Summer is travel time.

There are several important reasons for this, but at the top of the list are the warm weather, and the fact that kids are out of school.

My sister and her husband are taking a long, and long-awaited, tour across the American west. They seem to be having an amazing time so far, but haven’t made very many pictures.

The question at the forefront of my mind as I ponder travel season centers around the purpose of these activities. For some, it’s an opportunity to see new and interesting parts of the world. For others, as it was with my wife and me, a chance to be together away from “it all.” For others still, including me, it is a chance to make pictures of things we’ve never seen, the beautiful, the amazing, and sometimes the ugly, sights in our world.

One friend of mine likes to take extended vacations in places like Death Valley, where he likes to be totally alone to contemplate life.

I have another friend who just returned from a 10-day trip to China, where he made thousands of images of all the top tourist destinations, from Panda Research Center to the National Park of Zhangjiajie to the glittering temples in Shanghai.

He even rode on a bullet train.

I love the images he made, but I’m not sure it would be for me.

Thus, the idea of what we each want from our opportunities to travel. I, for example, often want to get as far away from everything as I can. I also want to make great photos of what I see.

This raises a sticky question: how much of my travel photography is for the genuine experience, and how much of it is just to get “likes” and “shares” on social media. We’d all like to imagine we are doing photography for the right reasons, but we all know that’s not always the case.

So, what will you do this summer? Climb the mountains? Surf the oceans? Sample the local cuisine? Will you do it for the memories, or for the rush of hundreds or thousands of clicks? It’s up to you, but my advice is to keep things as human and genuine, and fun, as you are able.