About me

Enric Godes
Born and raised in Barcelona
Partner at Vasava
IT Engineer and MBA
Obsessive list maker
me@travelkillsme.com

The project

Travel Kills Me began as a travel blog: a place to explain the sites I had visited, with information that could be useful to other travellers.

Each photo came with a story behind it, so I started writing them up: what the place is, why it matters, and what is worth knowing before you go. The joke I had started in New York in 2007 gave the blog its format, and the places gave it a reason to exist.

Then the list took over. Every new landmark made the empty spaces on the map more obvious, and what had been a way of remembering trips turned into an obsession. Today it adds up to 300 landmarks in 40 countries, and I still can't look at a famous monument without working out where I'm going to lie down.

What you see is real

I have physically been in every place shown here, lying on that floor. Photo retouching is limited to aesthetic work. Artificial intelligence is used only for writing the texts, always from content I provide.

Enric Godes lying on the ground in Central Park with a sheet of paper in his hand, the first photo of the project — CENTRAL PARK · NEW YORK, USA · NOVEMBER 2007

Making of

A photographer shoots Enric Godes lying in the middle of the avenue between the Venetian Towers of Barcelona — MAKING OF · PLAÇA D'ESPANYA, BARCELONA · 2022 · VIDEO STILL: CARLOS DE DIEGO

Anatomy of a death

Shibuya crossing, seen from above by two cameras. Four scenes, and the camera clocks show how long it takes to die in Tokyo.

SHIBUYA CROSSING · TOKYO, JAPAN · DECEMBER 2009 · PHOTOS: WILLY NUEZ & ALBERTO NUEZ

My friends Willy Nuez and Alberto Nuez take the photos. They go up to a hotel overlooking the crossing with a camera each. I stay down, on my own, and wait for the lights to change.
I walk in with the crowd and find a gap. Then I crouch and pretend to tie my shoelaces, so nobody suspects anything. From there, I just lie down.
People stop to ask if I am all right. I get up, keep crossing as if nothing happened, and come back two and a half minutes later, laughing.
Two cameras, 42 frames, and one that made it to the blog.