I Explored The Vast Beauty Of Latvia With Camera In My Hands

Every adventure starts in your own backyard.

I am a professional photographer from Latvia with a passion for nature and outdoors. For me, traveling started with my own country – Latvia, and over the years I have explored most of it.

There are still places I haven’t been and places I have been more than once. Many people in the world don’t even know where Latvia is and mistake it for Lithuania or Russia. Latvia is a Northern Europe country, one of three Baltic states, located in at the Gulf of Baltic sea. Latvia’s population is about 2 million, give or take, but statistics change every year. Latvia is relatively small – 64,589 km2, which is not much compared to other countries, but Latvia is full of beautiful beaches and rich green forests, and it is kind of a hidden gem for photographers and travelers.

One thing Latvia lacks are mountains but much of other Latvian nature’s treasures level it out. For example, Latvia has the widest waterfall in Europe – Venta Rapid, many untouched nature reservoirs like Gauja’s National park and Ķemeri National Park with its many natural sulfur springs and muds. These are one of the many things worth seeing and experiencing in Latvia.

If you are into urban exploring, Latvia’s capital Riga has one of the largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in the world, but this story is about nature so I will leave the capital for some other time.

We are also happy to enjoy four full seasons that change nature in amazing ways each year. Latvians live in touch with nature, especially the sea, and most of the capital’s inhabitants retreat to the countryside for holidays. For the hot summer days, it’s hard to find Latvian in the capital, because most of them are somewhere by the sea or by nature.

My journey as a photographer started about 10 years ago with road trips with friends around Latvia and that is how my passion for nature was born. Here are some of the moments I gathered over the years while traveling around Latvia on many different occasions.

I highly recommend starting your own exploration of your surroundings and you will be surprised, that in order to find adventures you don’t have to go that far.

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