Ashley Ludaescher is a California girl at heart who caught the photography bug at a young age while on family travels, and thankfully her father kindly let her “steal” the camera. After graduating from the Brooks Photography Institute in 2005, Ashley has made her way as a photographer in San Francisco, Paris and small town Germany near the French boarder. These days she’s based in Berlin as a freelance photographer and retoucher. I can’t wait to meet Ashley in person in May for The Hive Conference, but in the meantime she’s getting me extra excited about Berlin through her Exploring Berlin series. Don’t miss more of her beautiful work on her blog, Chasing Heartbeats. Thanks, Ashley et à bientôt! –Anne

Ashley and her husband Andreas in Paris.

last trip taken:
Hamburg, Germany for my husband’s birthday.
Black Forest

next trip on deck:
A bunch of weekend getaways- Germany’s Black Forest (where we lived before moving to Berlin), Poland (only an hour away!) and Barcelona where one of my best friends is spending the summer painting.
Black Forest

one place you would go back to again and again:
Cape Cod, Massachusetts. My family has a little lakeside cottage in Eastham, and the property it is on has been in our family for generations. It is where Andreas and I got engaged and married and will always be somewhere incredibly special to us. Also, I can never get my fill of lobster rolls and swimming in the lake.
Cape Cod

place you’d most likely recommend a friend go visit:
Berlin because I love house guests and I think this city is incredible! Also, Istanbul. The people there are so kind and welcoming. The city itself is sort of magical – so old and full of life and culture, and the food is incredible.
Berlin

Berlin

preferred method of transportation:
By train. Germany’s ICE trains are pretty hard to beat, and I love how stress-free and relaxing train travel is. Within a city, walking is by far my favorite way to get around and explore.
Istanbul

place you’ve never been but dying to go:
Morocco, Cuba, Vietnam and Bali are at the top of my list right now. We still have not taken our honeymoon, and we already have 2 separate two week trips back to California on the books this year, so I am thinking we might take a series of little honeymoon travels. Hopefully Morocco can be the first of those trips.
Paris

place you’d never go back:
The only place I can think of that I didn’t really love is Marseille, France. The trash company was on strike and the piles of trash lining the streets were taller than me, plus and it was hot out, i am sure you can imagine how that smelled… but the experience actually just makes me want to go back and give the city another chance.

most memorable trip in 2 sentences or less:
When I was 19 I visited a friend who was studying in southern Spain during a huge festival in Granada. We danced in the streets in the pouring rain beside people of all ages and it was completely surreal and amazing. It was the perfect start to our month long backpacking adventure around Western Europe.
Istanbul

how do you prepare for a trip?
Charging my camera batteries, organizing film, buying a book about the area, and scouring the internet for off-the-tourist-path restaurant recommendations. I usually don’t plan much before trips other than a hotel and booking a car or train tickets and prefer to keep things as spontaneous as possible.
Big Sur

how do you record your travels when you’re traveling?
I take lots of pictures. In the past, I always had a very well loved journal, but have to admit in recent years it has been neglected… I think it was replaced by my blog.
Istanbul

what is your favorite thing to photograph in a new place?
The landscape and skyline. But really anything which catches my eye and I feel inspired by. I wish I could say “the people”, but I have always felt really strange photographing strangers, especially without asking first.
Sardinia

Konstanz

on an average, how many pictures to you take on a trip?
Usually at least 100 photos a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on how inspired I feel.
Big Sur

Strasbourg

what’s in your “designer travel kit” ?
A range of cameras: my Canon 5d Mark II & 28-105mm lens, my moleskine journal, diana 35mm camera, iPhone & iPad, Fuji Instax Camera. My Ona camera bag insert which I put inside of a large Cambridge Satchel Company bag to tote my camera around in disguise.
Boston

what do you do after a trip? how long after a trip does this happen?
I download everything onto my computer as soon as I return home and edit the photos I like enough to share. I usually try and post within a week of returning on my blog, but it depends how many photos I have to go through.
Florence

favorite souvenir/thing to bring back?
Food, tea, spices, old vintage postcards and maps.
Paris

website: ashleyludaescher.com
blog: chasingheartbeats.blogspot.com
@chasingheartbts on Twitter
on facebook

Boarding Pass is a weekly column exploring the creative ways people travel.