Anna Dryhval

I’m Anna, co-founder of Explorer Canada and the one behind most of the photographs and stories you’ll find here. While Bohdan plans the routes and tracks the kilometers, I’m usually the one out of the car first — looking for the light, the small details, the moments that don’t make it onto maps.

I grew up in Ukraine, where my favorite trips were never about reaching a destination. They were about everything that happened along the way — the way the road smelled after rain, the small bakery in a town we didn’t plan to stop in, the conversation with a stranger that lasted longer than the coffee. When we moved to Canada in 2023 with our dachshund Nika, I worried that vast distances and quiet highways might feel empty. They didn’t. They turned out to be exactly the kind of slow that I’d been missing.

On Explorer Canada, my role is to capture how a place feels, not just how to get there. I write about quiet mornings at Lake Louise before the tour buses arrive, the way Manitoba’s prairie storms build for an hour before they break, the dachshund chasing her shadow on a beach in Hecla Island. I take most of the photos for our posts — usually with cold hands and a coffee balanced on the car roof.

If you’ve ever felt that the best part of a trip isn’t the famous viewpoint but the gas station you stopped at on the way back, you’ll feel at home here. I cover travel stories, photography, slow mornings, and the side of road-tripping that’s harder to plan but easier to remember.

Find me on Instagram for photos that didn’t make it into posts, or write to us with your own road trip stories — I love reading them.