domes reaching 546 metres. The thermal gap surprises: 30 degrees in Darwin, 10 in Adelaide the same month, noted in my Australian desert notebook.
Why are American deserts better visited in autumn?
Because the heat falls back and the light lengthens. Joshua Tree National Park covers close to 3 200 square kilometres, and its boulders nicknamed « Giant marbles » can be climbed without burning your palms once September has passed. Coyotes howl after dark, which I heard two nights running, as recounted in my stay among the yuccas of Joshua Tree. Further east, the Bisti Wilderness sits 56 kilometres south of Farmington and unrolls some fifteen square kilometres of hoodoos with no marked trail and no signpost at all. You walk it by compass. The full account is in this appointment in unknown country.
What can you see in Louisiana and New Orleans in autumn?
The bayous, once the damp heat finally lets go. The city was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, before turning Spanish in 1763, French again in 1800, then American in 1803. The Barataria Preserve protects 8 100 hectares of swamp and flooded land, where bald cypresses climb to 70 metres, a setting I cross in this run down into Cajun country. Louisiana holds around 4 500 plant species and more than 300 observable bird species. Between the city and Baton Rouge only 8 plantation houses remain of the 350 that once stood, which my wander through the French Quarter recounts.
When can you trek in the Mustang region of Nepal?
In autumn, after the monsoon and before the cold. The Tibetan enclave is visited with a special permit, capped at 2000 visitors. You reach Pokhara from Kathmandu in seven hours of bus, then Jomsom in twenty-five minutes of flight, from 820 to 2800 metres of altitude, aboard an eighteen-seat Fokker. The first stage up to Chele asks for five hours of walking. Ghar Gompa passes for the oldest Buddhist monastery in the country, and the red cliffs of Dakhmar mark the route, which I describe in this climb towards Lo Mantang. The high desert resembles the Australian centre, only more vertical: compare it with my tracks in the Northern Territory.
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Hello, I am C-Ludik, a traveller with a passion for nature and photography. Travel is far more than moving from one destination to another.
It is an invitation to slow down. To watch the last light of day settle on a quiet village, to wait for an animal to appear on the horizon, to listen to the distant roar of a waterfall or to be surprised by a landscape where you least expect it.
Through ’Tween Here and There, I share the stories, photographs and emotions gathered along the way. From the deserts of Namibia to the Himalayan peaks, from European villages to the far shores of the Pacific, each journey becomes a story to tell and an invitation to see the world differently.
With camera in hand, I invite you to follow me along winding roads and remote trails, towards the places, the light and the encounters that turn a simple trip into a lasting memory. Because the greatest adventures sometimes begin far away (there)… and sometimes right at home (here). Welcome to my five-senses odyssey across the world, where distant horizons meet the wonders of everyday life.
Every journey is far more than a destination. It is a collection of encounters, light and emotions that I am delighted to share through my photographs and travel stories.
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