Richard Silver, Photographer on Remote Year

The Remote Year experience is hard to describe. Not only does it allow people to travel the world, it also opens their minds to different perspectives that they would not have otherwise been exposed to. They not only get to check culturally significant attractions off their bucket lists, but they get to become truly immersed in the culture of every city that they live in. They get to know local citizens and become a part of their community.

Remotes have the unique ability to document their year through the eyes of both a tourist and a local - familiarity mixing with a sense of novelty and nuance. Richard Silver, a Meraki Remote, has taken this challenge and run with it.

Richard is a travel blogger and photographer traveling the world with Remote Year Meraki. Throughout his time with Remote Year, he has lived in Mexico City, Bogota, Medellin, Cordoba, Buenos Aires, Prague, Belgrade, Valencia, Kuala Lumpur, Chiang Mai and Kyoto. As his Remote Year with Meraki wraps up this month, Richard looks back on his experience and offers a bit of advice to anyone interested in joining Remote Year.‍

This year I learned that I am capable of anything I set my mind to and that physically I am also capable of amazing things. I am the oldest Remote in my group and I have been to more countries, cities and did more traveling than anyone by far and I did not let my age get in the way of it at all. I also learned that the younger people of today are much smarter, more mature and well rounded than people of my generation. It was an impressive group of people I had the honor of sharing a year of my life with.‍

I have been living a similar life for the past six years of basing myself in a city, NY for me, and doing lots of traveling to build my portfolio of work. So as a travel photographer I need to travel to keep working and it has become an obsession to constantly explore the world as a traveler and a photographer. This past year while being with RY I was featured in Lonely Planet, National Geographic Traveler magazine and Jennifer Lopez is using one of my photos in her upcoming movie. These personal accomplishments are very important for my career and moving forward these are the kinds of companies I would love to be working with more often.‍

This is the year to enjoy your life more than advancement in your career. You can always make more money but your year of travel with RY should be your year to experience more of life than put the extra time into your job. Next year go for the promotion, this year explore, open up to possibilities and just live more than you thought was possible.

Follow along with Richard through his Instagram and his website.