The Bare Expat

22/06/2026

I went to Madrid thinking I'd see paintings. What I came away with was less tidy.
Over a few days I worked my way through the Prado, the Reina Sofía and the Thyssen-Bornemisza — Velázquez, Bosch, Goya, Picasso, and more Madonnas, martyrs and beheadings than any sensible person should attempt in a week. But the real lesson wasn't a sequence of names and dates. It was how museums shape attention: how they invite us to look, and sometimes prevent us from looking.
Some rooms stopped me cold — especially a set near the end of the Reina Sofía devoted to q***r memory and the AIDS years, which pulled me straight back to sitting with my friend Bruce in his final months in 1992. And then there was the fabulous drag docent at the Thyssen: Hugáceo Crujiente.
At 70, I'm less interested in pretending to have mastered anything. I'd rather keep learning how to look.
New essay on the blog 👇
🔗 https://bareexpat.com/learning-to-look-in-madrids-museums/

14/06/2026

New post on BareExpat.com -- experiencing the deep layers of Spanish history. https://bareexpat.com/spain-in-layers-from-the-lady-of-elche-to-philip-ii/

22/05/2026

As a kid, I collected geodes. Yesterday in Pulpí, Spain, I entered one.
My latest post goes deep inside Mina Rica to visit the extraordinary Geoda de Pulpí — part mining history, part geology, part crystal cathedral.

Witness the stunning beauty of the giant geode at Geoda de Pulpí. A unique experience into a crystal-filled wonder.

20/05/2026

A new piece is up at Bare Expat — the most personal one I've written so far.
It started as an attempt to explain what I mean when I describe myself as a naturist, and ended up being about the whole long road that brought me here: the skipped-grade kid in the locker room, the young lawyer in three-piece suits, the GLAAD founder in Armani, the camper van full of dogs in the Pacific Northwest, the search for a community where I could finally live in my own skin. And how I ended up in Vera Playa Naturista, on the southeastern coast of Spain.
If you've ever wondered why someone would choose to live this way — or if you've been curious about the distinction between naturism, nudism, and the things people sometimes confuse with them — this one's for you.

What does it mean to call yourself a naturist? A personal essay on body acceptance, GLAAD, expat life, and how a kid who didn't want a body ended up living on a beach in Spain.

16/05/2026

Overcoming my single greatest challenge in relocating to Europe--getting licensed to drive in Spain.

As a 70‑year‑old expat with 50 years of driving behind me, I still had to start from zero in Spain: theory exam, formal lessons and three rounds of the práctica. Here’s what the process was really like, why it’s such an ordeal for non‑EU drivers, and how that green “L” on my back wind...

06/05/2026

New on Bare Expat: Art, Marble, and Feeling Unfinished at 70.
On a Vera International Photo Club Sunday outing last September — the day before I turned 70 — I found myself in the small inland town of Olula del Río, where two remarkable museums sit side by side in the heart of Almería's marble country: Museo Casa Ibáñez, a powerhouse of contemporary Spanish realism, and the Centro Pérez Siquier, the first museum in Spain dedicated to a single photographer.
What I didn't expect was to come home thinking about how unfinished a life can still feel at 70 — thanks to a quietly devastating painting by Miguel Ángel Mayo ("Golucho") titled Inacabado.
The full post — with practical visiting info, a long Spanish lunch, and a few thoughts on female longevity in Spain — is here:
👉 https://bareexpat.com/olula-del-rio-museums/

On a Vera Photo Club outing to Olula del Río, two remarkable museums—Museo Casa Ibáñez and Centro Pérez Siquier—reframe art, marble, and turning 70.

27/04/2026

A new name for a new chapter.

After many years as RJenningsPhotos, this page has a new name: The Bare Expat.

The rename reflects where life has taken me — from California to the central Oregon coast, and now to Vera Playa, on the Mediterranean shore of Andalucía in southern Spain. What started as a photography page has grown into something larger: essays, encounters, slow-travel notes, and yes, still photography — all from the perspective of an American who left and built a new life on the other side of the Atlantic.

A little more about me: I'm a writer and photographer who moved to the Mediterranean with two dogs, a camera, and a suitcase full of half-finished manuscripts. The Bare Expat is where my photography, essays, and slow-travel pieces live — alongside occasional notes on tapas, Spanish bureaucracy, wine, and the quiet comedy of starting over in a new country.

If you've been following along since the early days, thank you for sticking with me. If you're new here, welcome. The website lives at bareexpat.com, and that's where the longer pieces land first.

The first new essay — "Getting Off the Bus," on why I left the U.S. — is up now. A second, on renouncing my U.S. citizenship, is coming soon.

Glad to have you along. 🌅

https://bareexpat.com/getting-off-the-bus/

Explore the journey of becoming a U.S. expat and the transformative experiences that come with moving abroad.