Grant Sheehan looks back on over 50 years of travel

(PHOTO: supplied)

Grant Sheehan photographing penguins on Macquarie Island (PHOTO: supplied)

Head rom dancer at the annual Ambrym Magic Festival (PHOTO: supplied)

Mad Magda's Russian Tea Room Caf, San Francisco (PHOTO: supplied)

Mt Erebus with fast ice in the foreground, a few kilometres north of Scott Base (PHOTO: supplied)

On approach to planet Earth (PHOTO: Photo Grant Sheehan and NASA)

Smoke issues from the Volcano, viewed from Scari Beach (PHOTO: supplied)

St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square (PHOTO: supplied)

"We see few other kettavallams as we travel the waterways..." (PHOTO: supplied)

From the pandemic to climatic issues, traveling the world has become a lot harder - ethically challenging, more expensive and riskier, as the headlines have pointed out this week.

In 1971, Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington photographer Grant Sheehan sold his treasured motorbike to buy a return ticket to Amsterdam and he's travelled extensively ever since.

During the lockdowns, he had the chance to sort through his photographs and think about his experiences, which he shares in a book called in memory of travel.

But,m as he tells Lynn Freeman, it's not all looking back.  In the final chapter he considers the future of travel, from space tourism to digital tourism and virtual reality.

Grant Sheehan's in memory of travel is published by Phantom House Books.