So it’s been three years since I’ve last posted an update. Why, I don’t know. But it’s inexcusable nonetheless. This site was always intended to be a blog where I recount my travels during the US road trip I had taken between October 2016 and March 2017 to find all the American Lebanons. And after…
My visit to Lebanon, Illinois in early February could only be described as a series of very fortunate events. Back in late November when I was in Boston, I had done an interview on NPR, the US national public radio, talking about my travels around the country and the Lebanons project. A few weeks later,…
I only spent one day in Lebanon, Oklahoma. A small town of 300 or so people, on the shores of Lake Texoma, where Texas peeks from its Southern tip. My photographer friend Dickie Hill drove from Dallas to join me, and we spent some time at the fire station, talking with Fire Chief Terry Hewitt and then grabbing…
When I arrived to Michigan in late November, it was starting to get cold but the temperature hadn’t hit freezing point yet. I was constantly checking the thermometer, not because there was much of a difference between 1°C and -1°C, but because I was using water inside my RV to wash up and shower, and I would’ve…
New Lebanon, New York is the only town that reminded me directly of my own Lebanon during my road trip. But it’s a comparison where we don’t fare well as a country. It all starts with Ann Lee, a woman from Manchester, England who sailed to the United States in 1774. She was the leader of…
Note: This entry doesn’t follow the timeline of my trip. There are many Lebanons I’ve visited that I have yet to write about. On Wednesday morning, March 1st, I was driving my friends to the airport in New Orleans, Louisiana. Nine of us had come to the city to photograph the festivities of Mardi Gras…
When I headed to Lebanon in Wisconsin’s Waupaca County, it was already late when I got to the nearby city of Clintonville. Judy, from Clintonville, Wisconsin. She’s a cook and waitress at a local restaurant, operated by the owner, Matthew, and her, where I stopped to eat on my way to Lebanon. When she was 14,…
I’ve never been alone on Christmas. I always spent it with my family. As a kid, it was with my parents and brother and sister. In graduate school in San Francisco, it was with my aunt and cousins. Which is why this year I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the holidays; I’m in Lebanon, Pennsylvania by…
When I had seen the tree that was marked as a cedar but turned out to be a Juniper in South Dakota, I knew that Lebanon, Nebraska would provide an answer as to whether that first town was the only one that got a fake cedar, or whether there were more of them. More so, I…
I was driving on route 1806, a narrow two-lane highway in North Dakota leading to the town of Canon Ball where members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. The day before, October 28th, I had stopped at a café on my way from Lebanon, North Dakota, and I saw…
I had been on the road for two weeks and my initial excitement over this road trip had already worn off. I was feeling lonely and homesick and was missing familiar faces. It was the end of October and my long-standing avoidance of talking to people, especially those I photograph, hadn’t broken yet. It…
I am clutching on the steering wheel with two firm hands, barely going over 20km/hr in a street where the speed limit is 65. This is the first time I drive a motorhome, and maneuvering it is not as easy as I thought it would be; it’s bulky and heavy and any gust of wind…
Hello, My name is Fadi BouKaram and I’m a Lebanese photographer. I’m taking a five-month road trip across the U.S., discovering and photographing all the country’s Lebanons. For some reason, America has so many cities and towns called Lebanon. Just look at the map. Each dot represents one. I found out about this by accident…
Lebanon, USA 