We’re Ian and Magda, a married couple living in Brooklyn, New York. Magda is a fine art and architectural photographer. Ian is an illustrator. Being both extremely visual people we feel much of the excitement of travel is the stimulation of recording the unseen and unexperienced. If the need to travel has been described as a bug, we see it as a benevolent infection. The only cure is to look at yourself, your job, your country, from the vantage of a far off place and appreciate the view.

In 2007 we quit our jobs, stored all of our worldly possessions in a Bronx warehouse and flew to Africa and beyond. We never looked back and have never been the same. During the course of one year and across 17 countries Magda thoroughly documented our journey photographically while Ian focused on writing a blog describing the joys and hardships of life on the road. Whether giving a guest lecture to a class of photography students in a South African township, enduring a break-down in the middle of the Gobi Desert (automotive and otherwise), being extras in an Oscar winning movie in Mumbai or shooting photos of abandoned diving resorts in Taiwan, we pride ourselves on saying yes to situations that propel us well outside the normal tourist orbit.

Magda’s photos from this trip have been exhibited in New York, Seattle, Paris and Poland. Reviews of the shows have appeared in New York Magazine and on The New York Times Lens blog. The blog entries and photos from the trip can be found on a website of the same title: www.continentalbounce.com.

Now we on our next big adventure – a journey up the length of the Americas, surfing the spine of two continental divides from the Antarctic Peninsula to Alaska. We have our route planned, but as always we’ll have our diversions. Our itinerary will be tailored to make sure we catch the high season in the Antarctic sometime in January, participate in Carnival in Rio in February, avoid the wettest of the wet season in the Amazon and end up in Alaska before Winter blocks our path. Between hours of research and spontaneous detours, we will end up documenting some of the most interesting places on earth and engaging in the countries we visit in a truly unique way. Along the way we will be celebrating ten years of marriage. Part of this trip will be commemorating this new milestone in a familiar way; we celebrated our five year anniversary on the road as well, during our last big trip.

Magda’s photography: www.magdabiernat.com

Ian’s illustrations: www.hazard-county.com