We recently teamed up with LOJEL to create a fun project focused on creatives’ journeys and we want to hear your stories! Tell us about a travel experience that was particularly meaningful for you. It could be a big exciting adventure or more of a small quiet moment where you learned something about yourself. We are accepting submissions until June 1.
Each week we share stories and everyone we feature gets hooked up with luggage from LOJEL’s Voja luggage collection! Our favourite submissions will also receive a bag from LOJEL’s Urbo 2 bag collection in addition to the luggage!
On top of this, we’re looking to commission four visual artists who submit to this project, to expand on their stories, and to add a layer of art over top of their photos. Each artist will receive compensation as well as the Voja Small and Voja Large luggage, the Urbo 2 Citybag and the Urbo 2 Weekender!
This week we have 3 more winners! Congratulations to Linnea Stephan, John Sippel and Joris Hermans. All of you will be sent Voja luggage courtesy of LOJEL! There’s an email headed your way so you can choose the colour of your luggage! If you submitted but you’re not one of these three, stay tuned! You may still be a winner, we’re only announcing a few at a time!
If you haven’t submitted yet you can hit the link below to join the project!
LINNEA STEPHAN
As a forest child from Minnesota, I have always appreciated Canada in a familial way. Like attending high school with an older sibling, your inherited title of somebody’s little sister. Through many similarities and differences, you secretly adore the comparative nature, drawing parallels where you may and feeling trust and kinship from afar.
As a West Coast, Los Angeles-based transplant, I have always romanticized Vancouver and felt that it was sure to be my soul city. Years of daydreaming ensued before I finally made it, but the timing was magic. One October, a season past a heart-chipping breakup, I flew past the city that set me solo, heading north to the friends and the views that I knew awaited me in Vancouver.
The sweet relief of sisterhood and the excitement of unfamiliar territory welcomed me. I was awash in the celebratory nature of friends who love to host, who live to party, and who appreciate food on all occasions. One afternoon I broke away to pick up some film, wandering out the screen door and into the bright autumn air. Rumors of a long mountain hike had just begun to dance through the home. Someone recommends a climb a few hours inland from the city. I am hesitant to leave the Pacific already but, away we go.
There is some sort of pure, strong therapy in being able to see a new corner of our world for the first time. It’s a direct dose of living. Mt. Cheam, our destination, turns out to be the most beautiful walk I have ever been on in my entire life. My photographer heart sings for the views in every direction, a heart rate emphasized by the vertical climb of 700 meters.
The joyful little lake winks back at us, reflected in eager eyes. Victory is silently confirmed. I have been shown a brand-new view of the utmost perfect emerald blue, and a boundless green as deep as the valley we walk. I am creatively and emotionally rebuilt by the sheer scale of somewhere that I needed to be. I am eternally grateful for the friends, including my camera, that brought me there.
— LINNEA STEPHAN
JOHN SIPPEL
This winter in the Midwest was particularly hard. Stress caught up and the months of no sunshine didn’t help. I stayed inside and reflected on where I’m at in life, who I want to be, and what are the steps to get me there.
With everything floating around in my brain I landed on 3 concrete things. Reconnect with the natural world, continue a constant pursuit of creativity, and marrying the person who has given me more clarity, support, and friendship than I could ever imagine. So we got a cat sitter, over-stuffed our suitcases and set out to Utah and Arizona.
We road tripped for 2 weeks through the dessert and mountains. The most memorable day we kayaked down Lake Powell and then hiked into the canyons where the river stopped. We set up lunch perched on a sandy orange cutaway. It was there I asked Katelyn to marry me. A perfect juice box and sandwich lunch to remember.
Our last stop off of Route 66, an hour South of the Grand Canyon, I found the spot to commemorate this trip and the clarity I discovered. We found a local hardware store for supplies, unpacked a collage I created during the winter, and together my fiancée and I pasted up the piece. A rejuvenating conclusion to a long winter.
— JOHN SIPPEL
JORIS HERMANS
“Traveling changes you,” they say. Sure, it might be a platitude but it really does. I’ve been traveling for more than a year non-stop now and being on the road all the time affects your brain and soul in a strange way. I feel like I grew more as a person now than in the last 20 years and also-for the first time since I set off on this journey–I fell in love with a city: Medellín, Colombia.
I love Colombia from day one when I arrived in Bogotá almost two months ago but Medellín just takes it to another level. The geographic location, the people, the history of war and violence, and the transformation over the last decade. This city is like a black hole that keeps pulling me in. I planned to stay here for maximum one week and then move on.
That was more than three weeks ago and I’m still in Medellín. It grabbed me and won’t let me go. I’m getting goosebumps while I write this and it’s a strange feeling. I’ve never felt like this about a place or city. Even my own country doesn’t even come close to Medellín.
Creatively, this place sparked my inspiration. I’m a color photographer and I’ve always been, ever since I started studying photography ten years ago. I also focus on people, mostly. People are the essence and soul of any country I visit but Medellín is the first place that got me exploring a new direction in photography. This beautiful city, probably one of the most photogenic in the world, pushed me into black and white landscape photography. Something I was never interested in…
Almost every day, I’m exploring the surrounding mountains and hills to find the best viewpoints to capture the incredible beauty. I still haven’t found the ultimate epic view of Medellín yet but I hope I never will. Please, just let me explore this fascinating and beautiful black hole forever.
— JORIS HERMANS
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