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21 Best Sites To Find Free Travel Photos for Your Travel Blog

by Paul @ Travel is Life | Last updated May 22, 2021 | Travel Bloggers , Travel Tips & Resources | 2 comments

Hey traveler, while you’re here join my   friends list   to get all the perks I offer at Travel is Life.

Do you need free travel images to use on your travel blog? Me too. I use many of my own photos on Travel is Life so that there's no issue with copyright, but occasionally I need a travel photo for a specific blog post and I don't have anything relevant in my collection. So I reach out to photographers on Instagram and ask if I can use one of their photos and credit them. Most photographers I've e-mailed say yes, but I don't always have the time to search out photos, message individual photographers, and wait for a response. So when I'm in a hurry and need photos right away, I access my super secret database of websites that offer incredible high resolution travel photography available completely free for commercial use. Today I'm going to share that list of websites with you.

For this list, I focus on websites that offer photos under the Creative Commons Zero license so that I can copy, modify, and use the photos (even for commercial purposes) without asking for permission or providing attribution. It may go without saying, but for this list, I also focused on websites that exclusively offered beautiful travel photography. I don't want to spend all day searching through a database of millions of free photos to find the diamond in the rough. I'm looking for a certain caliber of photos that typically come from sites where the owners spend time and energy personally curating the photos. Without further ado, here's my list.

UPDATE: This article was originally entitled “10 Best Sites To Find Free Travel Photos for Your Travel Blog” and published in 2017. Since then I've continually updated the article with new sites as I've come across them, and now the list has grown to 18 19 20 21! If you know of any other good ones, leave a comment at the bottom of this post or e-mail [email protected] and I'll add them to the list. Thanks!

Best Websites for Free Commercial Use Travel Photography

1. unsplash.com.

They feature 10 photos every 10 days that are chosen by notable creatives from varied backgrounds. I'm in love with this site. They have such high caliber photographers, and the photos are so beautiful, that sometimes I get lost in thought looking through them. Unsplash is one of the first places I start my search. I have a folder on my computer with my favorites from their site for quick access. I may not have a reason to use my saved photos yet, but I probably will in the future.

2. Realisticshots.com

They add 7 new photos every week. Realistic Shots offers a good selection of travel photos plus food and drink photos. They also have a lot more “stock looking” photos than Unsplash, like posed objects or people, which can come in handy.

3. Pixabay.com

Pixabay is the motherload of free images, but not all of them are travel. They have almost a million free high resolution stock photos, vectors, and illustrations. Even though all of them aren't related to travel, they've got more than enough to keep you busy. I love how extensive their collection is, so it's possible to get specific about what you're looking for using their search tool.

4. Gratisography.com

This website is unique because it offers a healthy selection of travel and non-travel photos all taken by the same photographer Ryan McGuire. So if you like his style, you'll be very pleased with your photo options. He seems like a funny guy and his sense of humor translates into his photos. This is a great site with some fun photos that you won't find elsewhere.

5. Magdeleine.co

A beautiful selection with a distinct style. This site offers nature, abstract, and vintage shots. Many of the photographs aren't a fit for my website's aesthetic, but I had to include it on the list because if it fits your aesthetic, it's a gold mine for you.

6. StockSnap.io

This site adds hundreds of new photos every week. They have so many that you'll want to use the search feature to find what you're looking for. Not all of the photos are as high caliber as I'd like them to be, but their selection is extensive. And then again, not every shot you use needs to be award winning. There's a need for free travel photos of all caliber.

7. PublicDomainArchive.com

This website curates the best photos available from the public domain. There are only a few hundred photos available for download, but I like the curator's style. Hundreds of photo options are better than thousands if the curator picks the right ones.

8. TravelCoffeeBook.com

This site prides itself on specifically sharing beautiful travel moments. And no, they're not all about coffee! The site is regularly updated and I also like that there's the option to download all the photos in bulk. They add 10 new photos every 10 days by travelers all around the world.

9. Visualhunt.com

This website searches through over 300 million creative commons photos from various databases. Even though the selection can be overwhelming and is far from “curated” like some of the other websites on this list, they offer a great user interface and search feature on the website. Unlike most of the other websites on this list, they also allow you to embed the photos on your site (instead of download and reupload). Personally I'd rather host all my own photos, but maybe that'd be a benefit to you. Due to their selection size, you have to do some digging sometimes to find the right photo. I almost didn't include it on the list for that reason, but in the end, it's a valuable tool for finding free travel photos. For example, searching “bangkok thailand” brought up hundreds of photos, but it took some scrolling to find a good one.

10. Fancycrave.com

This site is a free stock photo site created by photographer Igor Ovsyannykov in February 2015 that offers a collection of free photos from Igor's travels around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos, and Japan. The motto of the website is, “People are tired of cheesy stock photos. Instead they want images that are authentic, emotionally driven, and tell a story. This is where Fancycrave comes in.” A great site to browse through and download some favorites for future posts.

You tell me!

What did I miss? Where are your favorite places to get free travel photography for your travel blog (other than your own camera)? Drop your suggestions in the comments below. For now, I hope this curated list of websites makes your life easier when searching for travel photos for your site.

Happy Travels!

New Additions

Here's where I'll add new photography sites to the list as I discover them.

11. GoodFreePhotos.com

Here's a site by photographer Yinan Chen with over 16,000 public domain images, many of which are his own photos. I like Yinan's site because he categorizes the photos by location. GoodFreePhotos.com specializes in photos of state parks, national parks, national landmarks, and historical sites, and he's also got categories for business, tech, animal, plant, and food photos. And he takes requests! My first request is a photo of me somewhere amazing. I'll meet you there. Thanks for submitting your site Yinan.

12. PikWizard.com

PikWizard is my latest addition to this list with over 100,000 completely free images, of which over 20,000 of those are exclusive to their site. They are also adding new images to their library daily and their ultimate goal is to reach more than 1 million images. The images are high quality and the interface of the website is sleek so I'm happy to add it to the list. Thank you to Micheal Brennan for reaching out to me via e-mail and informing me about your site.

13. Shutterography.com

The latest addition to this list was submitted by Gabe who started Shutterography, a new but growing free commercial use image website. All of the photos on the website at the time that I'm writing this came from Gabe, his friends, and photographers that they know personally, which means you won't find these same photos on every other stock website. Shutterography will be adding new photos weekly.

14. ShapesofColor.com

Thank you to photographer Georgii Dolgykh for e-mailing me about his project Shapes of Color, which at the time of writing this, features 87+ photo shoots published (over 1000 images). Not all of the shoots are travel-related, but he does have photos from some popular locations like Singapore, Prague, Krakow, with more on the way. He recently opened his licensing up to allow for commercial use and modification without accreditation, which opens the door to being included on this list. Lots of great work over there with photos that you won't find on other photo sharing sites.

15. Pexels.com

Here's a site I should've added a long time ago, because I use it all the time. However, I typically use it to access their free stock video resources for my travel videos , not usually for their photos — although they offer a great selection of both.

16. PicJumbo.com

I only recently discovered PicJumbo, however it's been around since 2013. As the story goes, the founder Viktor Hanacek submitted one of his photos to another stock photo site and they rejected it because it wasn't “good enough quality”… so he started his own site. Flash forward to today, and PicJumbo has had over 3+ million downloads. They offer a combination of free and premium photos, however I'm including them on this list because they have such an overwhelming amount of high quality free photos to choose from.

17. MorgueFile.com

MorgueFile offers a decent sized selection of free commercial use travel photos with one interesting twist… if you can't find what you're looking for, you can request it! Their #Quest feature sends morguefile photographers on a voluntary daily photo challenge to capture photos around a particular theme, which are then available to you and other creatives to use in your designs and your professional work under their free stock photo license.

Reshot offers a selection of hand-picked photos for use commercially. Something unique about Reshot is their Photo Packs, which are curated photos within a certain theme. For example, at the time I'm writing this, they've got a few packs like Everyday Technology Pack which features photos of people using cell phones and laptops, and Flat Lay Pack which feature overhead shots of food, gear, and workspaces. Their Photo Packs can save you a lot of time pouring through hundreds (or thousands) of stock photos to find a theme that you like for a project.

19. Life of Pix

Life of Pix offers free commercial use photography for your travel blog. They don't have a huge selection in comparison to other sites on this list, but the photos they offer are unique to their site and you may just find what you're looking for. They have a nifty feature which pulls colors from the photo you're viewing and lets you search for other photos within the same color scheme.

20. NegativeSpace.co

Here's another great site with 100% CC0 licensed images that are completely free to use. The name of their site is derived from the photography principal of negative space, which they explain better than I could so I'll quote them below:

Most people who look at this photo are familiar with this sort of visual manipulation. The blades of grass found in the center of the photo are clear and in focus while everything around them is blurred. This is how the photographer tells us where to look. Those blades of grass are the positive space (or subject) in this photo. The blurred area that allows us to focus on the subject is the negative space.

21. Wunderstock

Thanks Justin Smith for e-mailing me about his site Wunderstock which offers a combination of curated public domain images and an integrated Creative Commons search of Flickr. Not every image on Wunderstock fits our criteria of free / commercial use / no attribution — however they offer large enough of a selection that fit our criteria, and it's easy enough to filter though the ones that do and don't, that I'm including them on the list. In the future, Wunderstock plans on creating their own content as well.

A word of caution before you go…

Megan Zink of ModeratelyExcited.com brought up an important point when I shared this article in our Travel is Life Creators Facebook group. She said:

Great article! You may also just want to caution people to be careful. I’ve never had this happen knock on wood but apparently there are copyright trolls out there that will upload their content to these sites and then pursue legal action. Always a reminder to be on your toes! We actually still use these sites where I work but I’m more careful to not use pictures that have people’s faces in them (or crop them out) because a lot of times the photographer doesn’t get the right model releases either. Whew!

In fact, many of the sites above actually mention in their disclaimers that they cannot guarantee that all models have given releases. So with anything free, use at your own risk. I don't hear about issues like that happening a whole lot, and like Megan, luckily it's never happened to me, but it's worth mentioning as a word of caution. Hope that doesn't scare you away! You should be pretty safe using the resources above.

Hi Paul, Thanks a lot for these very useful resource. It could be completed with https://pixnio.com/ro/fotografii/turism .

Regards, Daniel

Thanks Daniel. What’s the story behind Pixnio? I read the About page and FAQs but didn’t see much about who started it and what the story behind the site is. Can you share more details and I’ll add it to the list?

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4 dead after Debby slams Florida, causing massive flooding and widespread outages: Updates

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: This article has been updated to reflect that a 12-year-old girl died in a Sunday vehicle crash, according to a corrected Florida Highway Patrol news release.

Editor's Note: This page is a summary of news about  Tropical Storm Debby  for Monday, Aug. 5. For the latest on the  storm , view  USA TODAY's live updates for Tuesday, Aug. 6 .

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. − Debby , now a tropical storm, roared ashore Monday along the Big Bend coast of Florida, killing at least four people, flooding streets, and causing widespread power outages as the storm roared toward Georgia and South Carolina, where it's expected to bring catastrophic flooding this week.

"Tornadoes, catastrophic flash and urban flooding, coastal flooding, rip currents, strong gusty winds are all expected,'' in parts of the Southeast over the next several days, the National Weather Service said .

An apparent tornado touched down on Edisto Beach, South Carolina after 9:30 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston. There were multiple reports of structures damaged on Edisto Beach and across the river from Edisto Island from the radar-confirmed tornado, the weather service said.

Other popular beach destinations, including Kiawah Island and Johns Island, were being warned of possible tornado activity as additional severe storms moved onshore. 

Debby, the fourth named storm of what is predicted to be a historic hurricane season , made landfall Monday at 7 a.m. near the coastal town of Steinhatchee as a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center . Steinhatchee, about 70 miles west of Gainesville and home to some 500 people, is just 10 miles from where Hurricane Idalia came ashore last year.

After more than three hours moving across northern Florida, Debby was downgraded to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 70 mph, the hurricane center said in its 11 a.m. ET update. By 11 p.m., the winds had diminished to 45 mph, though the storm was still dropping copious amounts of rain.

State officials reported widespread flooding and inundating storm surge as Debby moved inland. The storm's winds uprooted trees and toppled utility poles, knocking out power to more than 250,000 homes and businesses throughout northern Florida. Forecasters said Debby's powerful winds could also spawn tornadoes, and storm surge could reach 10 feet in some areas.

"This is a life-threatening situation," the hurricane center warned.

On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared an emergency across Florida, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard were activated to support humanitarian assistance and search-and-rescue missions. 

Breaking news, in-depth analysis: Sign up for USA TODAY's Daily Briefing for news you need to know now.

Developments:

∎ Vice President Kamala Harris postponed her campaign rally scheduled for Friday in Savannah, Georgia, because of the expected deluge there, campaign officials said.

∎ The storm surge produced by Debby brought 25 packages of cocaine with a street value of more than $1 million to a Florida beach, where a passer-by noticed them and alerted authorities, a Border Patrol official posted on the X platform .

∎ The National Hurricane Center recorded a 98 mph wind gust near Horseshoe Beach, according to the Florida Severe Weather Network, a collection of state-run weather stations.

∎ The National Water Prediction Service projected major flooding in three locations on the Santa Fe River and a location on the Suwannee River in north Florida.

∎ Debby wreaked havoc on travel . More than 1,700 flights had been canceled and upwards of 5,800 were delayed Monday, according to flight tracking site  FlightAware . The Federal Aviation Administration said all flights at Orlando International Airport have been grounded while airports in Tallahassee and Gainesville were closed.

What lies ahead for the Southeast coast

Debby is projected to move slowly across northern Florida before unleashing "potentially historic heavy rainfall" across the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, according to the Weather Prediction Center .

Widespread rainfall totals of 10-20 inches are expected from northern Florida to southeastern North Carolina, while parts of northern Georgia and South Carolina, including Charleston, could get upward of 30 inches of rain through this weekend, Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a YouTube livestream.

Debby is expected to head into the Atlantic Ocean by late Tuesday night, then regain strength for a day or two before soaking the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, whose governors have already declared states of emergency as they urge residents to prepare.

North Carolina and the mid-Atlantic will start getting heavy rain by midweek, the prediction center said, and tropical storm effects could be felt as far north as southern New England late in the week, AccuWeather reported.

Death toll up to four after truck driver is killed

At least four storm-related deaths have been reported in Florida.

The driver of a semi-truck was killed overnight near Temple Terrace after losing control of his vehicle on a wet Interstate 75 northeast of Tampa, the National Weather Service reported.

The three previously reported deaths linked to the storm included a woman and a 12-year-old girl killed in a car crash and a teenage boy killed when a tree fell on a mobile home.

The truck driver, a 64-year-old man from New Albany, Mississippi, lost control of the truck at around 2:30 a.m., Sgt. Steve Gaskins, a public affairs officer with the Florida Highway Patrol, said in a news release. The truck rotated on the wet highway, collided with a concrete barrier and went over the wall, coming to rest hanging over a bridge. Gaskins said the cab came loose from the trailer and fell into a deep canal below.

Divers from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office responded shortly afterward and found the deceased driver still inside the cab underwater in the canal, according to an X post by the Sheriff’s office .

Lt. Scott Tummond, a spokesperson for the Levy County Sheriff's Office, told USA TODAY on Monday that more trees could fall after torrential downpours soaked the ground, posing a threat to residents on the road at night.

"If you're moving around after dark, you might not see it until it's too late, especially if you're driving," he warned.

Fallen tree kills 13-year-old amid Hurricane Debby

A 13-year-old boy was killed as Hurricane Debby made landfall along the Florida coast Monday morning, the Levy County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Deputies responded to a report of a tree that had fallen onto a mobile home around 8 a.m. in Fanning Springs, about 35 miles east from where the hurricane came ashore. The boy who died was "crushed inside the home," the sheriff's office said. 

“Our thoughts and prayers are with this family as they deal with this tragedy,” the sheriff’s office said, urging people to be careful as they begin to assess the storm damage. “Downed power lines and falling trees are among the many hazards. One life is too many. Please be safe.”

– Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY

Risk of tornadoes

With the center of Debby about 35 miles west of Brunswick, Georgia at 11 p.m. Monday, the Storm Prediction Center said a risk of tornadoes continued in the storm’s northeast quadrant, along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.

The center said it would likely extend a tornado watch for at least some of the 13 counties in the region beyond the scheduled 1 a.m. expiration. In addition to the earlier tornado on Edisto Island, the weather service said it had confirmed a tornado on radar on Kiawah Island around 11 p.m. 

South Carolina town under curfew ahead of storm

Authorities in Charleston, South Carolina, issued a curfew from 11 p.m. Monday through noon Tuesday ahead of what forecasters warn could be a calamitous storm.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency on Sunday as Tropical Storm Debby readied to hit South Carolina’s coast this week. The center will move offshore late Tuesday and Wednesday and approach the coast on Thursday. 

The governor said that as of Monday, he does not anticipate needing to issue any evacuation orders or order the closure of state facilities or agencies. John Quagliariello, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the state would likely see "historic rainfall" that would result in "catastrophic" flash flooding.

"It's very likely that some areas that have never flooded in the past will be impacted this time," Quagliariello said.

– Savannah Moss, Greenville News

Town still recovering from Idalia gets walloped by Hurricane Debby

Donna Luce lost power at 6 a.m. Monday and said rain came down for hours as the storm approached and eventually made landfall. Her home’s rain gauge showed 7 inches of rain fell Sunday alone, she said.

“It is still raining pretty hard and we expect to get that most of the day, kind of like it’s sitting right here on top of us,” Luce told USA TODAY on Monday morning.

Many fellow residents in Mayo, a small town about 30 miles north of where Debby came ashore, have spent the past year recovering from Hurricane Idalia, said Luce, 65.

“Most people had just gotten their roofs repaired, and had gotten back up on their feet,” she said, adding that several of her neighbors still had tarps on their roofs this summer. “Now it’s hitting us again one year later and we are a little discouraged."

– Claire Thornton, USA TODAY

Flooding from Hurricane Debby could last 5-10 days

The widespread flooding and significant storm surge Debby has caused across northern Florida are expected to last several days, DeSantis said Monday.

Kevin Guthrie, the executive director for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said some parts of southwest Florida received up to a foot of rain as Debby approached the Big Bend region. He added that flooding in northern Florida will be widespread as up to 20 inches could fall over the next few days.

Guthrie cautioned people to stay indoors as flash floods break out inland and storm surge continues to inundate coastal communities.

The flood threat from Hurricane Debby, Guthrie said, "is probably going to be here for the next five to seven days, maybe as long as 10 days depending on how much rainfall we get.”

Storm sounds like a freight train, uproots trees

Alice Brown and her husband were awoken by what sounded like a freight train early Monday morning. They soon realized it was the wind and rain lashing their home as Hurricane Debby approached the Big Bend region and eventually made landfall.

“This was the strongest wind and most rain I’ve ever seen,” Brown told USA TODAY.

Brown, 68, lives in downtown High Springs, a small city of some 6,000 people outside Gainesville. While she did not lose power, several of her friends had their power knocked out overnight and were still without it Monday afternoon. 

Jordan Huey, one of Brown’s neighbors, woke up to a tree falling within inches of his son’s bedroom. Another tree in his yard uprooted and destroyed at least 20 feet of his fence. Huey still had not been able to assess the damage because powerful wind gusts were still hurling tree limbs and other debris outside.

“This is the worst it’s ever been in our area,” said Huey, 52.

Several reports of more than 10 inches of rainfall

Debby is leaving behind some eye-popping rain totals, including the 16.56 inches over two days reported by a weather station at Lakewood Ranch in Manatee County. There have been several reports of more than 10 inches of rain across the county, including 12.43 inches at the Sarasota Bradenton airport.

The weather service in Jacksonville issued a flash flood warning for parts of four counties in north Florida, saying between 7 and 14 inches of rain have fallen, and another 3 to 6 inches are possible.

With Debby's center still over north Florida by early afternoon, a daily rainfall record was set at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina, with 2.29 inches to that point, according to meteorologist Steven Taylor with the National Weather Service in Charleston.

Taylor also reiterated the forecast of 10-20 inches of rain with localized amounts near 30 inches is still on track. "The situation still looks favorable for a historic rainfall event with areas of catastrophic flooding. This is a potentially significant and life-threatening event," he said.

Woman, girl die in crash as Hurricane Debby approached Florida coast

A woman and a girl died in a single-vehicle crash in Dixie County on Sunday night, the eve of Hurricane Debby’s landfall, according to a law enforcement report.

Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrived at the scene of the crash around 9:30 p.m. A 38-year-old woman and 12-year-old girl were pronounced dead, while a 14-year-old boy was seriously injured and rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Witnesses told the Florida Highway Patrol the car lost control “due to inclement weather and wet roadway.”

“After losing control, the vehicle struck the guardrail in the center median, then redirected, overturning, leaving the roadway to the right,” the Florida Highway Patrol said. The crash is under investigation.

More than 130K without power after Debby makes landfall

More than 130,000 homes and businesses in Florida, the majority of them in the north, were without power by 12 a.m. ET on Tuesday as Debby continued its path across the state.

The outages were most abundant from Wakulla to Levy County, according to Poweroutage.us . In Taylor County, where Hurricane Debby made landfall at 7 a.m., more than 97% of utility customers lost power at one point. In several surrounding counties, that figure was well over 80%.

At a news conference Monday morning, DeSantis said 17,000 linemen across the state were poised to begin restoring power once the storm passes.

Forecasters watching tropical system near Caribbean 

Debby wasn't the only storm forecasters were watching Monday. They were also keeping an eye on another developing tropical system that was approaching the Caribbean Sea.

Although chances for development were low as of Monday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said "environmental conditions are expected to become more conducive for development later this week as the system moves across the western Caribbean Sea or the southern Gulf of Mexico."

If its winds eventually reach 39 mph, the system would become a named tropical storm. The next name on the list is Ernesto. It's too early to determine if there will be any impact to the U.S. from this system.

Pacific sets 50-year record for storms

The eastern Pacific hurricane season has also heated up: The Pacific currently has four named storms spinning at the same time: Carlotta, Daniel, Emilia and Fabio. This is the first time since August 1974 that the eastern North Pacific has had four named storms simultaneously, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

None of the four storms are forecast to approach or impact land as they spin far out to sea in the Pacific, the National Hurricane Center said.  

The activity in the Pacific comes after a very slow start to the season . For the first time since the satellite era began in 1966, the entire North Pacific saw no named storm activity between June 1 and July 3, Klotzbach said.

What makes Debby such a treacherous storm?

Debby is a large and slow-moving storm, making the system particularly dangerous as record amounts of rain inundate many areas, especially along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina in the coming days.

The storm’s center was forecast to move near Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday night and drag along the South Carolina Coast on Thursday night. "Multiple days of very, very heavy rainfall" are possible, Brennan said. The National Weather Service estimates rainfall totals could reach up to 30 inches or more in isolated locations along the coast through Friday.

Debby shows there's more to a storm than wind scale

The widespread flooding caused by Debby even after being downgraded to a tropical storm illustrates how the wind scale categories used to define hurricanes can fall short of telling the whole story of their impact, scientists say.

"This is another example of a storm where the primary impacts are going to be from water, rather than wind," said James Franklin, a retired branch chief of the hurricane specialist unit at the National Hurricane Center.

Jennifer Collins, a professor in the Geosciences School at the University of South Florida, has studied how to better communicate all of a storm’s threats. Looking at the forecasts of up to 30 inches of rain in isolated locations between Savannah and Charleston, Collins said she’s very concerned about the likelihood of “catastrophic flooding." Read more here .

Debby tracker

Spaghetti models.

Illustrations include an array of forecast tools and models, and not all are created equal. The hurricane center uses only the top four or five highest performing models to help make its forecasts.

When is the Atlantic hurricane season the most active?

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. The peak of the season is Sept. 10, and the most activity usually happens between mid-August and mid-October, according to the hurricane center.

After Hurricane Beryl's deadly rampage in July, forecasters from Colorado State University  raised their already record hurricane forecast . They now expect an additional hurricane (a total of 12 for the season) and two more named storms (25 for the season).

Contributing: Reuters

My wife isn't 'just' a stepmom to my son. He sees her as his other mom.

• My wife has been in my son's life since he was 6 years old.
• She has taken on a parental role, stepping in whenever I need extra help.
• Even though she's his stepmom, my son considers her his other mom.

After Vice President Kamala Harris announced she was running for president, one criticism lobbed against her was that she is not a parent because she has never given birth to children. But she is the stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff's two children.

Like Harris, my wife is a stepmother to my son.

I am no longer in a relationship with his father and have been in a new relationship for four years. My wife came into my son's life when he was 6 years old and quickly stepped into a parental role. It was a role she enthusiastically took on.

Although she didn't give birth to my son, my wife is absolutely his second mother.

My son and wife's relationship started friendly

My wife didn't immediately take an authoritative role or force him to treat her like a parent. At first, she was more like a grown-up friend — someone he knew he needed to respect, but someone who would take him on drives to get ice cream or let him pretend to drive her car while I was inside the grocery store.

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I was worried about parenting with another person all the time. As the primary parent, I wasn't used to dividing parenting duties . My wife was aware of that and always deferred to me as the primary parent.

But the bond between my son and my wife was instant. He had never met someone I was dating before, but he liked her immediately.

My wife has taken on more responsibility as a stepmom

Over the last four years, she's taken on more parental responsibility but never tried to act like she was more of a parent than myself or my son's father. She is a bonus mom, someone there to kiss him goodnight , help him with his homework, and love him unconditionally.

During the pandemic, my wife volunteered to take the lead in helping my son with virtual school so I could focus on work. She created a schedule for him, made him lunch, and ensured he kept up with assignments. When the playgrounds opened, she would take him to play, armed with a backpack full of whatever was needed.

I have gone on several overnight trips , leaving the two of them alone together. My son doesn't even call or text me when I'm gone because he's having so much fun hanging out with my wife. I never have to worry about him; I know my wife will make sure he takes a bath and goes to bed on time.

There are days when I will ask her to tag in and do the bedtime routine because I'm working or want a break, and she does it without question. My son knows that if he needs something, he doesn't have to come to me all the time.

Seeing my wife willingly step into a parental role with my son has strengthened our relationship. I knew I loved her almost immediately after we met, but seeing how my son responded to her made me more secure in my decision.

Sometimes, she still refers to him as mine, and I always remind her that she's his mom, too. We do everything as a team: school meetings, performances, birthday parties . Everyone knows us as his two moms, and there's no one else I could imagine doing this with.

My son now sees my wife as the missing piece to our family puzzle. He proudly claims her as his other mom.

"You're my mom too," my son will say when my wife calls herself his stepmom. He made that decision. My wife never wanted to force a close relationship on him, but he pushed for it.

Media has warped the perception of stepmoms

Popular media depictions of stepmoms are largely negative. The common trope is that they're evil.

For example, you have characters like Meredith Blake in the Lindsay Lohan version of "The Parent Trap," the Baroness von Schraeder in " The Sound of Music ," and, of course, the prototype: Cinderella's Evil Stepmother.

These women are always seen as temptresses who come in and seduce the father into marrying them before revealing they intend to get rid of his daughter so that she will be the only woman in his life.

Maybe there are stepmoms out there who fit this description, but by and large, stepmoms are there to be whoever their step kids want them to be.

I know that's exactly the role my wife plays, and my son and I are all the more lucky for it.

Watch: Why one mother fled Texas to keep her child safe

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