Penang National Park and the Meromictic Lake at Pantai Keracut

Events in this story happened on Tuesday the 30th of June 2020. We hiked in Penang National Park to the meromictic lake at Turtle Beach (Pantai Keracut). This is during the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) during the easing of the restrictions during the coronavirus outbreak. You can read my pandemic in Penang diary here. Preparations and Getting the Grab We took three liters of water in my hydration bladder and another 1.5 liters in a bottle in Jonas’ bag. Our lessons from previous hikes in the hills of Penang and on its beaches taught us it’s a good ideaContinue reading

Kayak Trip Day 38: Gönyű to Komárno

Events in this story happened on Wednesday the 14th of August, 2019. We paddled out of Gönyű on the Hungarian side of the Danube to Komárno on the Slovak side.  Three Nights in Gönyű Gönyű isn’t exactly the center of the universe. Its biggest claim to fame is that for years it had a right-angled trapezoidal football pitch. Until 2012, when they corrected the shape of the field and wiped out the one thing that might pique anyone’s curiosity. It’s a relatively small town with one supermarket, two and a half food businesses, and two hotels. Besides our own Business HotelContinue reading

Paddling Gear

From May till September 2019, Jonas and I paddled half the Danube river from Donaueschingen in Germany to Mohács in Hungary. Our experiences self-organizing this trip taught us many things, including what’s necessary and what isn’t. Here’s a complete list of paddling gear we used on the trip in case you’d like to go on a similar adventure! Just hover over an image if you’re on a computer and tap and hold an image on your phone to see the item. If you prefer to just see a long list, click here to go to the packing checklist. If you’reContinue reading

Free Chocolate for Hitchhikers! To the Netherlands…

When you’re hitchhiking home and some nice Italian guy gives you a box of chocolates! As you might have heard, I’m not wild about chocolate. I think it can be okay and the Ferrero Rocher stuff is a nice energy boost. So I told the guy to keep his chocolates, but it seems like he had stacks and stacks of boxes and he insisted. Perhaps it was a benign smuggling business, who knows. Funny thing: in Europe, I receive chocolate from drivers all the time. It’s such a pattern across countries. Like, why do car owners buy too much chocolateContinue reading

Game

Check out my Facebook page for some real hitchhiking adventures :) Kudos to the awesome people who made the sounds for the game: "The Curtain Rises" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) - License "Odyssey" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) - License "Car Horns" freesound.org user 2hear - License "Car door slam" freesound.org user mlteenie - License "intro brass / won" freesound.org user klankbeeld - License "short swing / guitar" freesound.org user ValentinSosnitskiy - License "snoring" freesound.org user Daxter31 - License "morotbike beep" freesound.org user Kibben - License Read more >

The Hitchhiking Bucket List: #4 A Truck full of Hay

When hitchhiking through Armenia in summer you would regularly spot these trucks overloaded with hay. Oftentimes, the boys who had put the hay on the truck would ride on top of it for a while before being dropped off wherever they needed to be. They looked comfy as hell, especially because it was a poofy mess and not an organized machine-made hay bale. Connoisseurs will understand the appeal of an artisanal haystack. Even though I tried to thumb ‘em down every time I saw them, they never stopped. But I’m willing to lower my standards and go for a machine-madeContinue reading

Urban Exploring at the Abandoned Airport of Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan

We stayed in Cholpon-Ata in late May, 2021. Watch the vlog to see me do some urban exploring at the abandoned airport of this town with fantastic vistas of Issyk-Kul Lake. This post contains additional information regarding the questions I had while walking around the abandoned terminal. Cholpon-Ata Airport’s History (Post-)Soviet Airport: Glory Times, Abandonment, Replacement (As any good article starts:) According to Wikipedia, Cholpon-Ata Airport was built somewhere in the 1930s. But it was even less glamorous then than how it was during my visit because it was merely a landing strip. The terminal building and other auxiliary buildingsContinue reading

Guest Posts

Hey fellow blogger! Yes, I accept guest posts on my website[note]Domain Authority (DA) 34, as of the 8th of May, 2020.[/note]. Please read the following paragraphs to see if we're a match! If you want to share your own hitchhiking story on my site and don't have your own blog, check out the Strangers page. What Kind of Guest Post Topics Do You Accept? Since this blog is mostly about adventurous travel, I'm mostly looking for stories about your lived experience while on the road. As long as it's a self-organized trip. You may take a very detailed moment of your trip (a conversation, a single day of your journey), or take the big view and write about an entire itinerary. Here's a (non-exhaustive) list of topics I'd love to welcome: Hitchhiking journeys Kayaking trips Long-distance/day hikes Long-distance cycling trips (e.g. the Danube Cycleway) Sailing/crewing a boat Journeys by donkey/horse Overlanding Freecamping/wildcamping Housesitting Accessibility travel Stargazing/amateur astronomy/visiting observatories/solar eclipses Travel/nature photography Cultural… Read more >

Strangers

I’ve been thinking about opening a section for other travelers to write in for a while. Lots of adventurers begin writing about their experience, but then don’t have a space to put their stories. Sharing it on Facebook can give you a lot of likes for a few days, but after those days nobody will see your post ever again. Starting a blog can be a real hassle and too much responsibility when you don’t even know yet if you like blogging. That’s why I’d like to invite fellow nomads I’ve never met to immortalize their stories in the formatContinue reading