Dax Ward Photography

29/08/2026

A countryside temple attraction that never got off the ground. It seems to have been a bit too far off of the main highway. Prachuap Khiri Khan 🇹🇭 🛕☠️

22/08/2026

I’ve been working on a retrospective looking back at ten years of documenting abandoned places, including more than 70 locations in Thailand alone.

That brought me back to the 'Decay Train' in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon, the first abandoned site I ever photographed on January 26, 2015, when I was just learning how to use manual settings. I spotted the train carriages while riding my motorbike through town one lunchtime and returned another day with my camera and tripod, having no idea where this particular road would eventually lead.

I’ve visited the site many times since, usually alone and occasionally with friends, watching the carriages slowly change and decay beside the active railway. After all these years and all those locations, this one still feels special. It is where the project began.

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

22/08/2026

I’ve been working on a retrospective looking back at ten years of documenting abandoned places, including more than 70 locations in Thailand alone.

That brought me back to the 'Decay Train' in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon, the first abandoned site I ever photographed on January 26, 2015, when I was just learning how to use manual settings. I spotted the train carriages while riding my motorbike through town one lunchtime and returned another day with my camera and tripod, having no idea where this particular road would eventually lead.

I’ve visited the site many times since, usually alone and occasionally with friends, watching the carriages slowly change and decay beside the active railway. After all these years and all those locations, this one still feels special. It is where the project began.

☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️

15/08/2026

The infamous Twin Arrows Trading post, once a staple, stands empty along I-40 east of Flagstaff. The indigenous street art is 💯 🔥 and makes the lone remaining arrow seem more authentic.

🌵🛣️🏜️6️⃣ 6️⃣

08/08/2026

This is some drone & interior footage that I shot of the iconic & abandoned Twin Arrows Trading post & the ghost town of Cuervo, New Mexico. Both were mid-century staples of Route 66.

When I arrived at Twin Arrows, there was a guy there stripping metal from the smaller building on the right. Not sure how much longer these places will be around.

🛣️ 🇺🇸 🚘 🌵 🏜️ 📍 🏚️ 📸 🚁 🌅

A brief journey through two fading landmarks of historic Route 66: ...

08/08/2026

🛣️6️⃣6️⃣ 🏚️🌵

02/08/2026

In 2026, Route 66 turns 100.

During a recent trip through the American Southwest, I spent nine days following the historic road through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, photographing abandoned towns, motels, trading posts and schools alongside the restored neon, roadside attractions and general weirdness that have kept the Mother Road alive.

The resulting project brings together seven galleries exploring both sides of Route 66: the mythology of freedom, reinvention and the open road, and the communities, businesses and histories America left behind when the traffic moved elsewhere.

Route 66 at 100:
https://www.daxward.com/Route-66-at-100

30/07/2026

The Valentine Indian School, officially known as the Truxton Canyon Training School in Arizona was part of the federal system created to forcibly assimilate Native American children. Sites like these can be found across the US & Canada. Children were removed from their families, stripped of their languages and cultures, and trained to conform to white American society.

There were some academic lessons, but the children were mainly forced to work & learn white customs. The punishment for not conforming at places like this was notoriously cruel.

The opening of this 'school' predates Route 66 by over 20 years, opening in 1903. It was built next to an old horse cart road which later became part of the highway.

The school closed in 1937, but the building remains beside Route 66. It's not so much roadside nostalgia as it is evidence of what the federal government & European settlers did to Indigenous communities, then spent decades sanitising, ignoring or forgetting.

27/07/2026

We completed our Route 66 trip at the 'Leaning Tower of Texas' in the panhandle, driving the final stretch from from Amarillo to DFW. It's been an epic, classic adventure on the road from Vegas to Dallas, yet we only covered 24% of the total Route 66 length.

Many bando sites visited, putting together a series and essay.

Some stats:
9 road-trip days
8 nights
Approximately 1,603 driving miles (2580 km)
Approximately 30.6 hours behind the wheel
41 mapped locations
4 states visited: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas
3 Route 66 states: Arizona, New Mexico and Texas
3 time zones
Approximately 590 miles on or closely following the Route 66 corridor
Roughly 24% of the traditional 2,448-mile Route 66 length

26/07/2026

On the road between Albuquerque & Amarillo today, we stopped at 3 Route 66 ghost towns. This room was in an abandoned house in Cuervo, NM.

2026 marks the centennial of the opening of Route 66, which faded away after the introduction of the interstate highway system, and especially I-40, which tracks along much of the original pathway of the 'mother road'.